I’d react in one of two ways. First, I could take the stage along with the writer and wrestle with her, which many folks did. That’s a bit like wrestling with the Masked Marvel (I’m showing my age). You know he’s gonna cheat and maybe do a little eye gouging. But you know what you’re getting into, and that’s OK, since you also know wrestling isn’t real.

Second choice is to accept the fact that it’s all staged and choose not to play the game. Some folks went that route — Richard Edelman comes to mind.

I never wrestled with Amanda on her blog, but did have my disagreements with her on this site and on Facebook. I had fun with it, and so did my readers, who looked forward to visits by Amanda and those who debated her. No harm done. It was comic relief in a very serious world — at least at this site.

I saw Amanda as a reincarnation of P.T. Barnum. Like Phineas, she sometimes went too far, but our willing suspension of disbelief kept us all coming to the circus.

I don’t think we’re as far apart as it may seem, Vaspers. And I like that you have a sense of humor about all this. Some of us have to, eh? I certainly agree with this part of your comment:

“My pursuit of Brian Connolly and his unfortunate Cluetrain player haters is to show people that the Amanda Chapel Hoax flamers:

1. Cannot harm anybody”

And as you point out, the death threats are harmless, too, if in fact they came from the Strumpette folks at all. It’s a lot like when my wife says: If you open another beer, I’m gonna kill you. And I do it anyway, of course.

I won’t get into the Cluetrain thing. I once met and had a chance to talk briefly with David Weinberger and I hold him in the highest esteem. (Even have a signed copy of “Everything is Miscellaneous.”) But criticism of the social media movement should not be treated as heresy. I got a lot from Andrew Keen’s little rant, and the most critical of his points is that we need the MSM to protect democracy. We need paid, trained purveyors of truth (aka, real journalists — not just “citizen” journalists) who know how to critically vet information.

You’re all right, man. Hope to see you again.

1. Cannot harm anybody
2. Cannot debate
3. Cannot silence their opponents
4. Are not to be taken seriously on any level
5. Are actually comedians with lots of time on their hands

If you think the Amanda Hoax losers are mature, professional, and worthy of studying, check out these Twitter pages of their troll tweets:

http://twitter.com/amandachapel?page=14
http://twitter.com/amandachapel?page=10
http://twitter.com/amandachapel?page=11
http://twitter.com/amandachapel?page=12

I confronted their advocacy of Oligarchy (rule by the few, like Korporate Amerikkka CEOs in love with China and North American Union), and their hatred of Democracy, Of the People, By the People, For the People, which they dismiss as “populism”.

I don’t mind being called names, or trolls using the F bomb constantly. But I don’t think they’ll gain or retain many “clients” (if any ever existed for them) that way.

Hiding behind a North Korean female avatar is the funniest thing about these soup kitchen bums pretending to have something to say about their betters, i.e., successful PR professionals.