Here we go again.
Daniel Negreanu’s often acidic Twitter presence appears now to be a more or less established watercourse, meandering wildly and carving out oxbow lakes of bile as it goes.
This week it was Norman Chad who had to run the rapids. He took five 140 character moments to call out Negreanu’s behavior on Twitter. In these brief missives, Chad stated that he did not “understand this piece of bad road you [Negreanu] continue to travel."
He added a comically prissy addendum to this. Saying that he also does not understand "the desire to lace your public spaces with profane, inappropriate language."
Animal wrongs
This comes after Negreanu shouted at his computer to the point of terrifying his dogs because of a poor internet connection. He also offered to punch the teeth out of someone’s mouth and to find a new orifice for their safekeeping.
To some uninformed onlookers, the poker world may seem currently split on the issue of whether threatening physical and sexual assault is okay. Some out-of-the-loop types may mistakenly conclude that there are multiple points of view on this.
Some moral issues will remain forever vexed.
But certainly, Negreanu's corporate employers appear to have no issue with him conducting his PR work in this way.
Norman Chad, however, does have an issue.
And Negreanu has an issue with that.
No Ooka Luke for you
In another cringe-worthy video, Daniel Negreanu congratulates himself on all the times he didn’t say bad things to Norman Chad. He does this as he tells the cameraman the bad things he’d like to say to Norman Chad.
“Sometimes I’ll write out Tweets and then delete them. I’ve written out like seventeen Tweets to him," a tank-top clad Negreanu says to the camera. Later saying, “Non-stop he’s a preachy mother****er”.
A quick skim of Norman Chad’s Twitter feed will reveal that this alleged preachiness is almost entirely limited to the topics of animal rights, rival sports “journalist” Clay Travis, and doing the “Ooka Luka”. The last of these is a dance of unknown provenance that haunts almost every single Tweet he’s made since early-May.
Psych out, psych in
If the left-right divide in poker used to be represented by the patriarchal conservative Doyle Brunson and the younger Daniel Negreanu, these more unstable times are better represented by the Trumper conspiracy theorizing of Mike Matusow and the older Daniel Negreanu’s histrionics.
Watching DNegs in the last few months feels like a case study in COVID’s collateral damage. This shadow pandemic seems inevitable, what with all the lockdowns, the social isolation, and the constant lingering fear of sickness.
How many anonymous dots on how many graphs will make up the mental health pandemic that must follow on COVID’s heels?
In Negreanu, we might be seeing one of those dots take on a face. Do we sense a shortened temper, the loss of his old composure, and elevated stress responses when criticized?
He used to court controversy for the fun of it. Now he seems baffled and hurt by it. Even Norman Chad’s rather fusty and prim rebuff is enough now to send him over the edge.
There but for the grace of our emotional support bourbon go we.
