Day three of the man-versus-meme battle between popular webcomic The Oatmeal and cyber law attorney Charles Carreon rolls on. And with no official ruling from the judges, it’s safe to say that The Oatmeal’s on top.
A quick recap of the chaos: On Tuesday, Carreon filed a $20,000 lawsuit against The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman, accusing Inman of “hosting false statements about” (ie. mocking) his client, rival humor site FunnyJunk.
Inman countered by scrawling his own witty commentary on the letter and publishing it. At the end of the letter, Inman pledged to raise $20,000 through crowdfunding site Indiegogo—not to pay off Carreon and FunnyJunk, but rather to send two hefty donations to the National Wildlife Federation and American Cancer Society.
Inman raised the $20,000 in 64 minutes. Now, the total‘s up to $165,000, and Inman doesn’t plan to give Carreon or FunnyJunk a single cent.
What he has given Carreon is a healthy dose of headaches and hot water.
Under heavy scrutiny from The Oatmeal’s adoring fan base Wednesday, Carreon removed contact information from his Web site and told MSNBC that he planned to submit a project cancelation request to Indiegogo on the grounds that Inman’s campaign is a violation of the site’s terms of service.
The exact terms Carreon believes Inman has violated are still unclear. Indiegogo has not responded to our request for comment, though the Daily Dot speculates that Carreon sees the fundraiser as a violation of items D and E stipulated in the “Use of Our Service” section of Indiegogo’s TOS, which prohibit “items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime” and “items that are considered obscene.”
Inman’s project remains live, however, and Carreon’s contact information is still nowhere to be found on his site.
That information has been temporarily replaced with a small note saying “Due to security attacks intimated by Matt Inman, this function has been temporarily disabled.”
“I really did not expect that he would marshal an army of people who would besiege my website and send me a string of obscene emails,” Carreon told MSNBC.
Calls from the Daily Dot to Carreon’s office telephone number haven’t been returned.
Carreon remains on the lam, but Inman’s made no attempts to hide from the attention. His most recent tweet addressed the matter with The Oatmeal’s signature crudity:
“It’s interesting to watch a man with his dick in a hornet’s nest try to solve the problem by tossing his balls in as well,” he wrote.
Photo via Wikipedia
