If you spend enough time on social media—and, I can’t say this enough, you shouldn’t—you might be forgiven for thinking that our digital lives are subject to a version of the rules outlined in The Purge, the crappy dystopian horror film in which society permits all crime, no matter how heinous, so long as it’s done throughout a single night.

Whereas the Purge takes place just once a year, there’s a sense that our online lives are at risk of being destroyed at any moment. You could go to bed one night laughing about the last cat video in your feed and wake up to find yourself utter-fucking-ly canceled for being a sexist, bully, liar, or worse—all because someone decides to CALL YOU OUT for something that may or may not warrant such serious accusations, let alone the ensuing guillotine that’s swiftly administered by an undiscerning social media mob.

A call-out could be based on hearsay, misunderstandings, or secret vendettas. But it doesn’t matter because the effect is the same. We now live in a world where any person with a large enough social media presence can weaponize their following to turn their enemy’s life into a clickbait vortex of pain and shit, whether it’s deserved or not.

And if you are the target of this kind of attack, the vortex will swallow you up and turn your life into a passion play to be performed on one of Zuckerberg’s platforms. Act one is making the mistake of reading—or, god forbid, responding to—the comments. It only gets worse from there.

You will find that every one of your friends, people who you thought might stick up for you, are now too afraid to say anything at all on your behalf for fear of getting sucked into the vortex themselves. Fair enough. Employers will want nothing to do with this, of course. Hell no. You’re fired. You’re gone. At the very least, you’ll find yourself in diminished standing.

And soon you will realize that you are now brutally alone, abandoned by a community you had thought might come to your defense. But no. Turns out you’re just a cheap bit of entertainment for everyone else, who might protest in private, but who in practice sits back, thumbs through their feeds, and renders themselves gifs who eat the popcorn at your expense.

The Call-out

Climbing’s latest call out concerns Said Belhaj, a Swedish climber who was accused by the German photographer Hannes Huch of not sending Action Direct.

I wrote a profile of Said a few years ago for Rock and Ice magazine. We have taken trips around the world together over the years, to places like Spain and China, as well as a memorable trip to the Grampians with Chris Sharma. Since then, Said has stayed at my house on several occasions as he was passing through Rifle.

It’s hard to describe Said as anything other than eclectic. His interests are eclectic and go well beyond just climbing. Our conversations are never dull. He likes to talk about art, culture, and music. He speaks six languages fluently. He plays several really rare African instruments and is a particularly great percussionist.

His friends are eclectic, too. In Australia, one night we had dinner with Margaret, a sweet elderly lady who lives alone out in the bush, who Said had met years ago and whom he has kept in touch with as a pen pal for over a decade. (Who does that?)

Said is funny. He’s intelligent. He’s interesting. He’s different. He’s eclectic. I like Said a lot.

Of course, it was painful to see these accusations, based on nothing more than hearsay and conjecture, arise. There’s nothing worse than being called a liar—especially if you’re telling the truth. My first reaction was that it seemed out of Said’s character to lie about something like climbing, for which I know he has so much respect and passion. After all, Said is a damn good climber. I’ve seen him, belayed him. It’s not preposterous to think he can climb as hard as he says he has climbed.

And yet, it strains one’s credulity to read Hannes’ damning blog post or hear the questions raised concerning some of his other ascents, or even read Said’s own dismissive, somewhat self-immolating response and come away feeling confident that Said sent Action Direct.

Why would he do that?

On Lying

Lying is a form of theft. It steals the truth from others. In climbing, lying not only robs us of the truth, it sometimes robs others of records they may hold. Mostly, liars rob everyone of their ability to be believed without question.

And yet, just as not all thefts are morally equivalent—e.g., being poor and stealing food vs. being rich and stealing because you’re greedy—not all lies in climbing are equally bad. Some lies are bigger than others. Underlying motivations matter, somehow. Does this impetus to lie spawn from a place of deep inadequacy? It’s hard to not feel sympathetic to a person like that.

I’ve often noticed that the biggest liars are often some of the most talented and best athletes—people who are perfectionists, who have achieved incredible things, but for whom their accomplishments are never quite enough. Their world-class abilities are their very alibis in the stories they tell. No one questions whether Ueli Steck, for example, could climb Annapurna’s South Face in 10 hours. But… did he?

Is the lying done to advance professional opportunities? It’s a bit harder to conjure sympathy here. In this situation, the liar is potentially taking a spot that someone else might deserve, who may be equally if not more deserving. People who lie often don’t see how their lies may hurt others. The worse liars are the ones who do and don’t care. There are certainly climbers like that.

I know that one of Said’s major sponsors stated something to the effect of, “We don’t even sponsor Said because of how hard he climbs.” In other words, Said is sponsored by this company not because he’s putting up 9c+ first ascents. It’s because of all of the other gifts he offers: his warm, interesting personality; his eclectic interests; his ability to inspire climbers of all backgrounds and diversities. It’s the whole package, not the singular ticklist.

I wonder if Said knows that his sponsors even feel this way about him? I know from our conversations that losing his sponsors was always a source of anxiety and concern for him. It’d be ironic if that anxiety, seemingly unfounded, caused him to make decisions that would jeopardize his professional career.

Blowback

After Hannes Huch made his blog post and Instagram campaign raising questions about Said’s claimed ascent of Action Direct, media outlets began accurately describing his post as an accusation that Said was lying. Huch, however, took exception to this characterization and he posted a second Instagram with a felt-cute-might-delete-later smiley selfie in which he tried to characterize his call-out as being somehow more charitable and gracious than he was. That he didn’t actually just call Said a liar, and merely raised “reasonable doubts,” a distinction without a difference, if you ask me.

In other words, now that climbing media was reporting that Huch had accused Said of lying, Huch was somehow starting to feel uncomfortable being the guy who was willing to destroy someone’s reputation and career over what amounts to hearsay and conjecture.

This is bullshit of the highest order. When you decide to call someone out, you should stand by your accusation and not waffle and act as though you’re just gently and tenderly raising questions. Huch’s social media campaign to pose his “reasonable doubts” about Said’s ascents are nothing short of attacks on Said. He’s feeding the social media mob red meat, fanning the flames of doubt, and allowing the mob to do what it does best: destroy lives. That he seemingly wants to wash his hands of this and take no responsibility for the destruction of Said’s reputation and career is something I’m not willing to let go.

Because the bar for calling people out has never been lower, I think there maybe should be a consequence for the person who does the calling out, too. In this sordid mess, Huch reveals his character, too—as a guy who is willing to ruin someone’s life over conjecture and hearsay. Huch might be lauded for his courage to say what others have been thinking and whispering about over the past year, but perhaps in the long term, fewer pro climbers will want to work with him for fear that he could turn on them too.

Is this unfair and wrong? I don’t know. I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing that there isn’t some level of risk and blowback for a person making a call out. Due to the nature of social media today, in which an online mob often judges and sentences a person before they’ve even been given a chance to respond, and for whom no apology, however sincere, would ever even be enough to restore a reputation, having a higher bar for making an accusation might be a really good thing.

There are at least a few climbers out there who I can think of, with far bigger careers than Said, who are likely misrepresenting their accomplishments in unethical ways. Another way of saying this is that there are a lot of liars and bullshit in pro climbing. But these are just stories I hear, stories that other pro climbers tell me in whispers, in private.

People have suggested that I should be the guy who takes the leap and names these people publicly. But I’m not willing to do that because I don’t think hearsay, conjecture, and whispers are strong enough reasons to risk maligning someone’s character and career.

More than that, I want to live in a world where we take climbers at their words. Every time a lie is committed and even every time a call-out is made, it becomes a little harder to do that.

What’s Next

Daniel Woods and Carlo Traversi suggested on an 8a.nu forum that the bar for all professional climbers is set at uncut footage of any ascent—not just groundbreaking ones. It’s hard to argue with that, given that we all now carry 4K video cameras in our pockets. Perhaps team managers will demand that their athletes provide proof of their ascents as part of their sponsorships.

I really want to believe Said. In Australia, I belayed him on Punks in the Gym, the world’s first 5.14a. His first couple of times on the route, he hung all over it, and it looked like it wasn’t going to come together. Then, next go, he magically pulled an ascent off. It went from looking impossible to suddenly being done. There’s very good reason to believe that Said has sent every route he says he has sent.

But, if Said is lying about Action Direct or any other route, he should just say so, apologize to the climbing community, and go climb these routes with uncut footage of his ascent. He’s certainly capable of doing that.

I just wonder if the climbing world would be willing to accept an apology and offer a truly valuable member of our community a chance at redemption.