Comic Artist Obliterates BuzzFeed for Inaccurate Hit Piece

The all-important social media site BuzzFeed ran a weekend hit piece on comic artist Matthew Inman, proprietor of TheOatmeal.com, the incredibly popular comic website. Buzzfeed’s article was penned by one Jack Stuef. What was the point of the piece? It was a direct assault on Inman, based on Stuef’s perception that Inman is a “hard-edged” Republican:

Among other things, Inman says he is a staunch Republican. “My little daughter even said to me not too long ago, ‘Daddy, does Obama care for us children?'” Inman wrote. “My reply: ‘No.'” IN a thread he started expressing concern for his children’s future due to President Obama, he imagined a conversation he will have to have with his daughters some day: “I’m sorry sweeties, even though we have money … We can’t send you to college because we pay to wipe our president’s ass.”

Only one problem: to get that material, Stuef accessed a fake Inman profile on a social networking site, quoted it at length, ignored the fact that Inman is a Democrat who has voted twice for Obama, and paid no attention to the fact that Inman has no children and is not married. Inman wrote on his website: “All of this is completely moot because Jack Stuef is a s***** writer who doesn’t fact check.” Stuef removed the material with this correction:

Update: A previous version of this piece linked to a profile that implied Inman was married, had children, and holds certain political beliefs. The profile is a fake. Inman refused to comment for this story, but posted an extended challenge to it on his website.

Oops.

But that was hardly Stuef’s only sin against the facts. Inman destroyed Stuef on his website, piece by piece. You can access the full frontal fisking here, including Inman’s critique of a fake birthday card Stuef once made mocking Trig Palin, Sarah’s mentally disabled son.

This is the sort of trash Ben Smith’s Buzzfeed publishes. But no biggie: he can always BenSmith the issue.