Casey Chan, a writer and reviewer for tech website, Gizmodo, has shown that he is less mature than the 15-year-old he publicly ridiculed recently. The young and enthusiastic app developer, Nick D’Aloisio, sent him a request to review his newest iPhone app, Trimit, which trims down long texts to shorter versions. In other words, his .99 cent application will take a 2,000 word article from the Internet and trim it down to 140, 500, or 1,000 words. Pretty nifty, eh?
Well, Casey Chan didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to respond to the kid’s email requesting a review. But he did read the email, and he did respond with interest, sending D’Aloisio a response telling the kid that he’d love to review it. After sending the kid his response, Chan says D’Aloisio bombarded him with emails. At the time, he said, he had no idea the kid was only 15. Chan posted a screen cap of 17 mails within a 19-day period, where D’Aloisio sent him email after email begging him to post a review.
Keep in mind, this is a 15-year-old boy, and if you remember what it was like to be 15, you’ll understand how young Nick was feeling: nervous, excited, impatient to have someone tell him his work was great.
So, what did Chan do? He got pissed. And because he was pissed, he decided to exact a little revenge on D’Aloisio for annoying him. Chan writes: “…in an admittedly dick move by us, we featured his app as the worst app of the week.” They eventually pulled it from the list, but still, they’d sabotaged the app out of anger and no other reason. This kid was punished for irritating someone who held some measure of power over whether his app succeeded or failed. That’s not just a dick move, that’s an incredibly selfish, manipulative and disgusting move by someone who ought to know better.
Although Chan makes an attempt to seem remorseful about his behavior, it falls flat. He essentially blamed D’Aloisio for everything. Publishing the article by calling it, “How I Made a 15-Year-Old App Developer Cry,” gives the immediate and permanent impression that Chan is proud of being the guy who made a kid cry. In fact, Chan seems awfully proud of having put this kid down. He ends the article by making a transparently condescending apology while at the same time claiming the Trimit app wasn’t up to par.
And it all came to this because Chan was mad about getting too many emails. How pathetic.
Fortunately, Kit Eaton with Fast Company, gave D’Aloisio’s app a positive review, while giving the young man himself kudos for having the good sense to plan for the future by seeking investors and having a long-term goal. Perhaps Casey Chan could take some etiquette lessons from Miss Manners before having any more contact with app developers. Otherwise, he might be an ass to them, too.
