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Old 07-03-2013, 07:27 AM   #93
Marco Valerio
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Posts: 168
Re: Greg Merson pissed over something at Aria

Quote:
Originally Posted by Land Of The Free? View Post
Marco, please stop embarrassing yourself, it's really sad and I think a lot of people itt are starting to seriously question your reasoning skills.

You can't say that you agree he meant it figuratively and then say "Merson directing a dead serious insinuation toward....".

Or do you not understand the meaning of the word insinuation?
I've gotten carried away in this thread and with this entire thing since it started. Time to settle down and try to set the record straight...

The first thing that stuck out to me when I saw Merson's tweets was that he was talking **** about the Aria when there's a room there named Ivey's Room. Ivey is the face and namesake of Merson's sponsor, Ivey Poker. This struck me as a pretty bad gaffe.

When I looked at Merson's other tweet, I didn't like it, but I wasn't prepared to burn him for it. Bad behavior on Twitter, even from top pros, is far from uncommon.

Moreover, I'm usually a very un-PC guy myself. But I'm not likely to go on Twitter and accuse somebody of sucking dick, no matter how much I dislike them. Still, that's Merson's business. I was still brooding over the whole Ivey Room thing.

The tweet did initially strike me as homophobic (negative towards gays) because it was obviously very graphic and there seemed to be special emphasis on that part being the main insult. Plus, I'm familiar with young men Merson's age (he is my age, after all) and I know how accusing somebody of having anything to do with homosexuality is the worst thing you can say to some dudes. Some of them resort to homosexual imagery for that very reason.

Merson hurled a grotesque insult toward JRB, on Twitter for everybody to see, and putting JRB in an awkward defensive. What annoyed me the most was how celebrated he was by certain members of the community for doing so. I thought that was a stark contrast to all the efforts that go into "poker ambassadorship," especially for Main Event winners, and I felt like pointing that out.

BedRiveter has since made a great point that the insult, while graphic in nature, might have also been designed to make a bigger point about prostitution than homosexuality. I agree, and while that doesn't do anything to change my distaste for it, I regret having used the word homophobic as the only way to describe Merson's insult to JRB. I wish I had foreseen the unnecessary and wholly unpleasant debate that would lead to.

Let it be clear, however, that I never meant to imply that Merson himself was a homophobe, or even that he had intentionally meant to offend gay people. Yes, I did take a very literal view of the wording, and I maintain that it can be interpreted as homophobic, despite most likely not having been meant as such by Merson. But my greater point was supposed to be this: here is an extremely provocative statement by the world champ that people are being much too quick to embrace.

The floodgates opened and in came the challenges, and that's totally fair. I spent a long time backing up what I was saying, trying to clarify, and listening to other people's takes. Some people were very upset and argued that I was calling Merson a legitimate homophobe or close to it, and while I never explicitly stated this, I must assume some responsibility for having inadvertently given way to that speculation via what I tweeted.

When a lot of people get very confrontational with you, you run the risk of appearing to defend what they're accusing you of, and I feel that's what happened here. For anybody who thinks I want to give Merson a hard time for being a homophobe, that is not the case and never was. Yes, I did say that I thought his statement was homophobic, and it's true that I did, but I realize that was bad word choice on my part and I'm sorry, to Merson in particular if he should ever see this. (And I will make it a point to find him at the Rio and tell him in person.)

CLIFFS:

I still don't really like what he tweeted.
I still don't like community's reaction.
I'm sorry I used the word "homophobic."
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