Allthis is a startup where people buy ten-minute online chats with each other. It could maybe be a cool idea. But their list of potential chattees included a lot of well-known professionals who’d never heard of Allthis.
One of those professionals wrote a loud blog post about getting herself off the list, embarrassing Allthis into taking down all the unauthorized profiles. That included the BoingBoing writers, who are known to be (rightfully) prickly about this sort of business bullshit. So that bit them in the ass too.
But the real fun started when the fake Twitter account popped up.
Mike Monteiro, one of the victims of Allthis’s skeevy fake profile plan, is also known for hating this kind of shit. But he’s known for reacting to it by harassing the perpetrators, relentlessly and delightfully childishly. And he railed on them:
The idiots at @allthis continue to mock the people they want as users. It’d be fascinating if it weren’t sociopathic. twitter.com/allthis/status…
— Mike Monteiro (@Mike_FTW) December 20, 2011
LOL, @allthis. You idiots don’t HAVE a product.
— Mike Monteiro (@Mike_FTW) December 20, 2011
So when someone made a BPGlobalPR-style Twitter account, @allthisPR, to compete with @allthis, and their first tweet addressed Mike, I assumed he was behind the parody:
Jesus, is this @mike_ftw guy an asshole or what? The first half hour of his time is on us.
— allthisPR (@allthisPR) December 20, 2011
But he tells me (and his followers) that it’s not him; in his many fake accounts, he avoids mentioning himself.
So @allthisPR kept goading:
@glennf Hey, It’s a beta! But don’t sweat it, we’re on this. We’ll be selling your time without your permission by the end of the week.
— allthisPR (@allthisPR) December 20, 2011
And the real @allthis account took the bait:
@oliverwilke @allthispr @mike_ftw No idea who @allthispr is but it’s always nice to have groupies. Especially when they steal your logo!
— allthis (@allthis) December 20, 2011
@base10 We’ll do whatever @mike_ftw thinks should never be done :)
— allthis (@allthis) December 20, 2011
Meanwhile they continued being dicks to the people who’d complained about them being dicks in the first place:
@joelhousman @mike_ftw Thanks Joel! We listened, made the changes. These changes make your post obsolete. You may want to update it again.
— allthis (@allthis) December 20, 2011
Basically, the actual account was nearly as rude and entitled as the parody account. Except they weren’t kidding.
I think Allthis thinks they’re being cool and edgy? That would count if their business were, like, funny t-shirts. But Allthis is about helping nerds and suits network. They really wanna shoot for Louis C.K. and come across as Dane Cook? This site won’t make trading time cool. It just makes it gross, desperate and awkward.
Allthis’s link to its dispute line is broken even after Mike pointed it out. They really give a shit about you, [Customer Name]!
Meanwhile, @allthisPR has 90 followers to @allthis’s 490.
And I bought ten minutes of this guy‘s time:
Top photo by Laughing Squid’s Scott Beale on Flickr
Correction: An earlier draft of this article gave Mike Monteiro credit for @allthisPR. The account holder is unknown.
