hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

^^ GG firing shots at gawker over ethics in journalism

lolololx2

clearly the gawker keepin' it negative dickhole cool kid crew should run ILX

clearly they should

― carne asada, Saturday, January 17, 2009 2:38 PM (6 years ago)

i think it's sad that ppl think gawker is cool -- like the ppl who write for it seem like a mix of college student newspaper dorks that felt they were "edgier" than their peers but not extroverted enough to be sketch comedy dweebs

― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Friday, February 20, 2015 4:01 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think gawker is cool. i guess i buy into their self-image of bravely flaunting politesse standards of establishment journalism, and the writers not caring who they piss off definitely makes for interesting reading. disrespecting the death of some random tv producer i've never heard of doesn't necessarily quality as "brave," but idk it's hard to care either way. i like how the nothing gets the gloves off on ilx like obits

We are clearly in need of higher standards for reading.

comic books and comic book movies should never be consumed by anyone over the age of 14

― pro stroke Johnny Gill songs would rub you the right way (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, February 20, 2015 7:50 AM (5 hours ago)

i hope you are consistently making this argument on all the relevant ilx threads, sugar

i see people get all excited about these movies and then I see this woman is describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner

not to be trenchant or anything but everyone lies in obits it's the american way. *thanks obama for gawker*

i mean gawker dudes, thanks dudes

i see people get all excited about these movies and then I see this woman is describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner

― pro stroke Johnny Gill songs would rub you the right way (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, February 20, 2015 1:08 PM (6 minutes ago)

you don't get boners?

Whiney gets a boner every time he gets the opportunity to neg on pop culture he doesn't approve of.

how exciting

i can't help but be a little curious why a small business owner in the midwest is outraged about an obit published by a young hip but increasingly conservative new media outlet about a sad comedy ca druggy with a tumblr book deal in which there is what seems like a minor concession to past beef. small world i guess?

Mumble! Sigh! Sob! Comics aren't just for adults anymore!

Sorry, couldn't think of better sound effects for stereotypical alt commix.

don't care about this controversy but can't wait to make good use of this thread in the future

just what we need -- another cis-het white man talking about the hulk's boner

*tumbls furiously*

comic books and comic book movies should never be consumed by anyone over the age of 14

― pro stroke Johnny Gill songs would rub you the right way (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, February 20, 2015 7:50 AM (5 hours ago)

what about Kevin Smith movies

Hey hip-hop nerds. What kind-of hip-hop is this?

will do

don't you live in greenpoint where's it's like 90% polish people and upwardly mobile white twentysomethings pretending to be broke? who are you scared of there?

― imo phillips (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, February 21, 2009 11:34 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you scared of getting a seitan taco from the taco truck?

― imo phillips (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, February 21, 2009 11:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

best thread ever

"grim reapah!" burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb never fails to brighten my day

pretty cool to have a site mod willing to go that extra mile and call users out not just on their ilx behavior but also on how well they're doing their actual jobs

jjjusten is cooler than anyone who works for gawker

it's a real violation of privacy for mods to be digging around our personal websites

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/gawker-tells-judge-fairpay-twitter-774737

ew gawker's pervasive grossness makes their regular bursts of sanctimony feel particularly disingenuous

Not all hashtags are cool with Gawker. The media company wants a single general tweet about the lawsuit and if a hashtag is to be used, Gawker wants it to be #gawkerinternlawsuit. As for the no-go's, Gawker's lawyer Mark Batten writes, "The hashtags #fairpay and #livingwage are inflammatory, and the Court’s approval of those would suggest that the Court has a view about the merits of this lawsuit. And the use of #nickdenton is also inappropriate; Mr. Denton is not identified with this case, and his personal conduct is not at issue in the matter."

woooowwwwwwwwww

#gawkerinternlawsuit #fairpay #livingwage #nickdenton

Gawker wants the plaintiffs to be careful on Reddit, not connecting this lawsuit with "unrelated controversies and political causes." Denton's company gives some examples. The plaintiffs shouldn't attempt to leverage the GamerGate controversy by posting in the subreddit "KotakuInAction," which Gawker says has expanded into general criticism of its gaming site. "Plaintiffs apparently would like notice of the lawsuit to be added to this 'munitions pile,' but there is no justification for doing so," states Gawker's letter. "The same is true of Plaintiffs’ request to post information about this lawsuit in the 'OccupyWallStreet,' 'LostGeneration,' and 'Progressive' subreddits."

tbf I understand them asking plaintiffs not to further sic the dogs of gamergate on them

or the dogs of the 'progressive' subreddit?

xps to mordy's sanctimony comment: exactly, they produce good work sometimes, but the idea that they are arbiters of ethics/morality/etc. is hysterical. (the same is true of denton's sworn enemy vice, this isn't just a gawker problem)

tbh if they were honest they'd just bring back shit like gawker stalker and own the sleaze but that'll prob never happen

tbf to vice they are pretty nihilistic (i feel defensive for them bc a lot of their foreign coverage has been really engaging over the last couple years)

we get the media outlets we deserve, unfortunately

xp the vice HBO series is great - the chiraq and north korea episodes from season 1 stand out in particular

gawker manages to be awfully sleazy without gawker stalker

i don't really get the complaint of being "sanctimonious." should journalists not call out people on sleazy shit if their employers do the same shit? i weakly prefer the sanctimoniousness of gawker to the seedy relativism of vice

idk i don't feel like journalism should be about call-outs, that's more like arnold diaz "shame shame shame" journalism.

theres also the question of the extent to which journalists or commentators shd be held accountable for the corporate sins of their employers........

obv if someone is doing exemplary work, even for an otherwise odious media org, i'll read + appreciate them

generous of you

i love to give back

wow i can really feel the love rn

xpost

http://albertburneko.kinja.com
http://caity.kinja.com
http://pareene.kinja.com

more 4u mordy

http://sambiddle.kinja.com

Looks like my classic grim reapah thread will never die. I was young, stupid, and drugged out of my mind when I wrote that thing - whaddayawantfromme.

so youre saying burt stanton was your drugged out alter ego

It was me on drugs making an ass out of myself. I just wanted to make people laugh, even if it was at my own expense.

great revive

Eerily prescient for this thread to be revived yesterday

With Terry Bollea's (Hulk Hogan's) death yesterday, it's a good time to look back at the biggest thing I was ever involved in. For over 3 years, I spent more than half of my worktime on one case-- Bollea v. Gawker.

It was Charles Harder's case-- I handled "the appeal side".

— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) July 25, 2025

@grok is this true

Gawker published recorded footage of a rape of a young woman in an Indianapolis sports bar restroom. Yes, you read that right. They kept the footage up even after the victim's father asked them to take it down.

— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) July 25, 2025

I don't even remember this

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a55146/gawker-editor-sex-tape-aj-daulerio/

Of course it was on Deadspin, because sports people are the worst

can someone make max not be on substack please

but what’s up with the hipster grifter these days

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, May 6, 2025 11:13 AM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

She wrote a memoir!

https://y.yarn.co/b78aa2e2-cdf8-4b8d-a2e1-4a0c5886bfea_screenshot.jpg

This is old news, about a year before etaeoe even mentioned it. But someone on another board used her hotdog/hallway analogy and it made me wonder the same thing, so I googled.

Hey we know one of them.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/inside-gawker-legacy-1236585677/

props to best beloved max for leaving substack (for patreon)

he's quite thoroughly made a point of saying it was for purely financial reasons and not, like, the awkwardness of being tacitly aligned with 'various kinds of vaccine deniers, transphobes, and Nazis'

yet perhaps those issues are intertwined??

anyway that's cool; i enjoy hearing about what max is reading

is there a, uh, summary out there of people's beefs with substack? being full of vaccine deniers, transphobes, and nazis is just a fact of having an internet platform in 2026, so i assume there's a feeling that substack cultivates or promotes them, or that the people who run it are politically aligned with them? i read a few different substack blogs but have studiously avoided interacting with it as a platform, downloading the app, etc.

The only thing I remember is that at one point Substack offered guaranteed income to some well-known writers (Taibbi, Greenwald, etc.) as a way to draw people to the platform. I don't know if that's still in effect.

circles, from my understanding a lot of people have left because the company won’t censor these sorts of noxious views being spread along their platform— “free speech” and all.

is there a, uh, summary out there of people's beefs with substack? being full of vaccine deniers, transphobes, and nazis is just a fact of having an internet platform in 2026, so i assume there's a feeling that substack cultivates or promotes them, or that the people who run it are politically aligned with them? i read a few different substack blogs but have studiously avoided interacting with it as a platform, downloading the app, etc.

...

circles, from my understanding a lot of people have left because the company won’t censor these sorts of noxious views being spread along their platform— “free speech” and all.

There are two things going on. 1) Substack allows people to post any goddamn thing they want. This means there are a bunch (or so they say; I've never encountered them) of Nazis with very small circulation newsletters using the platform. Plus a bunch of standard-issue right-wing assholes. 2) When they started, Substack paid a bunch of high-profile writers to bring their existing newsletters to the platform, and this included a bunch of right-wingers and transphobes and all-around assholes (along with, I think, some non-scum).

My arguments for continuing to use Substack are:

1) At one point, they promoted my newsletter and I got a bunch of subscribers (I only had about 500 when I started; I have 5200 now)
2) You don't see anything you're not subscribed to, because Substack isn't a website, it's a newsletter platform - as someone said this week, "it's Blogger plus Patreon".
3) I'm confident there are plenty of right-wingers and other assholes using the other newsletter platforms, too (Beehiiv, Ghost, etc.). I don't know for sure because I don't subscribe to any of their newsletters. See how easy?
4) Substack is free to use; they take a cut of any revenue you generate, but you can keep your newsletter entirely free and they'll never take a dime from you, or limit how many people you can send it to. Ghost and Beehiiv charge up front. If I moved my newsletter to one of them, I would need to spend money I don't have.

I still have the app because of like three people I follow who only post occasionally. All the regular posters I was still reading, including the one I pay for, have moved to Ghost or Beehiiv.

Honestly I think I prefer getting my regular newsletters in my email; it’s really nice to get something fun to read in email and not just crap from our daughter’s school and online shopping receipts.

they push the app pretty aggressively where newsletters appear in a blog style, and it absolutely does show you things you are not subscribed to, and has pushed recommendations for things that are objectionable. I would guess a plurality of people read and interact via the app and website, not the email newsletters

I think the only times I've visited Substack were through links on this board.

I follow probably a half dozen substack blog/newsletters but the only ones I am currently paying for are max’s (now on patreon) and philip sherburne’s, I think

there was just an article in the verge last week about writers leaving substack for other platforms because they were paying fees 2x-8x what other platforms charge them. some also cited diminishing returns in terms of what substack can do/is doing to grow subscriber bases

Unlike some of its biggest rivals, Substack takes a 10 percent cut of total subscription revenue. That tax may not seem substantial at first, but it quickly adds up as creators gain subscribers and begin charging more for their subscriptions. A calculator on Substack’s own website estimates that for a newsletter charging $10 per month with 400 subscribers, the total monthly cost — including the platform’s 10 percent cut and credit card processing fees — would add up to $636. That cost jumps to $15,900 per month with 10,000 subscribers and skyrockets to $79,500 per month for 50,000 members — nearly $1 million per year.

Many Substack rivals charge a flat monthly fee, rather than a commission. Ghost, an open-source platform for blogs and newsletters, starts at $15 per month with 1,000 members for website creation, email newsletter capabilities, and a custom domain. Beehiiv, a creator platform with tools for launching a newsletter, website, and podcast, is free for up to 2,500 subscribers with limited access to certain features, like a built-in ad network, while its other plans vary in price based on subscriber count. A person with 10,000 subscribers, for example, will pay $96 per month for Beehiiv’s “Scale” plan.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/927294/substack-tax-ghost-beehiiv

FWIW, Substack newsletters all have RSS feeds so if you use a feed reader you can just read that way.

Did they get around to adding rss to the paid posts yet? That was the main drawback the last time I tried to follow them that way

paid substack posts show up in my rss reader, but i have to click through to a logged-in browser tab to actually read them. i'm just learning that patreon only does rss for podcasts, which is pretty annoying.