GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson is back in the legal firing line, this time for spamming one of his supporters — the President of the Utah State Senate, Michael Waddoups — with “offensive†images from GTA4. Needless to say, Mr Waddoups is no longer quite so supportive of Mr Thompson and not only has he vowed not to support his anti-game legislation again, he’s attempting to have him sued for misuse of email.
This sort of thing really makes Jacko no friends, and it’s tempting to think that he’s just a mad old fool who doesn’t realise he’s fast running out of them. My take on it is somewhat different though; if you actually look at how the man acts it’s clear that he’s not actually interested in making friends, or advancing his cause, or even in making money. What he craves is attention. It’s that simple; he wants people to notice him, and he’s realised the best way to manage that is to piss them off. He’s basically a troll, except that instead of hanging around on anonymous message boards annoying Star Trek fans, he’s quite successfully trolled the entire computer game industry, the US legal system and is moving on to their government. Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you that Jack Thompson is not an idiot at all; he’s the most successful troll the world has ever seen.
You have to respect him for that.