Upon hearing of Robin Williams' passing, I, much like everyone else, was scouring the Internet for news to see
if it was a shitty hoax, or just shitty news.
The latter turned out to be true, but in my search for information,
I stumbled upon ABC News' website where they published a statement issued by the family asking the public for
just one thing: "privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time." And literally on the same page as
this published plea for privacy, ABC News had a giant red banner at the top of the page with a link to live
aerial shots of Robin Williams' home. Brilliant. So I took a screenshot and drew attention to it:
The image seemed to resonate with people, so I decided to focus everyone's rage towards the president of ABC
News to see if they'd call off the helicopters and footage:
It worked:
Update (ABC News issued an apology!):
Shortly after I posted this screenshot, it got spread everywhere on the Internet. Everyone from comedian Bill Burr, to Joe Rogan and even one of my favorite comedians, Jim Norton, spread the image:
The result? ABC News issued an apology. I win. And yet, none of the news outlets acknowledged me as the source. For example, Variety didn't cite me and instead called me, "various social-media outlets," so I won't be linking
to them. How do you dickheads like it?
It even made the front page of Reddit:
And the Reddit link cites the source as... Reddit of course.
Because apparently nobody creates anything anymore, and it all belongs to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram, right assholes? Why bother doing journalism when you can wave a magic wand and say "INTERNET DID IT!" In any event, the
helicopters were called off and Williams' family was able to recieve a quantum of solace. I had the fortune of meeting Robin Williams a few times and he was every gracious thing people said about the man. Even though I still
think Patch Adams was shit and had too many kids in it.
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