Duncan Jenkins, I still remember the day this idiot joined twitter. Duncan Jenkins, a perspiring author. I ignored him at first, a lot of these blokes surface on twitter from time to time and it’s literally stupid to read some of them. Yes, Duncan was stupid too. Very much. The story of Duncan Jenkins is a disturbing one, a really disturbing one. As a matter of fact, Duncan, is not even a real person. He is the brainchild of Sean Cummins, who, ironically is a Liverpool supporter.
What was started as an enthusiastic work of leisure, one among the millions of ignored ITKs that surface from time to time trying their best to rule twitter-scape, ended up being (yet another) mini PR disaster for Liverpool Football club when reports of Jen Chang, the Director of Communications for LFC, allegedly threatened Duncan with his livelihood. The club relatively got it under good control considering the carnage portrayed by the media every time Suarez touches an opponent.
Jen Chang is an interesting personality to talk about too, an amiable person and someone I used to follow even before he was hired as Director of Communication for the club. Chang is someone who is known for his knowledge of the game and implied transfer quips from time to time. Apparently, Chang told Duncan that his tweets had cost the club £300k for the Borini deal – you’d imagine the Italian counterparts being angry at a noob leaking the deal, in horribly stitched up English! Chang apparently also warned him on multiple occasions to stop tweeting – this course of action is completely acceptable for someone who, in part, has the responsibility of monitoring, maintaining and controlling Liverpool’s outlook to the public.
Here, a friend of mine, a United fan was shocked to know that I rather support Jenkins in this case. Why you’d ask?
Chang performing his duties is completely normal. Now, what was unacceptable was the length at which he dragged it.
Yes, Duncan caused us a loss of £300k on the Borini deal and pissed a few people off at the upper echelons of the club but that alone isn’t enough to direct all the vile towards a supporter who didn’t even have a mole at the club, which was Chang’s primary concern in his investigation. What was wrong on Chang’s behalf was that he went all paranoid getting into Duncan/Sean’s family background, emotionally blackmailing him with unnecessary consequences and threatening his livelihood. Chang could have, and certainly should have found an amicable solution after the transfer window. On a very basic level of understanding, Chang should have been smart enough to realize that £300k is not a big amount for Liverpool Football club and certainly not the problem in this scenario – but if he failed in this mission (which he did), the mass media attention this sensation could drive toward Liverpool certainly is.
Contrary to what has been portrayed in the media, I have a feeling that disposing off Duncan, the pseudo ITK, wasn’t even on the club’s agenda – it was more of Chang’s opinion that he should be dealt with. Not wrong, but the importance he set for the task was vastly disproportionate to the outcome it would produce!
Then again, I may be wrong!
The whole notion of one person causing a world institution like Liverpool Football club a loss of £300k is crazy!
At the same time, this is a work of a genius – an insipid character portrayal, calculated selective ITK punts from time to time – at the right time, vandalizing your own grammar and taking the world for a ride. To top it, being persistent with this behavior for a period of 2 years – time during which he gained 40k followers, many key journalists subscribing to his updates – let alone subscribing to his tweets, these were times when lazy journalism boasted topics churning out of the trash that Duncan tweeted. If you think that’s not enough, Duncan, even landed a job at Goal.com!
In retrospect, Sean’s modus operandi was exemplary.
Extremely impressive considering the fact that he isn’t even a real person, isn’t it?
PS. Sean Cummins aka Duncan Jenkins – he isn’t an idiot, he’s a genius!
You can read up on the entire saga in his own words here.
