A month or so ago I was contacted randomly on Twitter by a guy named Dan Schwartz. We chatted a bit and it was a somewhat interesting conversation but the guy was obviously closed minded, ignorant and opinionated. When he called someone a cu*t I un-followed him. When he started going off on someone about Deaf culture, I blocked him. I figured that would be the end of it, but he’s still bothering me and a lot of other people. I feel like it’s my duty to at least try to warn them… or something. I know, I know, Don’t feed the troll… but when something bother’s me, I’m likely to blog about, and who knows, maybe someone else will appreciate it too.
My biggest problem with this guy is that he searches for ANY person on Twitter who mentions hearing aids, hearing loss, deafness, cochlear implants, a kid with a hearing loss, etc – he contacts them, and if he doesn’t agree with them, he starts bashing them. When HE was the one who made the initial contact! Who does that?? And once you’re on his radar he keeps talking about you even after you’ve blocked him. For example:
Too bad Sara @sajego regards me as a troll: Her blog is excellent, telling me, a fellow Engineer, what to expect if/when I get a CI. (link)
@deaf258 By the way, tell your friend Sara @sajego that 2=2 does NOT equal five: She hosed herself with her DIY “engineering” (link)
This is the conversation that was the most unbelievable – starts of friendly and deteriorates rapidly.
@spunkyfirefly Besides Marlee Matlin, name ONE successful Deaf person. You’ve abused your daughter by refusing to fix her broken hearing. (link)
@etoile @ckoontz @sajego: If @spunkyfirefly were here in NJ,I’d make a call to my friend who is a supervisor at DYFSS. And I’m serious ,too (link)
I’ll let the rest of these speak for themselves, but note that I only read back a day or two to find them all.
@deaf258 I don’t care WHAT you do with your life. BUT, when you pour Deafie lies & propaganda on others, I draw the line. (link)
@Ken702 In the last couple of weeks I’ve had a few Deaf jihadis come after me. I’llrespnd in a day or so on my Telegraph.co.uk (London) blog (link)
@sonatina2001 Amen, Sister. I put it differently: I’m *fed up* w/people who won’t fix their broken ears; or worse, a child’s broken ears! (link)
@sonatina2001 I said CHILD ABUSE! And I shouted that so #Deaf & #Gally would hear me. They should have closed #Gallaudet years ago! (link)
@deaf258 I know d**n well what Gallaudet is: I’ve been to their campus several times the last 20 years. Gally=Nasty Person. (link)
@deaf258 @etoile & others: I’m *fed up* with “Deaf” culture & their jihad, especially against hearing parents of a hearing impaired child! (link)
@deaf258 @ZenMonkey & others: I’ve been dealing with those jerks for over 20 years. Screw them AND their “culture” more backwards than islam (link)
@deaf258 @xtopher1974 @ZenMonkey &c. I have many deaf friends – But no “Deaf” friends. Just like islamo-fascist terrorists, I keep them away (link)
To the 7 new followers in the last hour both hearing impaired & hearing, Welcome Aboard! And to all of you “Deaf Culture” trolls, Get Lost! (link)
Ironically he’s telling people he doesn’t agree with to get lost, but he’s the one who keeps talking to/about them. YOU get lost, Dan.
How do you see all this? Looks to me like he’s protected his updates, I can’t see him. I know he’s blocked me, has he not blocked you, and that’s how you can see him?
@deaf258 mentioned last night that Dan had accused you of “DIY engineering” – wtf? You have a Med-El implant, what the hell? I haven’t heard you mention anything abnormal about tweaking it. Yes, you’re an engineer, that doesn’t mean you mess with somebody ELSE’s engineering.
As for calling his friend at NJ social services about @spunkyfirefly’s kids, what-EVER. Social services doesn’t bust people for not giving their kids implants.
My friend @ZenMonkey has been talking to him some too. Honestly, I wish I could see his tweets now, because I’m only getting half the conversation! But really, life is better when you ignore Dan Schwartz. He’s an audist fuckhead (pardon my language) who can’t accept that DEAF IS OKAY. I paid attention to him for two days when I was in Hawai’i and I first met him, and then I blocked him and life went on. He’s still spewing his crap, but I really don’t care. He cannot destroy Deaf culture.
What’s funny is I’ve never seen anyone, deaf or hearing, be so ANTI-deafness. “YOU MUST HEAR! YOU MUST HEAR!” he cries. I’ve never met someone so intentionally audist; even people who would PREFER people get assistive devices don’t rant and scream like Dan Schwartz.
Really it’s very amusing how much he thinks I (we?) give a shit. He is one single sad little man, and I’m not bothered by him.
Meredith’s last blog post: Links for 2009-05-07 [del.icio.us]
For the record – I have NO IDEA what he’s talking about with DIY engineering and 2+2=5. I have not and never plan to do any tweaking to my CI in any way – and certainly not after just a week. I don’t do anything that I consider to be real engineering outside of my engineering job, and I don’t share anything about work very often.
Touche. My Telegraph (UK) blog post reply will be in a few days.
What you don’t realize is that, because of your admittedly quite good documentation, your posts are attracting a rather large number of industry professionals. More than you realize. Check your server IP logs.
And to all of those professionals reading this, when you go back over Sara’s posts, it’s not hard to figure out why she’s having the problems with bilateral tinnitus she describes.
Since you say I’m a troll, you’ll probably take this down as soon as I post it. But, my detailed reply, along with the separate issue of the damage your Deafie friends did to an innocent third party, will be in my one, perhaps two, blog posts.
I let this one through the spam filter so you can see how full of *** this guy is, and how unconcerned, unashamed he is of anything he spews out.
Here’s another lovely tidbit from his other Twitter account (he had to make a separate one for hearing issues because he was offending too many people with his political stuff).
My reaction to this has surprised me because I really thought I had a handle on my feelings about people like this. I’ve seen and vicariously experienced a lot of audism, but I rarely see anything as repulsive as this. (With one exception.) Ignorance is one thing, and I’ve had great experiences with people who were simply ignorant but willing to listen and open their minds and hearts. But deliberate hate speech like this just shocks me anew.
Meredith is quite right, though, that coming from a wanker like this, at least it’s relatively easy to ignore.
What kills me the most is that you’re a CI user. You are NOT culturally deaf, yet this guy is bashing the hell out of you because you disagree with him. *boggles*
But thank you for exposing this troll. People like him need to be exposed, so the world is forced to confront the fact that vitriolic discrimination against the deaf does exist. I hope he keeps talking. Let the world see his hatred.
A Deaf Pundit’s last blog post: Open Letter To ALL Deaf Organizations
I wonder why he is so vindictive, what made him so bitter that he can’t live and let live.
Good question, Mog. I’m guessing that he tried to join in the Deaf community but couldn’t hack it because of his attitude. He also probably didn’t benefit from therapy or devices, so he attacks both deaf and Deaf people with whatever he can think of to throw.
This is the way of a common troll–they get off on upsetting people. They don’t have very much in the way of outlets or imagination. Probably doesn’t have much going for him in general.
Rather than expose trolls, delete them at every opportunity. This is what makes them shrivel up and blow away.
Dianrez’s last blog post: How Oralism Divided the Deaf Community
I’m not so sure about that, Dianrez. Dan’s hiding his twitter account now, and he is now asking @Deaf258 to take the conversation to email. He doesn’t want people to see what he’s saying.
Looks to me like he met some of the more militant members of the Deaf community and now paints everyone with the same brush. Typical dichotomous thinking.
He emailed me last night as well and requested an add to my Facebook list. I added him to my FB friends, but unfortunately after seeing this, I had to remove him. I have no tolerance for hatred such as this towards any deaf person, regardless of whether it’s directed towards an adult deafened later in life who gets a CI and has never signed or a child who attends a state deaf school and communicates by ASL (and of course these are just two of MANY examples of folks that make up the deaf population in our country.)
Michelle’s last blog post: Mapping #5 and Updates Courtesy of the Truly Fab Facebook Status
I remember this guy! He contacted me over Twitter. He seemed nice at first before he started making rude comments about Deaf people, Muslims, Gay people, and countless other Twitter users. I found the fact that has been mentioned in this blog–that he seeks out people to disagree with–quite weird as well.
If you have to get two Twitter accounts because you’re offending so many people, maybe you should just either stop tweeting or embrace the fact that you’re officially an internet troll.
The worst part is that he would make anti-Deaf tweets starting with “@MaevieBaby”. I didn’t like that anyone who looked at his account saw MY NAME next to his inappropriate comments. It made me very uncomfortable that people may assume I was in agreement with these statements.
Sure, I believe in free speech, but he is making low blows accusing people of being abusive just because they are not choosing elective surgery. It’s a choice for people to make, and they should be able to make it on their own without pressure or accusations from anyone, especially unsolicited opinions from random people who search them on the internet.
So, for the record, if you ever see my twitter account in conjunction with @Hi_Dan or @Dan_Schwartz, just know that it should not imply that I agree with any of his tweets, especially when it comes to ASL, CIs, or Deaf culture in general.
…don’t even get me started on the politics!
By the way, Sarasera, I like your blog; I’ll follow it on my blog too!
-Maeve
blog: TL-DR.tk
For those of you who don’t know me (my name is Dan), I’m not the troll … and I jsut hate it when idiots like him have the same first name as I do….
The troll wrote “@spunkyfirefly Besides Marlee Matlin, name ONE successful Deaf person. You’ve abused your daughter by refusing to fix her broken hearing. (link)”
Humm… lets see here….
My Dad has been and is totally deaf … he’s a master wood-wright. He holds degrees in Math, Chemistry, Agriculture, and Radio Electronics. Owns four houses, and scads of land. Earned it all himself (no rich relatives in my family, sorry)… He’s much admired in the local community… and he’s an all around good guy. He has never cared to “fix his broken hearing”… as far as I can see he is not “broken” in any way….
My Sister was deaf (before her untimely passing) and was the Sr. VP of Finance for a very large cell phone company in Alabama. My Dad did not consider my sister to be “broken” due to hearing loss…
I was profoundly deaf for 20 years (before my CI)… I hold five different engineering degrees and a business degree (all with 4.0 or 3.9 GPA). I went to mainstream public schools and to mainstream Universities (just lik emy Dad and Sister did) … five years ago I started a business with $20K and now it has a valuation of $4 million…. I married (while I was still deaf) a lovely woman (normal hearing) who holds a PhD and is a Heart Surgeon.. oh.. and she also holds a registered nursing license… we have a lovely little boy, he may go deaf one day too… but I will not consider him “broken” if he does…
Also, I don’t consider myself to have been “broken” when I went deaf … and I don’t consider myself “fixed” or “repaired” now that I have a CI (even though I can hear at near 100% in my right “ear”).
Guess the definition of “successful deaf person” is not what it could be these days.
…dan…
Dan Connell´s last blog ..(NL-0045) CI at 150 days