Jones gives good blog?

I wonder if John Cook taught his students to write like this at Medill.

Also:

 

Does "BORN THIS WAY" mean "as an asshole?"

 

Wouldn't be the first person to sue Gawker for something Cook got wrong:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/gawker-hit-defamation-suit-schwarzenegger-219837

Scum.

 

I'm reminded of a scene in Lord of the Flies, after Jack's group has become more primal, devolving into a warpaint-wearing, whooping group of hunting miscreants. They cut the head off a pig and put it on a stick and carry it around as a trophy. Ralph sees this and knows the group is lost, uncivilized and irreconcilable, at least for the time being. It's the most potent scene in the book, the turn at which you realize this is war, and Piggy must die, and others will die with him. The boys were no longer boys, but they were never men.

It'd be easy to describe Gawker's staff and followers as Jack's group at that point, a bunch of savages walking around with a pig head on a stick, covered in warpaint and completely clueless as to their stations in life. It'd be wrong, too. The Gawker culture is better represented by my classmates in ninth grade who demeaned the book, tossed aside the book and fell asleep in class as we read the book. These aren't evil men or spoiled boys, they're people who want the chance to sneer at everything and anything they come across. It's an oppressively negative world built on a groupthink that can easily leak into clear minds if unguarded.

The poison in Gawker culture is the faux-logic by which it operates. To join the culture, you must accept that you're smarter than everyone except everyone with higher rank than you within the culture. You sneer when told to sneer, conforming to rip into conformists in a way that is probably more goth than hipster, beneath the surface. There's an escape valve, but I'd have to imagine you'd want to take an hour-long hot shower after breaking free. And you'd probably want to eat some Oreos with milk without making a joke about a mixed-race person in the process.

It's impossible for me to know for certain whether Chris Jones put himself out there with his essay on sex because he works for a men's magazine and needs to write this type of stuff to pay the bills and allow him the freedom to write his great long-form features or because he has earnestly slept with many women who don't perform to his standards. But there's no valid interpretation of his brief, mostly inconsequential piece that would suggest he was publicly lashing out at his wife for her bedroom habits. It's insulting and insufferable to suggest such a thing. As Double Down said, it's the type of thing that gets your head bashed in at a bar.

It's also the type of sneering that is all too common at Gawker. I read Deadspin, particularly for the longer articles by Luke O'Brien, who could write for any magazine in the country, and Tommy Craggs, who, when he's not screaming, is a brilliant thinker. The mother site, though, is unreadable. It exists solely to troll the people it writes about. There is no good answer to what to do. Acknowledge your adversaries and become a persistent target. Ignore them and become a persistent target. Praise them and become a persistent target. Take action against them and become a persistent target.

Perhaps the best answer is to admit to yourself that Lord of the Flies is a great fucking book and that scene is one of the most powerful you've ever read in your 13-year life and to move on without them and their close-mindedness dragging you down.

 

Deadspin's just as bad. Sorry.

 

Actually a very entertaining story by Jones. Reminds me of the Jemele Hill blog from a few years back when she complained about men and their lack of skills south of the border.

Now that they are both at ESPN maybe they can team up to write a he said / she said column.

 

I could never figure out why radio personalities like Howard Stern would pick fights and argue with other radio people (Imus, Man Cow, Rosie, etc...), but is there a method to this madness? Does Stern get more publicity for doing this? Does Stern and the adversary have a "wink, wink" type of agreement on these "fueds?"

Maybe Gawker is picking a fight just for a chance to ride your wake?

ESPN the Mag > Gawker, right?
Esquire > Gawker, right?

 

Thanks for the kind words and good for you.

I am a fan of your work because of the honesty that is always there. And I hate it when that's used against you. Anyone can work with facts. Honesty is much, much harder.

As for me, I'm just a guy hoping to get hired on as a stall shoveler on a content farm.

 

Ace, you're a mensch or put another way your aces with me.

 

Always gotta try to improve yourself and your station in live, huh?

You think you're better than me!?

 

I'm just hoping to be better than you. A guy can dream!

 

You're writing multi-thousand-word pieces for Esquire.

Daulerio is waiting for the next big dick-pic source to email him.

You won. He's just trying to put some more points on the board.