The Macalope needs to fess up: He made a rookie mistake. He didn’t check the source material.
Yes, it’s mea culpa time and, sadly, “mea culpa” is not a delicious new caffeinated beverage at Starbucks, full of ice cream and topped with chocolate syrup and sprinkles. (Pro tip: It’s OK to have as long as you ask for it “nonfat.”)
On Saturday, the horny one laid into Jim Cramer for comments he made on CNBC that were subsequently reported by VentureBeat’s John Koetsier. Cramer, according to Koetsier, said Apple was in “a tailspin” and its next product was “a clear loser.”
Just another day at the office, right? Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the skewering … ha-ha! Turns out Cramer’s crazy comments were actually sarcastic. Yep, over-the-top, honest-to-goodness sarcasm. The kind of sarcasm the Macalope employs on a near-daily basis.
Oops.
How did the Macalope not know this? You watch the video and it’s completely obvious. Well, get this, he didn’t watch the video. Nooooo, Mr. Bigshot Pundit Skewerer just took the word of John Koetsier of VentureBeat, of all people, that Cramer was being serious.
Why would anyone do that?
[hangs antlers in abject shame]
Now, the Macalope could make excuses—like, who has Flash installed anymore?—but he screwed up and he apologizes to you, his lithesome and wordly readers because God knows you expect and deserve better on Macworld’s pages than you get at VentureBeat. [shudder]
The horny one also apologizes to Jim Cramer (like he cares about the rantings of a cartoon of a mythical hybrid creature) for making him sound like an utter loon. Cramer was actually making a point that’s spot on: Pundits and investors have gone around the bend, across the median, through the guardrail of sanity and into Dumbass Gulch over Apple’s supposed woes. Hence the nonsensical claim that Apple’s upcoming products will be losers, even though we know nothing about them.
Cramer added that sarcastic aside in the video, but it isn’t quoted in the accompanying piece on CNBC by Paul Toscano, who plays his comments off as straight. That wouldn’t seem to be doing anybody any favors, unless generating clicks off a misunderstanding is CNBC’s Web business model.
No apologies to Koetsier, of course, who found Cramer’s comments sans sarcasm “interesting.” Clearly, he didn’t watch the video. (Can you believe that?! What kind of idiot doesn’t watch the video?!)
So shame on Toscano, shame on Koetsier and, most of all, shame on the Macalope.