Ed Piskor Has Passed 5 5

[Poekaymon]

There is a popular sentiment throughout this thread that the accusers should have "manned up" and ignored him.  So what if he was a "creep" or a "dirtbag", were prior statements in this thread.  Someone went so far as to say that Ed was the true victim.  Another person suggested that he was actually "murdered."  Now we have people dissecting an accuser's art.  

Now, I'm a haggard old man like nearly everyone else in this thread and, indeed, on this forum, and like most of you, I think the new generation is generally too soft.  We also know that cyberbullying is real and can be lethal (much better examples of that are the numerous teen suicides linked to that, often teenage girls).  However, to the above posters, I challenge you to look for the hypocrisy in what you're suggesting.  You are putting the onus on accusers to be the "bigger man" while assigning no responsibility to a 40something man to 1) watch his comments with teens and 2) "man up" and either ignore or confront the internet mob blowback.  Had he done either of those things, we wouldn't be here right now.  

I have no animosity toward the man, and I am sorry for those who felt a connection to him and his art.  I would, however, suggest that a better path forward would be remembering him rather than speculating about his accusers. 

 

 

[wombat]

On 4/3/2024 at 11:34 AM, Chip Cataldo said:

It has nothing to do with who they are that they LIKE that stuff begin with?

Why choose lyrics about shooing someone? Why not helping someone instead?

It's like the Saw movies. Why do people enjoy movies about humans being killed in disgusting ways with copious amounts of gore? Why?

I wonder if you see any amount of irony in your posts. 

[Chip Cataldo]

On 4/3/2024 at 11:50 AM, wombat said:

I wonder if you see any amount of irony in your posts. 

Since I don't enjoy disgusting stuff, no.

If you're referring to mistakes I've made in the past (now EIGHT YEARS past) that I've learned from and moved on from, they aren't relevant to this discussion in the slightest and I should be able to discuss things here WITHOUT them being brought up. You're squeaky clean, eh? Never made any mistakes? How lovely for you.

[jimjum12]

On 4/3/2024 at 9:54 AM, sfcityduck said:

What you, Prince Namor and Jimjum12, are doing here, hopefully inadvertently or ignorantly, is engaging in a practice known as "sl_t shaming" a potential victim. And you are doing it here based on her art not her conduct. No one on this thread has any illusions as to what information or influences there are in the world. But that's irrelevant to the debate being conducted here, and for the potential wrongdoing at issue here it is not a defense. Jimjum12's statement that "a grown man 'hitting' on a near adult who sought him out in the first place, should not be facing a prison offence" is more than a bit deaf to the concerns that motivate age of consent laws. Age of consent laws reflect that young hormone filled kids coming of age are programed to want sex. That's why they are vulnerable to overtures from the proverbial "creepy old men."

I think Ed knew what those concerns were and attempted to address them in his final FB message, so I'm more than a bit surprised that you are blind to them:

* "I’m so sorry for being so stupid. I definitely should never have talked with Molly D. ... I wasn’t trolling Instagram randomly but I definitely shouldn’t have chatted with her when I found out how young she was."

* "The whole pile of my dms she collected to show is just awful to look at. I’m sorry."

* "The very next morning after Molly D posted the screencaps I put my last will in testament together. Freewill.com."

That last comment by Ed immediately above is particularly telling, especially as to the allegation he makes elsewhere in the letter that he was murdered by internet bullies.

 

My God, you're dense. 

[jimjum12]

On 4/3/2024 at 10:31 AM, Sauce Dog said:

Were people calling him a pedophile wrong, yes,

Then what the hell is the rest of your wall of text for? I' m tired of the double standards that go on with this sort of thing. Nothing else really to say. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(az friend of jesus)

[Dr. Balls]

  

On 4/3/2024 at 9:41 AM, Poekaymon said:

You are putting the onus on accusers to be the "bigger man" while assigning no responsibility to a 40something man

I don't necessarily disagree with any of your points - the big picture here (for me) is that the situation is a car crash of two very bad personality traits:

1. 40-something dude not "reading the room" and understanding he shouldn't be talking to a teenager.

2. A 20-something girl who is wound up into a social justice fueled frenzy.

Smash those two things together, and you have what has happened here. It's not s|ut shaming, it's not defending the man - it's identifying two personalities and seeing what drove the results.

The sad part about all of this is that Ed clearly identified that he royally screwed up - but didn't give himself the chance to come back from it. And, given some time, I'm sure Molly would have seen that she grossly over-reacted. These are the things we all learn in life. How many of us did stupid, embarrassing things that we are ashamed of? Everyone. And we're probably better people for it as we were given enough time to learn the lesson, feel the shame and make corrections to be better functioning members of society.

This is why I absolutely hate cancel culture. Cancelling someone over something said 10-20 years ago is absolutely insane. People change viewpoints. People learn from experience and interaction. Cancel culture eliminates those learning opportunities by creating a fear-filled, toxic environment where nothing can be said, done, or shown.

These two will never have that chance, Ed obviously won't and if Molly pushes aside her defense mechanism of what she's done to realize her mistake, her potential guilt may not ever allow her to accept that mistake - publicly or privately.

Edited April 3 by Dr. Balls

[wombat]

On 4/3/2024 at 12:19 PM, Dr. Balls said:

And, given some time, I'm sure Molly would have seen that she grossly over-reacted.

Yes, how dare she share her experience. Burn the witch. 

[Jimmy Linguini]

I did a retailer variant for Hip Hop Family Tree #1. I really wanted the cover to be of Puff Daddy. Ed hated puff daddy and said no. We ended up going with Slick Rick. Great guy. Really sad news.
RIP

[Dr. Balls]

On 4/3/2024 at 10:22 AM, wombat said:

Yes, how dare she share her experience. Burn the witch. 

Don't be obtuse. The way she shared her "experience" is not really how you get things resolved with people. I've read the posts. They sound absolutely vacuous and inane. She's free to share her experience, but man - her way of doing it was absolutely idiotic.

Edited April 3 by Dr. Balls

[wombat]

On 4/3/2024 at 12:24 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Don't be obtuse. The way she shared her "experience" is not really how you get things resolved with people. I've read the posts. They sound absolutely vacuous and inane. She's free to share her experience, but man - her way of doing it was absolutely idiotic.

So its OK for her to share her story, but only in a way that you think is reasonable. She is vacuous, inane and an insufficiently_thoughtful_person for doing it how she wanted to. Got it. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 4/3/2024 at 10:28 AM, wombat said:

So its OK for her to share her story, but only in a way that you think is reasonable. She is vacuous, inane and an insufficiently_thoughtful_person for doing it how she wanted to. Got it. 

Correct. There are mature, structured and organizational ways to resolve situations in life that allows for closure, recompense or forgiveness should someone want to forgive. That is how you function in adult society. Posting 200 word screeds with F-bombs, repeated editorializing and slang works against the the gravity of seriousness of her story.

So back to my original point of "...given some time, I'm sure Molly would have seen that she grossly over-reacted." - she would have realized at some future point in time that the way she handled it could have been better and more articulate in a way that might have produced a better, healthier outcome than what happened here.

[Chip Cataldo]

On 4/3/2024 at 12:19 PM, Dr. Balls said:

 How many of us did stupid, embarrassing things that we are ashamed of? Everyone. And we're probably better people for it as we were given enough time to learn the lesson, feel the shame and make corrections to be better functioning members of society. People learn from experience and interaction. Cancel culture eliminates those learning opportunities by creating a fear-filled, toxic environment where nothing can be said, done, or shown.

Excellent point.

[wombat]

On 4/3/2024 at 12:34 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Correct. There are mature, structured and organizational ways to resolve situations in life that allows for closure, recompense or forgiveness should someone want to forgive. That is how you function in adult society. Posting 200 word screeds with F-bombs, repeated editorializing and slang works against the the gravity of seriousness of her story.

So back to my original point of "...given some time, I'm sure Molly would have seen that she grossly over-reacted." - she would have realized at some future point in time that the way she handled it could have been better and more articulate in a way that might have produced a better, healthier outcome than what happened here.

Of course you are entitled to that opinion. Certainly not one that I agree with. 

[sfcityduck]

On 4/3/2024 at 9:34 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Correct. There are mature, structured and organizational ways to resolve situations in life that allows for closure, recompense or forgiveness should someone want to forgive. That is how you function in adult society. Posting 200 word screeds with F-bombs, repeated editorializing and slang works against the the gravity of seriousness of her story.

So back to my original point of "...given some time, I'm sure Molly would have seen that she grossly over-reacted." - she would have realized at some future point in time that the way she handled it could have been better and more articulate in a way that might have produced a better, healthier outcome than what happened here.

Which Molly are you talking about? There are two in this story.

[october]

Many sad, hard lessons from this story, not the least of which is that the internet mob is a savage beast. You let if off the chain at your own peril, and shouldn't be shocked if it turns on you. 

[comicwiz]

On 4/3/2024 at 11:41 AM, Poekaymon said:

There is a popular sentiment throughout this thread that the accusers should have "manned up" and ignored him.  So what if he was a "creep" or a "dirtbag", were prior statements in this thread.  Someone went so far as to say that Ed was the true victim.  Another person suggested that he was actually "murdered."  Now we have people dissecting an accuser's art.  

Now, I'm a haggard old man like nearly everyone else in this thread and, indeed, on this forum, and like most of you, I think the new generation is generally too soft.  We also know that cyberbullying is real and can be lethal (much better examples of that are the numerous teen suicides linked to that, often teenage girls).  However, to the above posters, I challenge you to look for the hypocrisy in what you're suggesting.  You are putting the onus on accusers to be the "bigger man" while assigning no responsibility to a 40something man to 1) watch his comments with teens and 2) "man up" and either ignore or confront the internet mob blowback.  Had he done either of those things, we wouldn't be here right now.  

I have no animosity toward the man, and I am sorry for those who felt a connection to him and his art.  I would, however, suggest that a better path forward would be remembering him rather than speculating about his accusers. 

 

 

This story eerily overlaps with something that happened in another collecting category I'm involved with. Last April, a Kentucky teacher was arrested after he was found to be sending texts to a 9 year old. The arrest led to 17 counts (ten counts of distribution of obscene matter to a minor and seven counts of use of a minor under 16 in a sexual performance). The school he worked for put him on leave. When this first hit the news, many of us who knew this person were shocked. I had only conversed with this person via PM, but many of my friends in the hobby had spent time at conventions with this person, and he'd been known for a very long time. It was an extremely strange time, because while some were "vaguebooking" about it, whenever his name came up, there were a contingent of folks who simply did not want to see his name disparaged, often devolving into a "let the courts decide on whether there's any legitimacy to these claims." In November of last year he pleaded guilty and in February he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. 

Now as a parent of two children, but also as someone that has volunteered with coaching duties in minor youth development in hockey, the idea that someone in the position of educator would not understand how poor a choice they made is difficult for me to reconcile. I can't tell you how many seminars I've had to sit in about best practices we need to uphold as mentors. And yes, as a volunteer, I found the instruction/direction to sometimes be excessive, but they leave no room for someone to question if their actions would be considered to deviate from protocol.  I also recognize that many of the people defending the school teacher did not want to accept the eventuality of what he had done because their friendships told them this person was someone different than what had been portrayed by the media.

On the other side of this specific situation, the Pittsburgh reporter who demanded the alleged's elderly father to speak on the allegations was a horrible decision made by that news channel, and represents how people can sometimes get charged up and overstep boundaries when situations of this nature arise. We are seeing some of it unfolding here in this very thread. The outcome, whether it be jail time, or taking ones life, is part of the eventuality as observers of how things are managed in real time. There is very little middle ground in these situations, and I think that is one of the worst parts about social media is the speed at which information travels, often at breakneck speed. And with this, the often too rash or knee-jerk reactions that occur. 

There's no enjoyment from any of this, no matter what side or position that's assumed. That said, I feel discussing it out in the open (albeit sometimes very difficut to do) is something that can help us all better understand the dangers of user behaviour in social media or news literacy, which is far too often absent of facts being checked.

Edited April 3 by comicwiz

[COI]

Chiming in again, against my better judgment.

Debating something that happened between two people, based almost entirely on conjecture and personal biases, misses the point entirely.

If, on one side, you think the deceased is the victim here because he made a mistake that has been blown out of proportion, then I don't see how you can't apply that same logic to the woman who made the accusations and say that she made a mistake that was also blown out of proportion, because of the way she chose to handle this issue she had with him.

If, on the other side, you think Piskor's actions were wrong and that it's important that she not be blamed for coming forward, it's reasonable to see that there is no proportionality in outcomes here. We don't give out death sentences for being a "creep". Nothing resembling justice was done here, and I would guess that, far from helping her heal whatever wounds she might've had, the woman involved in this has now been further damaged by the outcome as she will undoubtedly be targeted by the backlash mob, in addition to the shock of suicide and the contents of his suicide note. .

Where do these positions intersect? The internet mob escalation made everything in this situation infinitely worse. I get that it's hard to miss an opportunity to look for a single target for your moral outrage - the perpetrator - or a clear victim to sympathize with - the victim -  because it's easier and more satisfying than trying to tackle the much more complicated problem that this scenario, and the rest of us by extension, are nested in. But this kind of discourse just makes things worse.

 

 

[Dr. Balls]

On 4/3/2024 at 10:53 AM, sfcityduck said:

Which Molly are you talking about? There are two in this story.

The one who posted his conversations via DM and added commentary after-the-fact. Obviously, can't post it here - but that's the link.

[sfcityduck]

On 4/3/2024 at 9:34 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Correct. There are mature, structured and organizational ways to resolve situations in life that allows for closure, recompense or forgiveness should someone want to forgive. That is how you function in adult society. Posting 200 word screeds with F-bombs, repeated editorializing and slang works against the the gravity of seriousness of her story.

 

Thanks for posting the link: https://www.instagram.com/p/C436qhyvPrq/?igsh=aWhma3JsM2hzN2Fp

Having read it, as a civil litigator, I don't see anything that "works against the gravity of seriousness of her story." To the contrary, her post reads entirely unscripted and is authentic sounding. 

It also does not hurt that the person commenting on Molly D's post to the right, "RC" (no idea who that is), confirms knowledge of the situation dating back two years.

 

[ThothAmon]

On 4/3/2024 at 12:34 PM, Dr. Balls said:

There are mature, structured and organizational ways to resolve situations in life

Hence why we have age of consent laws.  Now it’s been a long time since I dated someone in their early 20s but the ONE thing I don’t miss is the drama. It’s 100 percent on him. 

Edited April 3 by ThothAmon