Jakob Lodwick and David Karp are is an Assholes

update: according to Silicon Alley Insider, Both David Karp and disavow any connection to nordbum.org. I have additional thoughts as well.

Ok, so on CenterNetworks the other day, Allen Stern discovers that Jacob Lodwick (formerly vimeo) and David Karp (tumblr) are is engaged in some elaborate "humor" based around the "hilarity" of homeless fashion. The idea is that they are he is creating a site called norbum.org which is where they chronicle the most fashionable homeless people. Its crowd sourced, and so the "idea" is that people submit pictures of homeless people.

Ok, yes I get it is a joke.

I am sure Lodwick thinks he is "cool" enough to make this joke. After all, he's "famous", at least according to his own blog. (Yes I get the famous thing is probably some inside joke - it just isn't sufficiently "ironic"). Ok, just to be clear, Jakob and David are is *not* cool enough to make fun of the homeless.

To put this in context, today from an article In the New York Times about Chris Rock, a quote from Chris Rock. Its about the new (well not so new) rules of comedy for those of you too dumb to figure it out.

During his discussion of Mr. Imus, he laid out some guidelines: White people aren’t allowed to mock black people; rich people aren’t allowed to mock poor people; skinny people aren’t allowed to mock fat people; and so on. The more stuff you have, the less stuff you’re allowed to say.

Duh.

Is the tech community so out of touch that this is not obvious? Or is it just Jakob and David that don't doesn't get this and they were he was dumb enough to think that the tech community would not be offended? Or are they is he just going for the Michael Richards style stuff that is just designed to "shock". Or perhaps they are he is going for a more Loren Feldman/Technigga style effect.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive as one of maybe only two or three black guys that regularly show up at the NY tech meetup. I know the community is kinda insular (tech has never exactly been a bastion of diversity), but I wouldn't think you'd have to be black (or homeless, or poor) to realize that this is offensive.

Yeah Allen, I agree... WTF.