Jones gives good blog?

If what I'd written was about my wife, then I'd have no complaints. But what was posted on Gawker yesterday was totally untrue. It had absolutely nothing to do with my wife. That's my problem with what happened. Just because I've written about her before doesn't mean she's suddenly fair game for everything I write. Or at least that's how I think life should work.

But what has been said about these people really is true, and I'm sorry I ever thought otherwise. They will do anything for clicks. It's the only factor in their decision making process. They are not to be trusted, they will never be your friend, you can never think you've established an understanding. For them, nothing matters but the numbers.

I mean, John Cook posted the photograph of a teenage boy from California and said he was Arnold Schwarzenegger's illegitimate son without any proof. It was all just supposition. And it was wrong. If they'll do that to some poor kid and his family, they'll do anything.

 

And now posting on it, perhaps?

 

Well, look at that quote from him on the Observer story that Ruckus linked to:

“One of the things we want to do is the kind of story that would be potentially a two-, a three-, a four-, or five-thousand-word investigative-type story that might be in a magazine or newspaper but do it one post at a time and toss seeds out and threads out and see what happens. ... You start with whatever your first nugget of information is and put it out there and see what develops."

Jeez, even if he believed that, how could an experienced writer say something that stupid in an interview situation with another writer? How many times have all of us started with a great story idea, based on a nugget or a preconception, and then after further work realized we had it wrong and had to start over or scrap the idea altogether? Even after investing significant work? Most of us have, probably. This is part of doing an honest job.

 

Let'e be honest about the real world influence these Gawker media B-listers like Cook have. It's almost insignificant. Sure, we get all fired up about it and annoyed because we're in the writing business and many of us might consider Chris a friend. Or, even if you don't like Chris, I would say for the most part, you agree this kind of slimy behavior is still reprehensible. It feels like a big, cruel thing to do. But look at a dude like Cook. He writes on the internet for a living, throwing molotav cocktails of bile, and the guy has a grand total of 2,100 followers on Twitter. A guy who might as well be considered the Bard of Poop Tales, Drew Magary, tramples into Gawker airspace, and just crushes the numbers a guy like this gets. And at a place like Gawker, numbers are all that matter. For all the vapors we get over Gawker or Deadspin, between five and 10 times as many people read fricken Gizmodo. Gawker's professional trolling is almost insignificant in its own bizarre universe, when you really think about it. I mean, it's not SportsJournalists.com insignificant, but all it's really done anymore is weaponize the kids who used to heckle from the top of the bleachers during high school assemblies or talent shows.

It obvious Cook had big dreams of writing beautiful things once, saw himself as a shaper of young minds and had hopes of being a Greil Marcus-style cultural critic. And he could write plenty of good things, but not one great thing, not a single one that could even sniff one of Chris' better stories, which is why it's so hilarious to see him refer to Chris as a shitty writer today, and when that sad realization dawned on him, he got lured into Nick Denton's web with the promise of doing longform, of working for Gawker but not really be of Gawker. And of course that never materialized because it's fucking Gawker, and now he's just a soulless bitter hack like the rest of the fallen soldiers who came before him, trying to figure out how to pay for private school and praying a politician will get caught jerking off in the green room of Morning Joe so he can whip together a post that will carry the day. A month from now, most of us won't even remember his name, and two years from now when Dauliero checks into rehab and Denton decides to turnover half the staff, he'll be carrying a soggy cardboard box of bitterness onto the F Train, praying that HitFix is hiring.

Good luck to you, Johnny, if you're still reading this. Because we both know you're stuck in a blogging Bataan death march, and every post about Newt Gingrich getting groomed by his wife in front of a live camera sucks out a little bit more of your soul. Someday the merry-go-round will stop, and what then will you have left, besides a bunch of twee sweaters, Neutral Milk Hotel downloads, and infinite, crushing sadness?

 

That will leave a fucking mark.

 

It's more observational than nasty, right?

 

No, that was nasty.

And well-said, and well deserved.

 

Holy fuck. That's a fucking post.

 

Just asking, because I am so sick of giving Gawker more attention:

Any thoughts on what Jones wrote in that blog?

 

"Making a male climax isn't at all challenging. Insert somewhere close, preferably moist. Thrust. Repeat."