Meta shuts down controversial surf journalist Chas Smith after “mass complaining”

Nothing sells tickets and draws eyeballs like controversy…

The great journalist H.L. Mencken once said the job of the reporter was “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

Now, I can’t name names here, which itself is a symptom of the affliction brought upon this very website.

Even the moderately astute reader will discern the missing names and characters in this opinion piece, and the fact I have to engage in this solipsism is part of the problem itself. The implied threat of the cudgel of a lawsuit – real in this – by deep pocketed, even if one would win in the end, is enough to stifle free speech discourse is tragic enough.

But to have missed out on the deluge of stories that Chas would –and should – be writing now about the thin-skinned surfer and a certain blood relative means us, dear readers, have lost out on some fine, caustic, penetrating, humorous, insightful Smith-ian ramblings is alone a good enough reason to chafe under the jackboot of mercurial censorship.

Well, only partially mercurial, which is where the truly tragic part of the story lies.

Now, the mercurial aspect is the hive mind of Meta was brow-beaten into pulling Chas’ Instagram account (@surfjournalist), set off when a certain relative of a certain surfer sicced an online mob into mass complaining about Chas’ account due to a certain story, which was typically ridiculous and clearly ribald musings.

The internet is a jungle and the word viral is just a form of “Lord of the Flies” mob rule, passion, zaniness and pure subjectivity, with decision made with obvious superficial analysis. My son, for example, runs an online business in the soccer world, and when he posted a picture of his knee post-surgery somehow that was deemed overtly sexual.

But you can almost understand, if somewhat morosly, how when an angry person can motivate a small herd of fellow angry people to complain, the site figures cut out the cause of the whinging and just move on.

However, what is far more disconcerting is when this same self-pitying, self-aggrandizing whinging brings out entities that threaten legal action. I mean, big entities, using the threat backed by the ability to write checks to law firms, while fully knowing their position is bogus, is really shitty.

The entities I’m talking about – and I’m tip dancing around, equally cowed by the possible ramifications of poking a few mega corpo bears who in their own respective way oversee the consuming, largely pointless past-time denizens here are enamoured with.

It’s also shortsighted.

Nothing sells tickets and draws eyeballs like controversy and good stories. The essence of drama is actually quite simple. Not necessarily easy to execute but painfully obvious to identify.

Drama is the choices and actions people undertake when under pressure. When confronted by a foe, a challenge, an object in the way of pursuing your dreams and capturing glory, do you run or fight for those dreams?

If, to pick a random, made-up, totally fabricated example, should someone choose to, say, oh I don’t know, just riffing here, not to paddle for a wave at a particular location, and then finds oneself (see could be a guy or girl, as I weasel around any actionable details) back at this spot with the world’s eyes upon you, you have D-R-A-M-A right here in river city.

But when said entities allow themselves to be manipulated by the virtual mob, as well as a misguided attempt to stifle a crucible moment of choice, they lose because their sports theater has lost is Iago, it’s Fredo, it’s “agony of defeat.”

Look, I get that the Olympics are a jingoistic display of xenophobia wrapped in the entertaining gauze of nations coming together, and I buy in as much as anyone.

I actually love it.

But the nuclear mon pere and corpo smack down of one guy in a small corner of the world is, well, sad and unfortunate, and maybe worse, an ugly harbinger of what could be.

And, I guess, what is.