Deadspin editor quits, blasts G/O management

Did you apply yet @Smallpotatoes ?

 

Re., Laura Wagner:
I understand the passions involved quite well.
I don't like being lectured to about journalism by someone who began high school in 2007.
The Deadspin millennials act like they're the only ones who've ever had jobs ripped away from them by clown overlords.

 

You're on her watch list now. #SSWagner

 

So this, I definitely agree with. I've been super sympathetic to the death of Deadspin -- as an idea, anyway -- but I was listening to the Curtis/Shoemaker pod this morning, and they had Rob Harvilla on (former Deadspin culture editor) and Harvilla opined that the Deadspin writers had the "greatest Wins Above Replacement level" of any website in history.

Oh my.

Look, I get that something that was deeply important to these people was blown up, but let's be clear too: they essentially decided to blow up their suicide vests when things, to them, felt untenable. I'll give people some space to eulogize themselves and romanticize what they felt they had, but that's also the kind of thing Deadspin made fun of -- often viciously -- for a number of years. We saw some of this with Grantland too. We were the greatest place for writing that ever was, and the bastards, they killed it. Did they? Or did you kill it because it was going to be different than your ideal version of it, which (sorry to say) is what has happened to every single media entity that has existed since the beginning of time?

Anyway, this was always the way Deadspin needed to go out, nuking itself in a fit of self-righteous glory. It's the only thing that would have felt fitting. I admire that they had principles, even if I didn't always agree with their principles.

 

And if Deadspin was as indispensable as they believe it was, the now-unemployed writers should have no problem creating their own outlet for which they will have no nasty pop-up advertising or evil owners to tell them what to do. It will be wildly successful, immensely profitable and a journalistic triumph.

 

Thanks for more or less articulating my feelings on the matter. I hadn't fully considered the irony of it until you mentioned it. Deadspin and that whole era of blogs rose to prominence by mercilessly ripping the shit of people and institutions who took themselves too seriously. At some point in the last handful of years, Deadspin itself clearly crossed that threshold.

 

I think part of what’s happened is a realization, among many of those self-hating, sniping Deadspinners, is that they were more liked and appreciated than they thought and, seeing that outpouring on Twitter makes clear what they gave up. I imagine it’s very hard when the “fuck you fuckers” thing is eulogized by so many not named Barstool.

 

Hope someone writes something about the "scabs" meme being RT'd (not Russia Today) and shared on FB.

It's sad comedy of the highest order.

 

I'm all for raging against the machine. But what's still lost in this is that the Deadspinners were told they still could write about the 3.5% if it worked within the sporting context. In no way were they handcuffed. That they would burn it all down because they felt so put-upon is what's so amazing.

 

all part of the self-dramatization

 

The Ham-Handed, Money-Driven Mangling of Sports Illustrated and Deadspin