The Fate of the LOLCow: The Collapse of @ThomasWictor

Some time ago, Thomas Wictor appeared on my Twitter feed. This old man came out of nowhere to opine on Trump, Syria, and the Saudis. His long, rambling threads reminded me of this old Animaniacs bit.

The thing that kept happening was that his claims on the Saudis kept panning out, ultimately. I heard about the drive to oust the ISIS types before it happened. The same with the loosening on the culture (most recent payoff there being talks with the Vatican to build churches in the country), and the constant use of deception at the operational level. He talked about North Korea coming to the table months before it happened. So, even if he was wrong in some areas he jived enough with other sources (Q in this case) that I'd keep him around.

But he had another curious pattern. Whenever challenged on his claims, he'd take personal offense (as shown by his behavior), get petty like some aging diva throwing a fit over a gossip rag, and come up with this ridiculous tirades, and act like he'd uncovered a Horrible Thing That Must Be Dealt With Because Crazy. That was my first indication that Wictor was not wholly reliable, so my estimation of him dropped down to where I put David Icke: entertaining, but not trusted.

This sort of thing happened a few more times. The entire "Smartest Guy In The Room" act, complete with freakouts when challenged, followed by another curious tell: as soon as he seemed to have a real threat, he'd declare victory while claiming ridiculous levels of people he blocked. By now he attracted a posse of hangarounds who mirrored his gimmick, and the mutually-reinforcing behavior started, and now I began to recognize this as an issue.

By this point he'd gone on to talk multiple times on his own mental health issues, and his background in journalism.

Parallel to all this happening was the rise of Dr. Jordan Peterson. As events of the last few days unfolded, Vox Day finally had enough of being prodded about giving his take on the man and started looking into the doctor's works and arguments. It did not go well for Peterson, and it only got worse once Vox identified Peterson as expressing the same pattern of behavior as Wictor. That's right, Peterson is a Gamma Male- no better than John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton, or John McCain. Peterson and Wictor acts and behave similarly, and Wictor's explosion of ego last night was the clincher.

Wictor has a habit of opining. For every "Okay, I'll check some other sources and see if this pans out." Twitter rant, there's one that has you going "What are you on about?".

No, it wasn't the anime thread. It was his bullshit about the .50 Beowulf cartridge.

He was going on about how firing that cartridge on select or full automatic would injure you. That's blatant bullshit, as the video shows. He talked like this was .50 BMG (a far larger cartridge) when it's not, as the video shows. For someone who has also talked firearms in his rants, I'd expect him to actually know better than this- but he doesn't. It's not like he couldn't dig up videos like I did; he does this often enough when going on about geopolitics.

But the same pattern of behavior went on display. All he had to do was say "Oops, my mistake! It's not like that." and folks would've shrugged and let it go. But no, this was a full-on autistic sperglord freakout over a misunderstanding of what a specific rifle cartridge can do. It's like watching Scalzi flip a table over how he represents the military in his books, down to the headpats and "I made you feel bad, so I win" victory laps of delusional grandeur.

Then came the waifu wave.

Wictor suddenly had the realization that anime was evil and waifus are Muh Soggy Knees or some such bullshit, and because That's Insane he had to go on a multiple raging rant thread rampage about it on Twitter.

You can take the journalist out of journalism, but not the journalism out of the journalist. Unfortunately, this is not the good sort; this is the bullshit that made Gamergate happen, and it had the predictable result: instant mockery. Proclaims, out of pig-headed ignorance, What Is So and then gets shat on relentlessly for This Is Why You Are Wrong. Like a Social Justice Warrior, all he does is (a) lie about it, (b) double-down faster than a crashing comet, and (c) project hard enough to launch battleships into orbit.

He's declared that he's blocked thousands of accounts. (Sure you did Tom. Pull the other one.) He's made no less than three victory declarations so far. (That paper crown doesn't look the least bit awkward.) He's still at it now. This is the most Gamma I've seen yet, and I've seen Wheaton and Scalzi do some seriously stupid shit. "Know them by their fruits" indeed. And it is the curse of the Gamma to devolve into a form suitable for the Internet to exploit for its own amusement- and Wictor has, in nigh-record time.

Congratulations, Tom. You're a LOLcow. Being a Baby Boomer only makes this worse, due to generational traits of fucking retarded narcissism, but this is the fate you chose and so I've no pity for you.

This is because you fail to recognize the truth about the very anime fans you attack: they're Not Fucking Serious. You fell for this because you violated the most fundamental rule of the Internet: LURK MOAR N00B. You know you don't know shit about anime, as your own fatuous proclamation (No, living in Tokyo doesn't tell you shit about anime; that's saying that living in Detroit makes you an expert on cars.) made clear as crystal.

And because you lack the humility (something your chief hangarounds share) to admit when you're wrong, even when you're getting your face rubbed in it, you made it worse for yourself and only by your delusional madness--which you admit you struggle with--can you maintain your ego. You are insane, Tom. You think you can take on the people who made Gawker's destruction possible and win; you're finding out the hard way--as did your former colleges in the gaming press--that this isn't not going to happen.

You've outed yourself not only as someone with no credibility on any subject (now that you torched it by your own unethical and deceitful behavior, starting with lying to yourself- a key Gamma tell), but as someone easily to rile up and set off- something that amuses far more people (especially those like you) than you can imagine. Welcome to the Hell of your own making.

And yes, it can get worse. Mister Metokur could deign you fit to add to his Internet Insanity video series. You qualify.