Alex Jones' Cat

Dark Pattern Persuasion

Alex Jones once again employs dark pattern persuasion techniques to evade consequences

“A Dark Pattern is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills.” (Brignull, 2010)

You can extend that to persuading people.

In his bankruptcy case, Alex Jones had to make a list of his assets with a value of over $2,000. He listed his deluxe purebred cat.

Few of us would consider a pet an asset. Fewer still would list the animal as property for a Bankruptcy court. A guess is that the cat was included in the list of assets as a publicity trap for the court: listing his cat as an asset is novel and would prompt discussion, then Alex Jones could honestly tell the world that the court discussed taking his family cat away. Not the first time this tactic has been used - Richard Nixon used in it his famous Checkers speech.