A couple days ago, there was a Lamborghini that crashed locally. I’d seen the car around before, mainly because it sticks out like a sore thumb around here in North Idaho. Aside from that, I really could not care less.
Then someone quickly ID’d the owner as some local ‘influencer’ by the name of Jake Schnatter. I’d never heard of him before…but decided to do a little social experiment of sorts. I posted the below on IG, initially with only the first line.
The experiment was to see the reactions. I posted nothing offensive, nothing personally attacking the guy, just a funny little comment.
The internet did not disappoint, though because of the vitriol of the first two comments, I quickly deleted them, blocked those two commenters, then turned off commenting for a while. But the gist of the comments can be found in almost all threads online about it. And to me, the responses are fascinating.
The first and the ones with the most vitriol were defending him in a way that was WAY overboard, as if my comment was somehow smearing him or saying something offensive. Even had one send me a FB message like he was trying to intimidate…and over this comment?! [As an aside, Cody Gervais, formerly of CDA, now living in Bozeman, or Evan Nicholson, realtor in CDA…it’d take a whole lot more than that. I’d be more than happy to meet over coffee sometime to discuss your…concerns.]
The second set of comments I found repeated throughout local FB threads about this were comments that basically said: Jake has worked hard to be where he is/get what he has. My first thoughts were, “Ok, but what does that have to do with anything?” Conversely, if someone works hard for something, they tend to be more protective and careful with it, no?
The other comment was along the lines of “he’s a good kid” and usually combined with the second category of comments above. But does that bear out? Publicly-available records show past cases all involving…you guessed it…driving. Not necessarily extensive, but enough to question the claim, especially when a car crash is involved.
Like the original IG post, the point isn’t anything against Jake himself. Like I wrote, above, I’d never heard of him before, nor does his status matter to me in the least. But the responses…those tell a story.