I never figured out What’s Eating Gilbert Grape but I think I have an idea what is bothering this dude. Those who watch the internet phenomenon known as Night Attack have witnessed a week by week metamorphosis of Brian Brushwood and watched this tortured soul run the gamut of human emotions in recent weeks.
Brian lives on the other side of the computer monitor from us. He, and many of the other people we watch on our screens, have seen the clown without the makeup and looked behind the magic curtain. At TWiT that meant they all saw the real Laporte.
At times we all saw the real man too. Who can forget the blow up at Mike Arrington or the inhumane treatment of RichardYea. Now, it must be said that Laporte is just a man and subject to emotion and making mistakes. For that reason many of us liked him more when we saw him lose his shit on Arrington, who by all accounts is a grade-A prick anyway. But the people who worked with and around Laporte saw him up close. They knew more of his imperfections and saw more of his blemishes and there were many. In the end, their jury found him worthy and accepted his shortcomings. It is that simple of a scale, they judged him favorably. In their opinion, he cut the mustard and so allowances were made.
So when Leo poached Chad from Brian, Brian accepted it. “It’s business” his idol and mentor could have said. Many other unsaid happenings like the poaching occurred, but he remained a good guy in their collective opinion. But now the scale has tipped the other way, now he is an asshole to them. All the sins of the many years which were brushed under the rug have piled high.
Brian sees Laporte with new eyes and he wants everyone else to see him that way too. His friend was fired for no reason other than pettiness. (Leo gives Jason howell a promotion to Chads job, huh?) Now Brian wants to tear down the curtain and show you the pile of sins. It is odd, because out of everyone in the podcasting community, it is Brian who is most like Leo, and in his future he will be susceptible to many of the same career temptations. Brian is a shrewd dude and with a shrewd mind comes a power he will need to keep a watchful eye on.
The principals Leo taught these young men and women, from Amber MacArthur in Canada to Patrick Beja in France and everywhere in between, were good and simply because the #soupguzzler didn’t live by them does not mean they were wrong. The philosophy Leo built was a foundation to many of these people and it is hard watching it crumble. Community, anti-establishment, respecting the audience doing it on your own, fish bowl lives, honesty….. was it all a lie? It was a philosophy he believed in, deeply. A religion Justin said, a father Brian said. These youngins will need a new leader now. At the dawn of the third day look to the East, look to Tom now, he is your new leader.
Marcus Aurelius made Commudus the protector of Rome precisely because he didn’t want the job.
God chose Moses because he was too humble to think himself a leader.
