THE HALL OF SHAME

Jason Gutterman, who calls himself ‘Amagansett Press’, is among a unique breed of “First Amendment Auditors” (individuals who record themselves provoking conflict for entertainment on Social Media). Unlike most “Frauditors” who lack originality and simply regurgitate the same nonsensical script with no actual understanding of what they are arguing, Gutterman’s approach is more passive aggressive. He is well-known for his condescending demeanor and feigning ignorance when confronted with his actions and/or any consequences brought by them. While no official diagnosis by a mental health professional is available to confirm this, Gutterman’s behavior upon observation has been speculated to resemble a form of Narcissistic personality disorder.

According to the Mayo Clinic “Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.”

In more than one incident Gutterman has been shown to lack basic empathy and refuse to exercise any form of common decency towards his fellow man, seeing such courtesy as inconvenient or lacking in any benefit to himself. Gutterman has also escalated to irrational anger and even violence when encountering individuals unwilling to tolerate his demeaning behavior and insults. This includes several incidents where he has wished upon and threatened physical injury or death upon people and family members for having a position not aligned with his own. He has also threatened with and discharged non-lethal weapons in the form of pepper spray upon several individuals with most of them not posing any immediate threat, often when in a position he is free to withdraw from or when any potential threat has subsided. When criticized on these actions though comments on his videos or in media published by others, Gutterman devotes himself to silencing that criticism by any means necessary though filing false copyright and privacy complaints on social media platforms, blocking and deleting unfavorable comments, and publicly lashing out, effectively censoring the free speech of others while claiming the sanctity of his own.

Gutterman likes to claim he is never responsible for when a confrontation occurs, however when you consider that Gutterman has traveled from one side of the US to the other and whatever state, city, or town he’s in, Red or Blue, Wealthy or poor, black or white, man or woman, almost everyone he encounters has come into conflict with him. The only common thread in all of them is him. As the fictional character Raylan Givens From the novel and series ‘Justified’ famously said “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.” So if Gutterman’s receives the same reception everywhere he goes, then it would not be unreasonable to conclude that his behavior is the root cause. This is applicable to any first amendment Auditor, by the law of averages you would think that they would have recorded encounters where they don’t descend into a tirade of rude and condescending behavior. Like other First Amendment Auditors, Guttermen too Pushes the limits of free speech and provocation of others, surprisingly though his arrest record is a short one, though not without a number of formal trespasses and warnings and as of January 2024, Gutterman has had three known arrests in three different locations, further indicating that the manner in which he conducts himself is a decisive factor.

While most content creators engaged in this unsavory practice claim to be activists or independent journalists to legitimize their activity under the protection of Free Speech and Freedom of the Press, Gutterman no longer claims to be an activist or a journalist, instead claiming to be a travel program, though his choice of title and thumbnail for his videos barely support this notion. This is particularly Ironic given Gutterman is the only First Amendment auditor who actually has had a career in Journalism. Gutterman is a former paparazzo photographer, and while the profession has earned some disrepute over the years, it is still considered a journalistic profession. Gutterman claims to have had a reputable career, having attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan with a major in photography followed by working as a photo assistant in Miami and as a staff photographer for The New York Times, despite the fact that exhausted searches for any published works by these agencies for which he is credited come up empty. However an article pertaining to a brief and less than stellar career as a hotel manager was found. It does however shed some light on the manner in which Gutterman conducts himself, as during his time as a paparazzo he was engaged in a brief feud with Actor Alec Baldwin.

In a letter to the East Hampton Star, Baldwin described Gutterman as “seeking to casually invade the privacy of people out in public and attempting to live their lives in peace; by insisting that he has a job to do and that public figures are never, ever entitled to normal consideration, even in small-town East Hampton; by lying in wait, like kidnappers and home invaders do, then abruptly popping up to find the desired moment to take advantage of. Then walking into a place of business, standing 10 feet away from his “target,” acting as if nothing happened.” Baldwin had also described Gutterman as “Vermin” and “a fool and a coward.” Gutterman then wrote his own letter in response containing that same essence of arrogance and self-righteousness laced with personal attacks we have come to expect from Gutterman in his YouTube videos.

While Gutterman claims never to have said “public figures are never, ever entitled to normal consideration.” His videos have him frequently responding to people’s request to not be filmed or have their privacy respected with statements justifying his refusal on the basis that they if they choose to leave their homes and go out in public they are not entitled to make such requests. What Gutterman also fails to understand that as a Journalist, who has chosen to seek out and involve themselves in topics and situations of public interest, that he too is not entitled to normal considerations, his Baldwins letters being published and the subject of multiple news articles is sufficient proof of that.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Gutterman, reality is somewhat subjective and he chooses to claim his right to privacy while having no respect for anyone else’s. It is for this reason that Jason Gutterman has earned his place as the first member of this Hall of Shame, to mark this occasion and to address Gutterman’s tendency to bully critics into silence, Tones Overthinks it Presents the following for your enjoyment.