You really do have to wonder, at this point, if there’s ever a time when the average Gawker blogger says to himself, you know, I really am just a whiny, angry bitch, who just delights in inflicting verbal cruelty, and I appreciate the fun in being feted by other whiny, bitchy nothings who are so filled with bitterness over their utter failure to accomplish anything of meaning and value that they sit around and laugh along. Haha! That cop is choking that kid with his knee! Truly, you have spoken truth to the power of people who don’t like getting choked out unnecessarily by the cops. See it’s not just humor– there’s a moral here, people. And like every moral from Gawker, it’s “I’m better than you!”
The funniest part, of course, is what’s always the funniest part of Gawker, where a posse of white, overprivileged graduates of second-choice colleges heap derision on people for being white, overprivileged graduates of second-choice colleges. I mean, seriously, “Nilla”? Look, friend, the only thing whiter than commenting on Gawker is writing for Gawker. Writing for Gawker is elementally white. It’s as white as it gets. I don’t care if you look like Djimon Hounsou, if you’re in the employ of Nick Denton you’ve lost the ability to snicker at whiteness. I think if Stokley Carmichael was around to see you using the civil rights movement as ammunition to embark in yet another brazen game of “I’m better than you! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!”, he’d slap you in your vapid, knowing face.
Particularly pathetic about Gawker the last year or so is all the nods to the simple fact that whatever amount of humor and wit was once a part of Gawker was long ago bleached out by the white heat of the bloggers’ burning envy, resentment, sexual frustration and impotence. Guess what, guys? Just because you’re “knowing” about how shitty and empty your blog has been for ages doesn’t actually make it any cooler or more forgivable that your pathetic little theater of cruelty has lost anything resembling bite, honesty or intelligence. It’s pretty simple, at the end of the day: you’ve elevated a kind of put-upon, entitled bitchiness to the status of fetish, but secretly, you’re smart enough to know that you’re just like every other asshole on the bus. (Don’t tell the commenters, or there goes the business model.) There’s nothing special about you, just like there’s nothing special about 99% of us. Most of us deal with it and get with a program of trying to make things just a bit easier for one another. Some of us tell dick jokes and pretend to be Oscar Wilde when we’re actually the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.
Yes, it’s true, you can engage in a never-ending stream of affect and shallow self-reflection without actually understanding yourself or engaging in a moment’s worth of genuine self-criticism. But why would you? Look, here’s the prescription: engage in some self-analysis, the real kind, the kind that disarms and shames you, the kind that leaves you absolutely less able to like yourself. Realize that you’re a pathetic cultural stereotype whose pose can’t save him from being a choch. Evolve accordingly.
Actually I thought that was one of the less ridiculous Gawker posts; both with that student and the NYU protest, there really is something sort of ridiculously “effete vegan 20something white academic socialist” about it … claiming police brutality or imperalist domination when dealing with cops who are just doing their jobs. The post didn’t seem particularly snarky, just sort of incredulously annoyed at the trend in general. Etc.
Also, and I realize that my earlier commentary on this matter (at l’Hote) didn’t exactly make your day, but SERIOUSLY, writing things like “graduates of second-choice colleges” and “the bloggers’ burning envy, resentment, sexual frustration [?!] and impotence”, plus the fact that you’re doing a vapid, snarky takedown of something that is itself … vapid and snarky (except, not really, in the case of that particular post), making angry, bitter attacks on a website that jumped the shark in like 2006, etc. It just comes off as very weird.Report
plus the fact that you’re doing a vapid, snarky takedown of something that is itself … vapid and snarky
Yes. Indeed.
Seriously, for someone who seems to take such satisfaction in this sort of thing, I think you really need a tune up of your self-critical process. Like, for reals.Report
Cheers.Report
Except … there was no snark, and I didn’t insult you.Report
And in all seriousness — how can you not see what I’m talking about? Do you notice anyone else (on your blogroll, on LOG) calling Robert Stacy McCain a “tedious nothing”, or calling Gawker bloggers “whiny, bitchy nothings,” apart from, say, someone like Gawker bloggers? Who, as you’ve established, are incredibly insecure about their lack of status, meaning, accomplishments … which they exhibit by means of an incredibly caustic, snarky tone. Something like, e.g., your post.
And so when I try to helpfully point out this parallelism (i.e. that shrill insults ALWAYS indicate insecurity and speak very badly of the writer, whether it’s you or a Gawker blogger), in a non-snarky way, you can only think to respond with … a caustic, snarky comment.Report
Long post coming for you, paul.Report
Sigh … just please keep in mind that I say these things AS A FAN OF YOUR BLOG. I’ve been reading you for a while and take great interest in your opinion.Report
(And maybe there’s really no other way to address Gawker bloggers? A dignified analysis somehow seems like a category mistake.)Report
Can’t we all just get along??? 😉Report
I agree with Gawker’s post AND think this critique of Gawker is incredible and hilarious. Right on.Report
Freddie,
I do not understand why you bother reading these smarmy New York idiot cultists. Everything you say about them is true, yes, but also obvious and generally unimportant. Why does anyone give a crap about Gawker?Report
Speaking of whitness and lack of, I just realized the abbreviation of Ordinary Gentlemen is “O.G.”
Crap Email From a Dude, via Jezebel, is one of my favorite things on the internet, for whatever that is worth.Report
I think the point Freddie is making is not that one should never be a snarky, sarcastic bastard or that one should never use ridicule, but only that it should not be one’s modus operandi, the driving force behind basically all one’s content. So what if this response exhibits some of the same qualities? Sometimes one must meet one’s objects of scorn on their own level. Communication’s a bitch.Report
“I think the point Freddie is making is not that one should never be a snarky, sarcastic bastard or that one should never use ridicule, but only that it should not be one’s modus operandi….”
Does the above define Gawker? Always snarky? Bitchy? Tell dick jokes?Report
There’s an Oxes album where people are protesting the band, and someone is holding up a sign that says “Sarcasm Does Not Equal Irony!” It’s pretty awesome.Report
I’m with the other poster who said this is one of the less annoying Gawker posts. Nothing I hate more than privileged white kids crying oppression. Get over yourselves, twerps!
But, yeah, fuck Gawker and the whole of Denton’s perverse empire of misery and loathing. What really bugs me is that the commenters are like putty in the staff’s hands. Nolan or Choire or whoever says jump, they ask, How high, sir?! Like little monkey children.Report
Also, I don’t get why he’s wailing like a little bitch at times when the cop is clearly NOT kneeling on his neck (which, yeah, can be pretty painful). They twisting little baby’s arm? Whatever, I had worse done to me during middle school wrestling matches.
From what I know of the situation, the police acted responsibly. When someone keeps trying to approach a speaker even after having been warned/rebuffed, the authorities need to assume the real possibility that harm is intended, and act accordingly.
Glad this dope got a reality check.Report
Does the above define Gawker? Always snarky? Bitchy? Tell dick jokes?
Bob…always? No, of course not always. Most of the time? Yes, and that’s pretty obvious. I said modus operandi because that sums up basically the mission and style of the Gawkers.Report
Wow. I get it! You hate Gawker. Sheesh.Report
The point, LJ, was to take a mostly-random Gawker post, and give it the Gawker treatment. I don’t think I did that in a particularly smart or funny way, and I certainly can be criticized on those grounds. But that was the point, at least.Report
epic rant freddie.Report
Excellent work nailing exactly what I loathe about Gawker/Defamer. And for the ultimate proof of Gawker’s vapidity, don’t forget one of their former premier snarkers getting her privileged ass handed to her by Jimmy Kimmel, of all people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-avakrRUaUReport
I’ve never been to Gawker or this blog before now, and now that I have I don’t see anything there or here worth reading.Report
Freddie, I appreciate your candor, and I hate Gawker, too, but little good comes from this.Report
Thank you, Freddie. Thank you. That was beautiful. As someone who was once bullied by a Gawker blogger, THANK YOU.Report
Sandra Dalene VanAlstine – Wanted to introduce myself
Thanks
Sandra Dalene VanAlstineReport
Excellent site, keep up the good workReport