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PCMag Native Ad: TWiT’s Chat Room is a “Global Braintrust”

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Update 2: Shannon Morse’s — aka Snubs — picture has been removed from the original article by her own request. See the archive link for the original article.
Update 1: Shannon Morse — aka Snubs — has responded to her corpse being trotted out for PadreSJ and Leo’s benefit.
Jon Kalish: Author, not the GNU foot eating guy
Jon Kalish: Author, not the GNU foot eating guy

LOL.

Prior Leo Laporte scrot-licker Jon Kalish (2010, 2014, etc) wrote another fluff piece/native ad for TWiT’s benefit, and it’s a really funny piece this time.

PCMag’s headline is funny enough: Geek Squad? Nah, Try TWIT’s Chat Rooms (Archive link)

Subtitle: “TWIT can be accessed by anyone with a Web browser, and once you log in, you’ve tapped into a global braintrust.”

LOL again.

We don’t want to ruin the rest of the article, but it appears to have been ghostwritten by Father Robert Ballecer. There is lots of puffing up (get it?) of FMCP, including two pictures of him.

Hilton A. Goring could not be reached for comment.
Hilton A. Goring could not be reached for comment.

In the first picture, Jon Kalish shows a smiling Snubs (fired), Dale Chase (black, so also fired, of course), and FMCP starring in Coding 101 (cancelled).

In the latter picture, it appears Fr. Ballecer is proud of being squeezed to death by his priest costume.

The TWIT chat room does have its down side. In recent years, trolls have been so unpleasant that Laporte considered ending chat. Many moderators quit.

“These trolls are really vicious, horrible people,” Laporte told me.

How horrible? Someone recently made fun of the fact that a chat room regular known as Tater passed away.

Is this real life?

John C. Dvorak is similarly bemused.

Shannon Morse’s (Snubs) response to her corpse being trotted out for PadreSJ and Leo’s benefit

Additionally, she replied in the source article’s comments.

Shannon Morse PCMag Response Article Comments

68 thoughts on “PCMag Native Ad: TWiT’s Chat Room is a “Global Braintrust””

    2. And also a post from angry Snubs, don’t make Snubs angry(or feed her after midnight) –

      “Hi Jon,
      Would you mind removing my image from your article above? I am no longer with the company and would prefer to not be associated with this piece. If you need verification, please check my @snubs Twitter account where I also pinged PCMag.
      I was “fired” over my honeymoon from Coding 101 and Louis took over my role. I have no hard feelings towards him, and I think your article would better reflect TWiT if it included a photo of him, not me.
      Thanks!
      Shannon”

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  2. “chat room’s finest hours came in 2014” — See there is some truth in the article. It admits that its been going down hill for the last 2 years.

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  3. Someone tell his holiness that putting one forearm under the other isn’t fooling anyone. It only brings more attention to his belly by demonstrating he can’t even cross his arms properly. And the neck muffin top thing is just gross.

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  4. This is too bizarre even to be a native ad. Sounds like the guy did some peyote and decided to do some work.

    Gotta love how FMCP is out in the comments there already. Will he ever go back to being a priest?

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  5. Robert Scoble – “When I’m on the show I see lots of famous people hanging out [in the chat room] and participating”

    And who more famous than the TWIT public intellectual in residence. It’s not me saying it, it is the Scoooooooooooooblizer.

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  6. Very bizarre article, and here’s why it’s nonsense.

    95% of the time if I have a problem that requires going to the web, I’m going to fire up Google, and it will direct me to some kind of tech forum post. Certain web forums would be more akin to a brain trust than an unsorted, and unstored chat room log.

    Seriously, if I have an issue, why am I going to bother going to the TWiT chat room, type out my problem and hope there’s someone present who has the knowledge? Then I have to sit there and hope I don’t miss a valid reply whilst everyone is talking about everything from the show topic to Lisa’s ass.

    This article reeks of desperation. It’s poorly written, unfocused and ultimately an ad. Brought to you by Artisanal.

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  7. Wow, is this an example of the horrible quality work that Artisanal does? No wonder they cant find any clients other than TWiT. What a joke! Anyone can see right thru this crap!

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          1. oh man my posting of that should never have been taken as an affirmative. I only save that gif to showcase her bitchin WHORE LEAN, it is fucking undeniable. The fuckin’ CeHoE.

            #MissingCeHoluvr

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          2. Ken Sintek said:
            oh man my posting of that should never have been taken as an affirmative. I only save that gif to showcase her bitchinWHORE LEAN, it is fucking undeniable. The fuckin’ CeHoE.

            #MissingCeHoluvr

            It’s very blatant and I don’t mind looking

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          3. The new sets make my eyes bleed, straight outta QVC. The content has sucked for years but the old studio looked amazing in comparison.

            Leo assured us they were just moving the old studio to a new location. Looks like he failed because nobody would confuse the two for a split second.

            Ken Sintek said:
            oh man my posting of that should never have been taken as an affirmative. I only save that gif to showcase her bitchinWHORE LEAN, it is

            Ken Sintek said:
            oh man my posting of that should never have been taken as an affirmative. I only save that gif to showcase her bitchinWHORE LEAN, it is fucking undeniable. The fuckin’ CeHoE.

            #MissingCeHoluvr

            That makes more sense. Her ass is somewhere between nonexistent and average.

            It’s really not that great an ass, especially considering she has a giant stick stuck up it.

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  9. Lisa’s Artismyanus company site claims 10 networks, not including her own crap network, I see 4 networks listed, you’d think she’d be promoting all the networks she representing, if not for just a few additional clicks. She also said she was going to clean house, did that mean shifting her workforce back onto Leo’s payroll?? Maybe she hadn’t allocated her vast UOP trained resources in establishing a true entrepreneurial attitude?? Maybe she’s just used to selling shit and the other pod casters won’t buy her shit!!!!

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  10. In the 90’s I would read PC Mag at the supermarket and steal the CD’s the came in mags plastic sheath. After reading this I refuse to read any articles from them after this poor written article on TWIT. Did TWIT pay them to post this garbage?

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  11. When I first layed eyes on Jon Kalish (clearly a Muslim Terrorist) my first reaction was to shout … “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar … dealth the the TWiT nonbelievers!”

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    1. TWiT doesn’t hire black people, and the one time they contracted one to film stuff in Spain for them with Gum, they put him on the website as an employee for a really long time.

      Referencing him is used when either a racial diversity point is made or just that the thing being discussed is so ridiculous we could have used a comment from Hilton, but he can’t be reached for comment.

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  16. What they describe in the article almost never happens, if people come to the chatroom for help they generally get scorned and banned. Sure Dr. Mom might help someone once and a while but this is rare.

    Why is there more in the article about Father Robert than Leo? Has Father Robert become the star of TWIT?

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    1. Robert is actually rather good at hosting Security Now. Much more engaged with the material, compared to Leo being zoned out and hardly responding to anything.

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      1. LOVExLIGHT said:
        Robert is actually rather good at hosting Security Now. Much more engaged with the material, compared to Leo being zoned out and hardly responding to anything.

        Seriously it isn’t hard to top Leo’s apathy. Even a blind-deaf-mute could have kept the conversation more engaging.

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      3. LOVExLIGHT said:
        Robert is actually rather good at hosting Security Now. Much more engaged with the material, compared to Leo being zoned out and hardly responding to anything.

        I don’t know. Yes Leo’s apathy, except when he takes on an argumentative nature with Steve, is annoying, but the FMCP with his blathering combined with an over-inflated sense of self-worth (“when I ran a BBS…”, “when I had a Class A IP address space…” etc.) is not an improvement.

        As a side note, the move to the shoebox has killed off TWiT for me which was already on life support. It has gone from my top priority in the podcast smart playlist, to the “eh, everything else has been listened to” ranking. It’s about to get it’s ass delisted from downloads to not support their D/L numbers.

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        2. The new sets make my eyes bleed, straight outta QVC. The content has sucked for years but the old studio looked amazing in comparison.

          Leo assured us they were just moving the old studio to a new location. Looks like he failed because nobody would confuse the two for a split second.

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      4. The times leo is on vacation are basically the only times when the shows on TWiT are worth watching. It is amazing how much different a show can be when the host is prepared and actually paying attention to the topic of the show.

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  17. “I’ve tried to do shows without the chat room and I’m so dependent on it now,” said Laporte. “It’s a really critical part of how I do what I do.”

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  18. My Google analytics pinged me about your post. Ohai!
    I’m a little miffed that they chose to use a two year old thumbnail from Coding 101 for a fluff peice about a company I have nothing to do with anymore. I’m contacting PC Mag to politely ask that they remove it.

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  21. Snubs is pissed at PC Mag. She says she doesn’t want to be associated with the article. I’d love to know the backstory as to why she was unceremoniously fired from Coding 101 and twit. FMCP sounds like a backstabber.

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      1. Thanks for brining my attention to that. PCMag already responded and removed the image as requested. I wasn’t pissed, I just think it didn’t reflect TWiT to have my image on the article. I hope everyone is having a good day! 🙂

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        1. Although I feel like Snubs has turned into a social justice warrior and I don’t like the way she uses her following on twitter as a weapon, there are two things I admire about the woman,

          She has always been the only ex-twit who has been able to come close to the truth in discussing TWiT. She won’t bad mouth Leo but she does not sugar-coat the fact that she was fired or how she was fired. Maybe it’s not fair to ask her about a former boss, but she is clear that Leo does not paint a saintly image to those around him. He probably did nothing more than leer at her or we would have heard about it. Predators have a keen awareness of who they can and can’t abuse. Very similar to how child molesters know who they can manipulate and shame into remaining quiet. She does stay silent about the unspoken knowledge that he is a pig who would have sex with Lisa in the basement as well as other stuff. The cheapness of Leo and his lying is something she should at least hint at.

          She is also sexy as fuck, I could forgive Leo for his lewdness if it was only directed towards her. Apart from being cute, her body is absolutely incredible. I am literally and actually erect thinking about it. Her legs, those tits, the whole package is so tempting. She should carry pepper spray to be practical and trust no man. I question the sexuality of any man who isn’t looking at her and this includes padre. I never got the vibe that he, Darren or Jason was checking her out. How these guys mentally keep their thoughts in check is something I aspire to be able to do.

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          1. Peter said:
            Although I feel like Snubs has turned into a social justice warrior and I don’t like the way she uses her following on twitter as a weapon, there are two things I admire about the woman,

            She has always been the only ex-twit who has been able to come close to the truth in discussing TWiT. She won’t bad mouth Leo but she does not sugar-coat the fact that she was fired or how she was fired. Maybe it’s not fair to ask her about a former boss, but she is clear that Leo does notpaint a saintly image to those around him. He probably did nothing more than leer at her or we would have heard about it. Predators have a keen awareness of who they can and can’t abuse. Very similar to how child molesters know who they can manipulate and shame into remaining quiet. She does stay silent about the unspoken knowledge that he is a pig who would have sex with Lisa in the basement as well as other stuff. The cheapness of Leo and his lying is something she should at least hint at.

            She is also sexy as fuck, I could forgive Leo for his lewdness if it was only directed towards her. Apart from being cute, her body is absolutely incredible. I am literally and actually erect thinking about it. Her legs, those tits, the whole package is so tempting. She should carry pepper spray to be practical and trust no man. I question the sexuality of any man who isn’t looking at her and this includes padre. I never got the vibe that he, Darren or Jason was checking her out. How these guys mentally keep their thoughts in check is something I aspire to be able to do.

            Snubs is as ugly as Lisa and she whines incessantly.

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    2. Soupslurper said:
      I’d love to know the backstory as to why she was unceremoniously fired from Coding 101 and twit.

      She’s probably too nice to admit it, but my guess would be for rejecting Laporke’s constant sexual advances/harassment (the behind the scenes on the live stream was pretty cringey), and then going ahead and getting married anyway. I don’t think firing her on her honeymoon was a coincidence, it was to send a message. Then Layo marries Yoko not long after that, after saying he didn’t want to get married again… was it just out of spite?

      This reminds me of all the engineers Leo keeps threatening to fire at twit, if I were them I would have walked out while he’s taking Lisa’s kid all over the world on cruises (on his dime of course). Don’t think that the soup slurper/salad tosser wouldn’t do the same to them.

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  22. Many plp that have been terminated by TWIT almost never come back as a guest. Some of the fired Alumni include:

    John C. Dvorak, Shannon Morse, Dr Kiki, Marc Pelletier, Patrick Beja, Iyaz, Roger Chang, Veronica Belmont, Scott Johnson, Turpster,

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      1. Ray was terrific. I wish he was still on. But hardly anyone watched his show. A core group of dedicated fans, but not enough to make any financial sense to keep. I wish the promise to have Ray appear on other shows would have happened.

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        2. Fauxjournalist said:
          Ray was terrific. I wish he was still on. But hardly anyone watched his show. A core group of dedicated fans, but not enough to make any financial sense to keep. I wish the promise to have Ray appear on other shows would have happened.

          Is this Leo or Lisa?

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    1. ZeroPageMode said:
      I’m still getting the Snubs picture(4.40PM Pacific)in Europe and also when I use Opera’s US VPN/proxy feature and private browsing – am I being fed a cached page rather than the current page?

      Page snapshot

      I’m still seeing her pic here in the UK on 8th October. The site redirects itself to the UK sub domain when I click the original link http://uk.pcmag.com/internet-products/85115/news/geek-squad-nah-try-twits-chat-rooms. It seems they don’t wish to respect Snubs wishes.

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