Note: Revised title -- initially I said she asked him out for the lunch date. --fl

I really like Amanda Marcotte's take on the recent brouhaha over Alyssa Bereznak's snobby link-spam post for Gawker Media about snubbing a millionaire she met on OKCupid because he's a Magic: the Gathering gamer. (And since Gawker pays her on a per-hit basis I'm not linking to it.)

Anyway, Amanda said

The problem I saw in the reaction in comments on the post and elsewhere was that all the various issues with this post were getting tangled up and people were getting confused about what was okay about this and what was fucked up.  So, for clarity's sake, I'm going to list what are the three entirely separate questions that this post brings up, and weigh in on how they're different issues and shouldn't be confused.  The questions were:

1) Was Bereznak wrong to reject Finkel on the grounds of dweebiness?

2) Was Bereznak wrong to go onto Gizmodo and tell the story, using Finkel's name?

3) Was Finkel wrong to "forget" to mention that he spends most of his free time playing Magic on his OK Cupid profile?

...

[M]y answers to these questions are:

1) Absolutely not.

2) Yes, and this is the real cruelty.

3) Yes, but.....

Source: Pandagon

The "yes but" being that Bereznak says Jon Finkel effectively lied on his OKCupid profile by failing to disclose that he's a big gamer (actually a really big gamer, though mostly retired from the game.) Amanda's position, and that of most right-thinking people, is big f-ing deal.

She doesn't mention it but it sounds like he also "lied" by failing to disclose that he's also independently wealthy because he evidently took his MtG card-playing skills to one of those pro poker tournaments and won three and a half million dollars. But I digress.

As Amanda says

Where Bereznak really shit the bed is with #2. There's no reason on god's green earth to name the guy in your post. Now this post is going to be in Google searches for his name. I can't for the life of my understand why she thought using his name was appropriate. It's just as good a story without naming him. In fact, it's a better story, because the moral of her story---be upfront about pertinent information on your dating profile---comes across as a more universal lesson when you're discussing an anonymous date. It's easier for any of us to project ourselves into the situation that way.

Actually I'm inclined to disagree about who's most damaged by the post. Finkel's a minor legend in a major "sport" (if you call poker a sport) and a major legend in a minor one. His public response to Bereznak's hit piece is kind of awesomely temperate. And years from now the story is likely to be no more than one of those quirky "did you know" asides in a larger write-up about him.

Bereznak, on the other hand, comes off looking like a jerk for snubbing a gamer (and publicly calling him a dweeb, an "infiltrator" and making various other nasty aspersions about anyone who's a) a nerd and b) trying to date women. That seems to be what's bugging most people about the piece. But what seems more significant to me is that whereas after the first date she Googled him long enough to find out he was a Magic champ she didn't go any further before expressing her repulsion. Instead he sounds like a moderately interesting man with a very interesting history. Which seems like completely unprofessional behavior for a nominal blogger for Gizmodo. That too is now enshrined in Google's archives. That won't be a problem as long as she stays with Gawker Media -- she and they seem like a perfect match! It might be a problem if she tries to find work with a credible media outfit. Being a smug jerk isn't really much of an impediment to good journalism. Being a jerk and a bordering-on-incompetent researcher doesn't look so great.