Yesterday, I published an interview with the most recently eliminated Top Shot competitor. I pinned the blame for Paul Marinaccio’s losing performance on his lack of a hat. (True story. The Corner Shot gun uses a video screen. In the wrong light, you can’t see squat.) Top Shot’s PR person called to convey Mr. Marinaccio’s displeasure. The NJ Detective felt I’d mischaracterized his explanation as whining. So I tweaked the post a bit, adding a tip of the hat to winner Jake Zweig. We good? I heard nothing back and thought nothing of it. Then, at some ungodly hour, Christian camp counselor Dustin Ellermann went all Old Testament on me . . .
Given his fast and furious Top Shot Tweeting, and the Twitter silence of the lambs comprising the rest of the cast, and the fact that Dustin clearly believes that he speaks for the program, I reckon the self-described “Renaissance man” won Top Shot season three. But he’s not going to be winning any hearts and minds in the media.
Well, OK, he will. Top Shot is, apparently, beyond media criticism. Not here, obviously. (I guess he missed the previous post unfavorably comparing Top Shot to watching grass grow.) The legacy media and “see no evil” gun press are happy to promote Top Shot as pure entertainment. Dustin’s brand of “aw shucks” humility morphs magnificently into the meme.
So let’s call Dustin’s thundering Tweet a “pay no attention to that Rottweiler behind the curtain” moment. At least Ellermann didn’t pull the equivalent of a Jimmy Swaggart by, say, brandishing his gun at a pimp outside a nightclub. But if he does . . .
TTAG will be there. Come to think of it, I’m kinda disappointed that Top Shot hasn’t drawn any media criticism for “glorifying guns.” It would be nice to see a little argy-bargy between gun grabbers and TS competitors voicing the pro gun rights side of the argument.
Never mind. As for what Dustin’s “blacklist” means, I’ll ping the program’s PR person later today. Meanwhile, memo to Dustin: the truth hurts. Now, where’s that other cheek?