You know there’s a certain level of persistent dishonesty online that’s one of the most frustrating aspects of existing on the internet. You get numb to it. But this… this is AP Dishonesty, here. It’s next level.

So. Here’s that thread, which you may read if you’d like, to encounter someone deliberately, directly, intentionally, and unambiguously misrepresenting a piece that he refused to link to and refused to tag his target in. In it, he fails to quote the many times in the piece that I make it clear that students are neither the enemy nor the problem. He deliberately mischaracterizes what I say, and uses weaselly constructions like “wants to make it seem,” like he’s Ghost Rider and can look into my heart and see my sins. It’s an absolute masterpiece of basic deception and wounded self-excuse.

I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of tweets about the piece. Hundreds. I’ve read hundreds of comments about it on Facebook. I have received, as of this writing, 87 emails about the piece since it went live online last week. I have gotten Gchats and Facebook messages from friends. I’ve discussed it with dozens of people at Purdue.  Not a single person I’ve communicated with about the piece has interpreted it as anything but pro-student. Everything written about that piece has reflected its pro-student nature. The piece was pitched, composed, and edited under the explicit concept of demonstrating why student activists have been unfairly maligned. Over a long editing process, my most consistent concern was that it remain clear where my sympathies lie. I voiced that concern not only to my editor but to the fact checker as well. The text of the piece is pro-student activist, its intent is pro-student activist, its author is here telling you that it’s pro-student activist, it’s been interpreted as pro-student activist, and it will have a pro-student activist effect on the world. Against that, you have the word of Aaron Bady, the most shameless, self-promoting huckster among the internet’s legion of White Dudes Performing Their Goodness.

This isn’t a matter of accidental misinterpretation. No adult could read that badly. And the proof is in the fact that he didn’t link. His intention — and this is an absolutely ubiquitous habit on Twitter — was to misrepresent the piece, knowing that most people wouldn’t bother to check up on him. And there’s no chance that Bady would ever, under any circumstances, admit fault and apologize to me for lying about me. None. That’s just not the kind of guy he is.

And, of course, I promise that there will be people who tell me that I’m having a blow up here, that I should just be cool, that I’m mad, etc. But that is why the internet is broken, because everyone is expected to ignore dishonesty and to act too cool to point it out when someone lies about them. I won’t allow the phony notion of not feeding trolls to keep me from telling the truth about some faded internet celebrity you half-remember from 2011, blowing the dust off his keyboard to lie about me because he can’t stand the notion of someone else sticking up for student activists. Not that he’s ever been much of an activist, from what I hear around Berkeley. He’s too career oriented to actually get his hands dirty in that way.

The truth is that Aaron Bady is a liar. He consistently and deliberately misrepresents other people, and does so in a spirit of such mammoth piety and self-regard that I get a toothache reading his tweets. To deliberately rip a quote from its context, to act shocked when called on it, to say something laughable like “It’s a direct quote!,” as if the concept of a lie of omission is new to him… it’s all part of his shtick, his desperate need to let you know that he is the last moral being on earth. I’ve never read anyone who cared more about looking good and less about doing good than Aaron Bady. I don’t want your approval, Lefty Jesus. I’m thrilled for you that you’ve built a reputation by throwing 600 links onto that critical theory zine every 7 days, enjoy. But don’t try to keep your candle burning by trying to light my work on fire.

Some people are going to make fun of me for responding this way, for having the gall to point out a flagrantly dishonest person is being flagrantly dishonest. And that’s why the internet sucks. Because of that attitude. That’s why it never gets better, because we’re all supposed to be too cool to point out that people lie, every day, and it makes it impossible for us to have progress.