Bivouac- Stoeten and DiManno Got Spicy on Twitter
Things got a little spicy online last week.
It was Stoeten, bearded Internet malcontent, newly of The Athletic vs. Rosie DiManno, purple prosed columnist who covers the Jays (among other things.) for The Toronto Star.
Full disclosure, I’ve more or less stopped reading anything DiManno writes. When her work isn’t actively offensive, it’s still not well written. She is, of course, entitled to write in the style she wants but I’m entitled to abstain.
Why don't I like DiManno's writing? I find it verbose and awkward, but that's just my taste. She has written some of the worst ledes I've ever read, including one particular one that is so epic in it's offensiveness, it needs a dragon in it.
This is the start of a column about a doctor who was charged with raping his patients while they were unconscious. Can you feel the respect for the victims in these sentences? I want to slap DiManno's editor.
And Stoeten? He unfollowed me on Twitter, so you might say both are on my shit list.
Here's what happened:
Stoeten, it appears, was reading something DiManno wrote and decided to live-tweet his thoughts.
And DiManno found it and clapped back.
Just to answer your questions, Rosie, it's the last one.
Some might consider it unprofessional or gauche for one writer to publicly criticize another’s work, but one of Stoeten’s trademarks is to go in on the way the mainstream media covers the Jays. He’s a master at “fisking” and has done it for most of his online career.
It’s one of the beauties of this new media that has cropped up in the 21st century. They keep the traditional media in check. The writers of the legendary Fire Joe Morgan created a site that existed entirely for that purpose.
There is a bit of a battle between new media and traditional media in who and what gets the much coveted attention of the masses.
This is not to say that all mainstream Jays media hates on the new. Both John Lott and Bob Elliot have been supportive of new and outside voices on the scene, including mine. And Richard Griffin has used this picture as his profile pic on Twitter for years. This was after Drunk Jays Fans used it on posts "fisking" Griffin's work.
DiManno has basically revealed herself to be rather pathetically out of touch. Either DiManno doesn’t actually know who Stoeten is- which is betrays a lack of awareness of the Jays media landscape or she does know who he is and thinks that she can insult him by holding up her media pass, insinuating that Stoeten isn’t a legitimate voice. It's also rather sad that she thinks Stoeten would be insulted that she pointed out he's not in the clubhouse.
I was tempted to send DiManno dozens of Stoeten’s by-lines (because boy is nothing if not prolific) but, as she has never seen me in the clubhouse, I suspect my information wouldn’t count.
You can not like Stoeten’s work or disagree with how he does things, but you can’t deny that he has a formidable voice in the Blue Jays media landscape. A decade ago, Stoeten started out as an outsider and it's through pure hustle that he's built a name for himself.
That should be respected.
And because you are all dying to know, a bivouac is a temporary camp without cover, used by soldiers or mountaineers.
A "social media changeling" remains a mystery.