Do you not think that, if he was genuinely apologizing for a misunderstanding, he would try to clarify what he originally meant to say?
Trying to explain your way out of a social media situation can do more harm than good sometimes. His reaction strikes me as coming back to Twitter, seeing the reaction, and taking the simplest way out. Delete the tweet, and apologise for offending without making any effort to explain what he meant by it.
Joke, comment, rambling. It was offensive and insensitive. Would you like it if your loved ones died because of a mass shooting spree and someone made similar remarks about the event?.
I was born in Christchurch. Still have family there. If members of my family died in such a shooting, I would be very upset if someone were making a joke at their expense. If Pachter was indeed making a joke, that was a terrible and deeply offensive thing to do. However, the original tweet far more convincingly reads as an observation drawing a connection between the date of the attack and the attacker's affinity for PDP as well as internet culture in general. That's not offensive. It's an innocent observation, and one I personally think was 100% intended by the killer.
I agree with the sentiment expressed here. The entire affair is clearly manipulative.
Of course, some people feel that during times of tragedy, such analysis is inappropriate. It serves to draw attention to the perpetrators. To their little mind games. (Make no mistake -- the killer's manifesto is designed to lure media attention, generate headlines. It's a sick attention grab.) There is an argument that the perpetrators do not deserve the fame of infamy. That people's attention should be focused on those that died, and those that lived. Which is not unreasonable. All too often monsters become celebrities while the innocent people they hurt are quickly forgotten.
