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

instinctively i realized that the golden era of the internet was truly over. i had a chance to join gandalf and frodo and the rest of the gang on a boat ride west from middle earth, once and for all, in the form of a beer-soaked CCR raft, and instead i went back to the airport.

im going toobin today B-)

anyway, pointless posts on my part because every angle of this has been dissected a million times and now everyone hates each other more than they already did, but yeah, all of this is just sad.

xpost

KEEP ON CHOOGLIN!

CHOOG 4 LYFE

gr8 thread

for me to http://rs717.pbsrc.com/albums/ww173/prestonjjrtr/Smileys/slapen_aan_pc.gif~c200 on

wow incredibly rude tbh

a lot of posters worked very hard on this thread

whats the thread abt anyway

have u seen the movie horrible bosses?

well this thread is about its sequel horrible bosses 2

josh marshall has important thoughts

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/on-that-gawker-story

ive seen the movie iron eagle

actual lol

http://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_thumb%2Cfl_keep_iptc%2Cg_faces%2Ch_200%2Cw_200/p8kice8zq6szrqrmqxag.jpghttp://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_thumb%2Cfl_keep_iptc%2Cg_faces%2Ch_200%2Cw_200/p8kice8zq6szrqrmqxag.jpghttp://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_thumb%2Cfl_keep_iptc%2Cg_faces%2Ch_200%2Cw_200/p8kice8zq6szrqrmqxag.jpghttp://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_thumb%2Cfl_keep_iptc%2Cg_faces%2Ch_200%2Cw_200/p8kice8zq6szrqrmqxag.jpghttp://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_thumb%2Cfl_keep_iptc%2Cg_faces%2Ch_200%2Cw_200/p8kice8zq6szrqrmqxag.jpghttp://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_thumb%2Cfl_keep_iptc%2Cg_faces%2Ch_200%2Cw_200/p8kice8zq6szrqrmqxag.jpg

jordan got the story because he got the tip

It took the internet like 2 seconds to out this tipster as a 911 truther race war guy. The fact that he took this as a legit tip is all sorts of wtf. Whatta dork.

Tbf jord mentioned the guy's truther leanings in the original post (not that i think that makes it better, it was almost like flaunting all the fun quirky reasons this article was sketchy and risky to run)

flaunting all the fun quirky reasons this article was sketchy and risky to run

manic pixie gay porn star gun nut 9/11 truther

http://richjuz.kinja.com/on-outing-not-outing-and-working-for-gawker-1719014904

The story, in my view, wasn’t anti-gay, but it was inhumane.

There is a Gawker story in there, and my version would have been: Look at This Crazy, Conspiracy-Obsessed Porn Star Who’s Trying To Blackmail a High-Powered Media Executive (That I’m Not Going to Name).

Nothing problematic about that.

come on, porn stars are part of the ruling elite

If you’re one who cried, “Homophobia!” immediately, check yourself. If you think Geithner’s life was “ruined” because you perceive him to be gay, you are homophobic. If you think a life in the closet is preferable to a life outside of it, you are homophobic.

jesus fucking christ

I think that Jordan, whom I admire as a writer and adore as a human being, was doing his job. Jordan is bold. He takes risks, he’s not afraid to piss people off. His willingness to publish true stories that people will find morally questionable means he understands his position.

I stand with the union regarding the removal of the post, and I absolutely hate that Max and Tommy have resigned as a result of it, though I get it. This is just the most recent and public strong stand that these two honorable and brilliant men have taken. Though my faith is challenged at the moment, I still believe in Gawker’s ability to do the good, important work that we do when we are at our best.

i don't think i need to throw any more shade at gawker and former-gawker employees than i have but jesus these guys have built quite a self-adulating mythology around what is ultimately gossip-mongering.

say what you will about TMZ i don't think they've convinced themselves that they are honorable, intrepid journalists for running clickbait and occasionally interesting longform pieces about how reddit is racist.

Geithner’s apparent interest in having sex with a man is but one facet that made the story juicy—that he solicited a porn performer, attempted to pay for sex, and subverted monogamous ideals are others. I don’t believe that he should be ashamed of any of these things, but I also know that these are the elements that make for good gossip.

the bizarre moral calculus of "good gossip"

Just war theory of the internet

"i don't judge, i just facilitate others' passing judgement. this somehow makes me a noble servant of the public interest and not a soulless blog monster."

Has HamNo commented on this whole fiasco?

it's actually upsetting that a story posted in summer of 2015 outing a closeted man can be dismissed so easily by normy nerds like sterling clover and rich juzwiak or be turned into a free speech issue by max and the other dude that resigned. this is 100% about perceived taboos, social norms, sexual identity and homophobic media. to deny that is to deny all the work lgbt activists and allies have accomplished in recent years and the irreversible damage stories like this do and makes the denier part of the problem.

I haven't commented much because sarge, whom I hung out with last weekend, is a good friend off the board. But I'm disappointed that Rich chose the admire-them-for-taking-risks angle. The easiest thing in a 2.0 world is to take risks. Social media facilitates impetuosity. Also:

If you think Geithner’s life was “ruined” because you perceive him to be gay, you are homophobic. If you think a life in the closet is preferable to a life outside of it, you are homophobic.

is bullshit. Of course Geithner and wife could've had an open relationship – and that's the point. "Geithner's life" isn't just his own but his wife's and family's.

yah painting this as some sort of heroic bold move in a world where no one takes chances any more gives me serious douche chills.

In a world without chance ...

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lraknh2Drz1qmvdpl.gif

The Gawker dudes itt apparently believe that employers are all 'whatevs!' about the prospect of discovering their employees' dick pics on the net. They also seemed to previously think their employers were all 'eff advertisers and their $$$!'. It's not a great leap to assume that they might also think the world at large is gonna be all 'nbd!' toward people who've been outed. I envy their utopian outlook.

i kinda wonder if there's a generation gap at work there

i imagine it's more like it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it

If you think Geithner’s life was “ruined” because you perceive him to be gay, you are homophobic. If you think a life in the closet is preferable to a life outside of it, you are homophobic.

is bullshit. Of course Geithner and wife could've had an open relationship – and that's the point. "Geithner's life" isn't just his own but his wife's and family's.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you had quoted like the actual next sentence then rjuz was making the same point, fwiw: "This is, of course, all assuming that Geithner isn’t out as bisexual or queer or whatever the potential label (if he believes in labels) to his wife, or that they don’t have some sort of arrangement. "

like we've heard for awhile that this generation posts everything online and doesn't get why you wouldn't or shouldn't and that in the future nobody will be able to run for president cuz everyone will have a vine of them giving head or whatever out there. gawker's just the first place where nearly the whole staff was that young.

that's why I added "of course"

xpost

Rich was hedging his assertion. Alfred was throwing it back in his face.

"YOU GUYS ACCUSING MY FRIEND OF HOMOPHOBIA ARE THE REAL HOMOPHOBES." so embarrassing.

even if he's out to his wife, i imagine being outed to the world at large as a client of gay porn star escorts might make his life difficult

think in a way both sides of that privacy debate really belong to that generation, teasing out the rules while older generations are bewildered that anyone would have nude shots on their phone or feel violated when it was used w/o their consent, like 'if you don't want yr nude shots to get out don't take them and have them on yr phone are you crazy' is a new version of old reactionary 'if you were a good girl you wouldn't be out at that hour dressed like that and nothing would have happened to you'. to nearly every person in their early 20's i know bfs sending gfs dick pics and gfs sending bfs poorly shot vag pics is almost routine. think the success of yik yak ties into that also somehow.

that's why I added "of course"

xpost

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 21, 2015 1:00 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what you did was a take a sentence out of context from a post so you could ignore the post was saying all the things you were, along with some other stuff.

zing economy.

anyway two more things that bug me while i'm at it:

1) all this "wife and family" stuff. lots of people have spouses and families. why does that make a difference one way or another. you can't out of one side of your mouth complain about victorian morality or w/e and out of the other be shouting "think of the children"

2) everyone asserting some sort of connection between "oooh... and CN owns... reddit!" for one thing it isn't true. CN bought reddit, but then handed it over to the parent company, advance publications, as a direct subsidiary sometime around 2011. So CN hasn't owned or run reddit for some time now. And a bit later, advance spun reddit out so it is an independent company with advance being the majority shareholder. Like this "CN/Reddit/feud" story sounds good on the face of it, but check your facts

max was the one saying 'think of the children'

and anyone who plays the "but this ruined those kids lives!" card isn't?

"YOU GUYS ACCUSING MY FRIEND OF HOMOPHOBIA ARE THE REAL HOMOPHOBES." so embarrassing.

Not to mention anyone defending anyone from homophobia by disclosing their sexuality as if gay men aren't notoriously among the most homophobic people out there.

(Or, at least, this one is.)

(xxp) not really comparing like with like there

whether their father made personal decisions that hurt his family is entirely for him and his wife and children to work through. the victorian morality is to expose the family's private scandal for the sake of the children being traumatized by their philandering (maybe) gay porn star hiring father. once the media makes it public though, we all have a stake in whether that story hurt the children bc the media ostensibly exists for the benefit of the public. the father wasn't hiring an escort in the name of the public interest. gawker was outing him in the name of the public interest.