An Open Letter to Patrick Klepek

There needs to be a "haters gon' hate" gif of Patrick.

Patrick is the shit. Can he sometimes say some dumb stuff? Sure. But so has Jeff and every other member of the crew. For whatever reason everything Patrick says is put under a microscope. Plus - Yo. At the end of the day this is all about video games. Chill the fuck out and learn to ignore whatever you dislike.

That guy who left that voicemail is just the stupidest kind of person.

Newflash dude: the guys that you like on the site hate you and don't want your money or attention.

Weird shit from some bodies from the anonymous internet. Where you can get cheap attention with no retribution. Where anybody who is sick in mind or soul to some degree can vomit on others. Who would of guessed?

Generally the World sucks, that should be evident anyways if you look around. Kudos to those who answered of their worth and decent heart. They are the ones who deserve the attention.

It needed to be said, so good on you. Patrick gets much more shit than he deserves, which is dumb because he's kinda done nothing but good for the site including his feature stories, videos and dump trucks. Hell, he covers games that none of the other guys would.

The shitty excuse for a person who sent that voicemail really needs to re-evaluate his life if he's sending that kind of crap to people. If someone you've never met makes you that angry, I don't know what to tell you other than step back and chill the fuck out.

Well said OP i dont agree with patrick sometimes but that shit is absolutley unwarranted, ughhh

I think Patrick is a lovely man and very good at his job.

The same thing that was said in that clip has been posted on this site before. It's bullshit, but it's also why the mod team have taken a pro-active stance against trying to move as many idiots like this off-site as possible. Due to a variety of factors I think we're seeing less direct vitriol spewed towards Patrick, but there are still people there and there who will take a jab at him because they can't understand things like why thoughtful indie games might be worth covering or why we might want to be empathetic towards other people online. I really salute what the guy does and continue to wholeheartedly believe that calling out crap like this is important.

Man thats rough. I read the reaction on his tumblr but I didnt think it was that bad until I heard it myself. It's sad to see someone who puts up so much content and seems to put in so much work into the site to be given shit like this in return. Imagine working so hard on an essay/report for someone just to rip it up in your face. I definately have more respect for Patrick for still staying motivated to put up content for us.

That's disgusting. I don't find him entertaining myself, but he's probably an awesome person, definitely a hard working person, and absolutely doesn't deserve to receive this shit from people whose sole motivation is a lack of entertainment.

That is why we need our real names, addresses connected with accounts. You need to to be trackaable and should not be able to hide under anonymity . People need to make responsible for their actions just like in real life. Without people just go amok because many people are assholes on the internet.

@darji: You've just kinda proven that having your identity out there is not a deterrent considering TB still has a massive following after that ridiculous hissy fit he and his wife threw over basically nothing but their own mistakes. It's not just about people being associated with the shit they spew online. It's a much more complex issue than that. The massive amount of bullshit that goes on in any alley of the internet is indicative of a completely diseased societal conscience. Just because the internet is a safe place for symptoms to manifest doesn't mean the internet is to blame.

@darji: Well, TB just wrote a pretty long explanation/rant on his own subreddit about this very issue, and admits to having issues with being able to handle all the negativity that gets thrown his way. Since this is just a stream of responses to other people, I have no idea what exactly they said to him, so out of context twitter responses are kind of all sorts of useless, unless you are pointing out that an internet famous dude is an asshole, and well, so what? He admits that. I really think you should take the time to read this where he talks about his mental and physical health and about his own issues, as well as what he deals with online. I think that it's important to realize that some people may be able to "take the heat" of a ton of negative comments a day, but some people can't. We also shouldn't judge them on that. I appreciate a guy who says "yeah, I fucked up and here's why" as opposed to a guy who probably wouldn't admit that he made a poor judgment call.

In this case, I think Patrick handles stuff very well considering what people say/write to him and I feel sorry that the dude has to deal with it. I feel sorry that people like Phil Fish and TB have to deal with it too, but their responses are less elegant than what I see from Patrick. It actually astounds me when people don't crack under the pressure and can handle the vitriol well. I would expect more people to lash out considering the stream of hate and nasty comments. I doubt I could keep up such a good face if I were somehow popular on the internet and then fostered a hate brigade.

I've never quite understood what makes people 'hate' Patrick so much. Sure, I don't always agree with him, but I think he does an excellent job and I'm glad he does it.

Is there any way to track down this asshole? Is he a member of the community? Patrick is great at putting up with this shit. If people disagree with an opinion thats fine, but getting personal is so out of line.

@mercutio123: Not seeing a benefit to tracking down a very obviously miserable person to add to their supply of misery and give them a spotlight to act out in at the same time.

@jadegl: This was just a poor example of what I wanted to say. Basically the Internet is a almost lawless place for privacy. I can go to every site a person made and leave anonymous comments and say stuff like that and harass and insult or even stalk these people. It is just much easier to do this with more famous people. In my opinion we really need to get to a point when you have to take responsibility to your actions on the internet. If you would do this in real life you already would get the police on you.

And yes some people handle this very well but some absolutely do not. And even Patrick said that you can ignore tons of comments but there is always one that ruins your day and makes you question what you are doing. We need laws for this kind of stuff. Laws which are easy to execute and as harsh as they need to be to make this stop.

@mercutio123: There probably is, but the equivalent of vigilante justice isn't the answer. Hell, we all know the internet is a bad place, but until WE (that is the entire internet community) begins to see stuff like this as bad, it won't change. People do stuff like this because they know they'll get attention/they're anonymous. There's few ways to get around that. All we can hope to be is a better person to others online, so we're not being "that guy".

I'll probably make a blog post on this sometime next week. This topic hit very close to home for me recently.

Urgh, that guy is a waste of space. You can't degenerate to his level but man, do I seriously not give a fuck about him, whoever he is.

Love Ryan Davis. Love Scoops. Love Giant Bomb. Love Video Games. Love Life. It's Valentines day.

@akyho: Phil Fish and Patrick are not equatable at all

Well said.

Does google voice have some sort of caller ID? I'd just post his number on twitter and say, "have at 'em boys."

And no,that doesn't stoop you down to "their level."

He was, and will always be, someone I look up too. I understand what it means to have a hero that you try and make yourself a better person for. It's OK to remember someone when they meant that much to you. And if there was a solid gold Ryan statue. He'd want it to be flipping the bird, let's be honest.

From all the comments regarding the voice clip I just can't bear to listen to it. Even though there's a lot of terrible people out there on the internet, it makes me happy that most of this community isn't made up of them.

What I want to know is how awful that person's parents were at parenting that this person got to a state where thinking this kind of thing is remotely acceptable. How bad would you have to screw up to raise someone this awful?

Well I hope calling attention to this prick doesn't encourage more behavior like this in the future. I expect it will though.

I listened to the message that guy sent. What a sniveling coward.

@patrickklepek I don't always agree with what you say, but I respect your voice and the way you command it. Keep doing what you do, and don't stop for anything or anyone (you already know that, but I figured I'd show my support).

If people took all their hilariously misguided internet hatred and channeled it into something positive, they'd all have two PhD's.

Yes. Yes, that's pretty much exactly what it does.

DON'T GIVE ATTENTION SEEKERS ATTENTION. It's not all that complicated a concept. We're all told not to reply to trolls, and to just flag their posts. Instead, Patrick puts this guy on Twitter, and now we have an entire thread devoted to him. This is quite the opposite of not feeding the trolls.

@spaceinsomniac: I do not approve getting back to them and attack them, but I have to disagree about showing what they did.

Thing is, even if Patrick would've not give him attention, he would've received that call (I don't even want to listen to it). As long as he is gonna be working here, he's gonna get hate. It won't stop, even if he stops talking about (like spambot and trolls never cease to exist). Talking about it got him some support, made some people realise how hurtful they can be when they're mean on the internet, and made others realise how much hate he and others can get.

If he would have said nothing, that kind of hate would be his own burden to bear, and nobody would've been there to relativize the hate he got. I don't think anybody deserve that kind of hate, especially not him.

That was... a lot less worse than I was expecting. Still disgusting and unacceptable.

@darji So assume this asshole couldn't hide behind anonymity and we knew his real name, what then? Are we supposed to go to his house and beat him up? Call the cops for using strong language on the internet? Insulting someone? Just sounds like witch hunting.