Give Michael Arrington a fucking break
Everyone loves a pile-on. And when up-and-coming media mogul Michael Arrington posted a screencap — one little screencap! — complimenting a fan redesign of TechCrunch, his paid designer, Rachel Cunliffe, resigned in disgust. And then everyone hated on Michael.
But wait, wasn't that a good development? Wasn't hate-on-Michael time when everyone bitched about Rachel's design? Did I miss a memo?
Okay, let's go over the timeline:
- May 12: TechCrunch redesigns. Michael Arrington's blog post about the redesign credits Cunliffe for all the good bits and himself for all the bad bits — the usual gentlemanly approach to intro-ing contracted work.
- May 13: Michael Arrington arrives in Zaragoza, Spain after a harried week of replacing his passport, discovering a Spanish dialect he hadn't learned, missing a train, and driving halfway across the Iberian Peninsula.
- May 12-13: Arrington's personal blog, CrunchNotes, spawns a comment thread full of redesign criticism.
- May 15: Arrington posts Jeremy Baines' mock-up (not mockery) of a different TechCrunch redesign. Arrington says he'll steal some ideas. One presumes he'll run these through his designer.
- May 15 (marked 16): Cunliffe resigns. On her blog. Michael doesn't find out until he sees a trackback.
- May 16: Pile-on-Michael time again! Designer Chris Pearson posts the most scathing (and pretty) tear-down.
- May 16: Michael Arrington is fed up, dammit.
And why not? Anywhere else, this would get spun as a pissy designer letting her ego show. But no, no, we've all gotta tromp on Mike, right? Look, the gossip columnist who tries to find out if Arrington's getting laid (prognosis: likely) shouldn't be the one standing up for him. But, well, someone's gotta keep this bubble going, and it'd suck to see Mike quit TechCrunch because of some whiny design wonks.
