While I sympathize with you, you're a part of the blogosphere and you're acclaimed. With that comes the criticism you deserve.

Would you claim to be perfect in skill and intent? Are your writings brilliant and your designs unilaterally breathtaking? No? Then you should not only accept intensive criticism or embrace it. The simple fact is that if you were flawless, wmeredith wouldn't have felt the need to call you an ass; that he chose to, and that others agreed with his sentiment, implies a fault of your own, and one that you can fix and mature in the process. Pressure makes diamonds and suchlike.

I learned when I was thirteen that the Internet existed to call me out for my bullshit. I have it to thank that I've become as shitless as I am, and I welcome the future negativity that I'm sure will shape me in the future. You can either sulk that people think you're an asshole, or you can figure out why and become better in the future.

The contrast between this controversy with you and the Fake Steve controversy last month is striking. You get called out for bullshit and reply by being smug. You don't even drop the smug in private email conversation, as I found out last night. Then, when people get irritated and slap you, your reaction isn't to lose the insincerity but to get mad at the people who'll call you out for shit. Meanwhile, last month Dan Lyons decided he was pissed off at John Gruber, and Gruber utterly ignored him except when he had a crushing rebuttal. That's maturity. You'd do well to learn it before you try grandstanding the way you did with your American Airlines series.

EDIT: Can whoever's started downvoting Dustin please not? He made an earnest argument, and he's contributing to the conversation.

I have been trying to resist responding to you.

At least ten of your comments in that thread contained petty negative personal attacks as well. You do not know me, yet you have created a very negative image of me in your head after reading an angry rant I posted to my personal website. Come on.

I really don't have that negative an image in my head of you. You're talented at what you do, but you don't do much in terms of functionality, and the way you style your articles constantly strikes me as sensationalist rather than logical. You go for things that are striking even when your selections don't enhance what you're writing, in other words.

Further, the way that you present yourself, both here and there, suggest to me that the things you write are neither sincere nor passionate, even when you design them to look like you care about them. I come from a writing background, and your writings strike me as dishonest. But that's the only dislike I have for you, and all the comments I posted were to that effect.

As I wrote in reply to somebody else in that thread: I was glad people were calling you out, not because I dislike you, but because in most threads talking about your stuff I felt that were I to interject by saying "Dustin's writings seem insincere", I'd come across as either needlessly negative or outright douchey, and it's something I'd have felt awkward emailing you about. So I like that I can say what's been on my mind for a while. But it's not like I hold a grudge: If you ever start writing earnestly, I'm sure I'll love to see what you have to say. Until then, I'll keep judging you by the insincerity you put out for me to read.

What do you mean by insincerity?

The way you write make me feel that you're writing more for the publicity your writing will get than you are because you have a personal itch to write. It feels very corporate. Your first few articles occasionally really interested me, but sometimes you'd write a shallow article and cover it up with a design, and your last half-dozen or so have seemed either empty or deliberately attempting controversy. I really liked your article on sleep, for instance, because the design fitted what you were saying, ones like your article on your brain were overwrought and made me feel that you didn't really find the subject interesting, you were just writing for page views and Twitter follows.

I have to think about how to better phrase it—that's just my top-of-the-head reaction—but I had the same feeling last night when we talked, like you cared more about the image I had of you than you did about what I had to say. We didn't have a conversation last night so much as we had a PR session, and that rubs me the wrong way.

Because this is more of a private conversation -- and because you've negatively referenced our previous interaction without context -- I've sent you an email.

I don't blame you, and its really a shame because you do make interesting comments. I intended to reply in the original thread, but just didn't have the energy, so I'll do so now. You wrote:

people call me arrogant, young, naive, and stupid

There is no clearer signal that you're doing something right. Keep it up.

I agree. And I'm sure AA are going to fix their site, even after firing the employee and having Dustin being crucified in the process. And good comes from bad, but it's by the bad eating the good.