Why #Gawker is so Awful
Gawker, one of the defining magazines of the 21st century, announced Thursday that its shutting down next week for reasons that are too repulsive and terrifying to think about for long. In its 14-year lifespan, Gawker published breakthrough investigations and scurrilous gossip and everything in between. It created much of the lively, ironic, emotionally labile house style of the internet. It revealed that the mayor of Toronto had been filmed smoking crack and that Politicos Mike Allen let a source write an item and that BuzzFeeds Benny Johnson plagiarized from Yahoo Answers. The fact that a billionaire could kill Gawker out of spite is a crisis, and the fact that Gawker is gone is a tragedy.
When it comes to Gawker we are conflicted out the wazoo.One Slate editor is married to a Gawker editor. One is married to a lawyer who represented Gawker in the Hulk Hogan trial. One is a former Gawker Media executive editor. None of these Slate staffers worked on this roundup.
Here are some of our favorite Gawker posts for you to read before they disappear into the Memory Furnace to be replaced by something Peter Thiel likes better.
Weavers famous mozzarella-stick stunt isnt just about TGI Fridays endless appetizer. Its about the supreme difficulty of entertaining yourself for 14 g*****n hours without being able to read a book or use the free Wi-Fi. (Though she did play with the TGI Fridays app.) Torie Bosch
Everythingpublished in Gawkers Dog column was a pure delight. Its impossible to imagine any other publication printing this spot-on but affectionate satire of both dogs and columnists, and accompanying it with such beautiful illustrations (by Jim Cooke, of course). This is a good one in which Dog explains why he doesnt wear a watch. Its not for me. Im classy, not flashy. I also dont know how to read a watch, Dog writes. I will miss Dog so much. L.V. Anderson
Coens departing editor letter is a total evisceration of the then-editor of Star, who tried to have an unflattering post removed. It is hilarious yet very fair, a burned bridge done right. Jeffrey Bloomer
Writing before the #blacklivesmatter movement took hold, Jeffersons bracing, bitter essay on George Zimmermans acquittal, on what he had experienced as a black man in America, and on what black people have to put up with every day remains powerful. Seth Maxon
Lawsons Real Housewives roundups summed up so much of what made Gawker Gawker: bitchy, exacting, exhaustive, hilarious, obsessive, and a little surreal. At their best, the recaps blurred fiction and reality so that if you didnt watch the show (and maybe even if you did), you wouldnt be quite sure what really went down and what was spun purely out of Lawsons Bravo-addled headspace. The loopy patois he concocted for the Countess LuAnn de Lesseps was mind-alteringworthy of a thread in David Mitchells Cloud Atlas. Jessica Winter
Donald Trumps hair, with its absurd, origami-like complexity, has long been an object of ridicule and speculation. Is it a wig? Is it a transplant? Is it the hide of an unfortunate golden retriever? This year, Gawker finally cracked the case, accumulating a mountain of circumstantial evidence that the persimmon-colored demagogue is wearing an awful and outrageously expensive weave, created by a specialist who worked out of his own building. This is a hilarious investigation for the ages and one of the best things Ive read this whole godforsaken election cycle. Jordan Weissmann
Cushs outrage over the revealed history of bogus synopses for the 90s cartoon Street Sharks is one of the funniest things to come from the Ghost of Internet Past. Who knows how much time (or how many takedown requests) will pass before we purge this fake history from our collective consciousness? Dawnthea Price
Perhaps the defining literary work of our time, every sentence a crystalline gem of violent beauty and power. Gabriel Roth
This little throwaway post from almost 10 years ago is so funny and great that I dont even know what to say. Heather Schwedel
Plenty of media organizations are happy to be the vessels for the stories famous and powerful people tell about themselves. Gawker never was, and we all benefitted from the existence of a place that called out and ripped apart self-serving narratives. Josh Levin
This is a little morbid, but its also an example of what made Gawker great. Even with its hearty sense of self-deprecation, rereading this today stings. Susan Matthews
Pareenes case against each of the remaining presidential candidates on the day of the New York primary was a lucid encapsulation of this dreadful political year. Seth Maxon
Snark is the revenge of the powerless. The powerful dont like it. They prefer smarm, a positive, happy view of the world, which smooths out conflict and serves to maintain the status quo. Tom Scocca makes the case against smarm and shows why we need snark in this memorable 2013 essay. Helaine Olen
This might not be the most serious or poignant of Richs writing at Gawkerat root its about trading b******s with a guy in Toon Lagoonbut it is representative of the fearless, honest, and compassionate way hes treated subjects, especially queer ones, in his time there. Richs ability to find humor and beauty in the strangest or most mundane of assignments has always impressed me, and this piece represents an early and important ethnography of a now-defining aspect of queer male life. I think of his as a crucial voice in the LGBTQ conversation, one with which Ive often agreed and just as often argued. I hope, after Gawker, we continue to hear it. J. Bryan Lowder
f**k Boston by Hamilton Nolan
Ive only lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a year and Im leaving in two weeks, but I quite like the place as well as the city it borders. Still, Hamilton Nolans 2013 essay f**k Bostonin which Hamilton clarifies that he also means f**k the Puritans and f**k Boston (the band)is one of the funniest things Gawker ever published. Seth Maxon
What other magazine would have let someone publish this? And yet, why not! They probably got a lot of pageviews out of it too. Gabriel Roth
Source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/08/18/the_best_gawker_posts_from_the_site_s_14_year_history.html
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