Gawker's coming back!

So?

It’ll be even more woke and insufferable than it was when it died.

If the old-school original Gawker came back, I might take a gander.

Yeah, hopefully they won't rehire any of the writers and editors that ran it into the ground. And definitely no one from Jezebel!

Also, what the hell are the two creatures in this photo? :-o

Gawker could be fun but it was gross towards the end - they outted a married exec at Conde Nast. He wasn't a public figure or some outspoken homophobe. Rich Juzwiak comes across as an asshole too

All of the best writers left Gawker before it died. Max Read was the editor that ran the Conde Nast piece based on the ramblings from a nutjob Texas hooker. The nonsense that occurred under his tenure was the worst, most insufferable "smelling our own farts and thinking they're lilacs" behavior. The writers by that time - the good ones having mostly left long before - were all spoiled trust fund entitled Millennials. The editor that ended up finishing off Gawker, however, was the one that ran the Hulk Hogan story, A.J. Daulerio.

Gawker was fucking hilarious when they were going after media scumbags like Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, etc. But they devolved into sanctimonious creeps.

R2 The person on the left is Daniel Lavery, nee Mallory Ortberg. They write the dear Prudence column, famous for attracting ESTs.

They're both very... matronly.

R1 must be Peter Thiel.

I guess dishing the dirt on people who deserve it is "woke"

[quote] The editor that ended up finishing off Gawker, however, was the one that ran the Hulk Hogan story, A.J. Daulerio.

And that's ironic because Daulerio was hilarious as editor of Deadspin and as a writer at Gawker. They really lost their way.

The time under Daulerio was Gawker before it began its decline. I don't remember who ran the stories that pissed off Peter Thiel in the first place.

So bizarre how they essentially committed suicide over the Hogan sex tape. What a bunch of dummies, why ruin your website for something no one had any interest in anyways.

r11 it was Peter Thiel who used Hogan to try to take Gawker down, because he was pissed they had outed him (or something, he's a horrible creep).

Gross. Leah Finnegan is a name I remembered, because she was one of the most insufferable ones. She got in a shouting match with Denton over the removal of the disgusting Conde Nast story.

Finnegan is also the one who made a "name" for herself mocking celebrity baby names. When Denton told her naming a post "Zoe Salanda Gives Birth to Hipster Scum" was too much, Finnegan responded, "I never regret speaking my truth and criticizing a poor celebrity naming choice, Nick."

"Speaking (her) truth"...about celebrity baby names. She's a nutcase.

It was a single woman writer who really put Gawker on the map. I forget her name. She penned all that delicous early snark. She really established the playful 'up-yours!' tone of the site. She resigned and was replaced by Choire Sicha. He was also good, but not as good as her. Both sadly haven't made a dent since. After he left, no one was any good.

Elizabeth Spiers

Sicha is the editor of the NYT Styles section and has brought on many ex-Gawker writers.

Elizabeth Spiers! That's it! What happened to her?

[quote] They're both very... matronly.

The person on the right is Ortberg’s spouse Grace Lavery, formerly Joe. English professor at Berkeley, but currently on sabbatical.

WHET Nick Denton? He married that hot guy, seemed to live the high life - then it all went belly up. Seemed to disappear. Hopefully he saved some money.

I love Richard Lawson. I wish VF would use him more.

I don't care as long as they don't hire Emily Gould or Julia Allison or whichever talent-free asshole it was they both fucked.

r18, she founded something called The Insurrection:

I've had sufficient.

I am not ashamed to admit that I was embarrassingly proud when Richard Lawson ungreyed me.

Richard Lawson is hilarious, altho has turned oddly bitter now that he's got a boyfriend.

If Leah is one of the insufferable ones then the new Gawker will be just like the old Gawker, right before it was shut down. That means it will suck.

Those were the glory days, at Gawker. With me, I wrote the best stories, remember? Everyone loved me. ME. ME. ME.

I liked Richard Lawson’s recaps of the Real Housewives and that other show about the kids on the UES. “Rags McTattershanty” was my favorite takeaway.

I think it was lightning in a bottle, and the magic can’t be recaptured.

I feel that way about “Arrested Development”, Dlisted, Twinkies.

^^ Oh, and Spy Magazine.

R28, I loved that one too - but this is a really stupid idea. Some things are part of their era and there's no point in trying to revive them

They'd do just as well with a new launch of "Laugh-In".

Agree 100% with R29

Gawker was fun because Twitter wasn't a thing yet,

But as several of you have mentioned, they very quickly went from taking down major media types who already had enough money and fame for it to not matter, to taking down anyone who happened to wind up in their cross-hairs. It made them seem petty and nasty and pretty much evil, like the pigs in Animal House.

I suspect that they will wind up getting "cancelled" very quickly. In all senses of the word.

Gawker was just like SNL skits. The articles went on WAY too long. Sure, there was some great snark, but I guess these guys got paid for every word they wrote. And boy, did they like to write and write.

I only want Gawker back if they can be honest about trans lunacy. I don't want people like Jude Doyle or Harron Walker and their ilk.

I would read it if they bring Gawker Stalker back.

Caity Weaver was always great fun to read.

R28 I loved Richard's take on the Baroness.

R34 they will be required to have at least three trans or nonbinaries on staff

Finally! It's here!

This might be good. So far I haven’t seen any overt wokeness or lectures. When I have more time, I’ll dip more than a toe in.

Pleasepleaseplease don’t suck, New Gawker.

Can I resume using my old account to comment?

I'm just going to use it to talk about all the dick I get and how everyone wants to fuck me.

The site design sucks, but that’s just my opinion.

OMG!! REJOICE!!!!!!! THIS IS AMAZING.

I agree that the design takes away from the headlines. It’s just distracting really. Odd choice.

I hate the design. It's unpleasant to navigate.

Also, the articles and overall vibe is too "girly" for my taste.

Oh, great Allie Jones is back.

I guess we can get the remaining 500 Days of Kristen.

I actually like the design - it's retro but also the headlines are less like Buzzfeed and more interesting.

Glad they aren't just following the trends.

We need more media in the U.S. everything has been shrunk to 5 top stories and that is all that gets covered for the day.

We need variety. Citizen journalism. A return to basics; The 5 W’s

YASSSSS!! Honey YASSSSS!

Ohhhh, I already spot a treasure : WERE YOU A PLEASURE TO HAVE IN CLASS?

I'm supportive that it's back, but I also hate that web design.

It’s giving me Spy Magazine vibes. I don’t want to be disappointed.

I really like that it’s back. Gawker brought a lot of accountability to media figures, which has been missing since it went away

Will they discuss hedge funds? Who owns bumble?

R52 I'm guessing you don't have a Twitter account.

The web design is very "Swanky 2008 Blog." I'm sure they did it on purpose but I don't think we're far enough out from the blog years for them to be retro/nostalgic yet.

Keeping my eye out for self-righteous scolding articles that has gotten way too frequent on Gawker before it was shut down.

I'm not sure Gawker was really "bringing accountability" to anyone; it started as a gossip site about the NYC publishing industry written by 20/30-something those who couldn't land cushy jobs in said industry but so desperately wanted the money and social opportunities such jobs provided. If you were also a striver in the art/media worlds of Manhattan at the same time (mid-to-late 2000s), before Facebook expanded beyond select college campuses, then Gawker's snarky irreverence was entertaining. But of course to become profitable the site could not remain an insidery gossip blog forever, and once coverage went from local to national Gawker became indistinct from any other collection of disaffected assholes on the internet. Moreover, the halcyon days of André Leon Talley-sized expense accounts and mediocre writers like Elle's E. Jean Carroll making six figures for dashing off a dumb column once a month, the initial objects of Gawker's satire/jealousy, are long gone. The NYT weddings section, for example, doesn't have the same kind of cachet it once did since now everybody and their ugly lesbian aunt is given an extensive "Vows" column, so making fun of it (as Gawker did with the weekly "Altarcations" feature) now falls flat. The entire snarky tenor of the original site's humor is now forbidden in public discourse because everybody has to be positive and supportive or fear the wrath of social media sanctimony.

What is gawker?

I was really excited at the news, but the layout of the new site and the article titles really makes it look like they're resurrecting MAD Magazine, not Gawker.

Ok I’m back and I want to correct my previous criticism upthread about the layout.

After you use it for a while, it’s actually pretty slick and intuitive. It takes a minute though.

I really hope they do some groundbreaking stuff, albeit responsibly. It can be done.

I would love to see them go balls out and go after the big guns and their shenanigans.

Some possible topics:

Silicon Valley

The crazy Republican wackos

PETER THEIL!

yasss

20/30 year olds are very different today. The pool for writers is not there.

Maybe they can hire a serious journalist like Perez Hilton to doodle jizz on all the pictures.

No way PH is hideous and is uncomfortable to look at. His face is just so horrifying and the evil just oozes out of him. Can’t stand to even be on the same internet as that nasty creature.

Fuck, YEAH!!!!

A lot of the writers they hired are slightly left of woke twitter women and a couple of gay "comedians." This is gonna be total shit, my god.

I loved gawker so much in its early days. It felt relevant and honest in its snark and it was refreshing to see ‘powerful’ people taken down. The internet now is far too easily manipulated by pr and other interested parties. There won’t ever be a real new gawker because there isn’t any money in anything besides bootlicking these days.

That unnecessary’letter from the editor’ in this new version is just overwritten, pretentious, and smug. I’m disappointed. Bustle has always sucked so I suppose it’s no surprise that this does too.

Very good news!

I met my dream man on gawker meet

gawker also quoted me a couple times from the DL

Thank fucking god.

Is Tracie Morrissey going to write for the new Gawker? I'd like to get hyped up as I loved early Gawker, but I fear it will be "Gawker" in name only w/o the snarky fun.

Gawker?

How… quaint.

[quote] The internet now is far too easily manipulated by pr and other interested parties.

r68, I 100% agree. Even early TMZ was fun (but not as fun as Gawker). Then it all became coopted by pr agencies and sponsors. The early writers at Gawker were so funny and really quite daring. The later stuff was shrill and unfocused. Jezebel was always insufferable, except for the times when Daulerio guest-edited. He was still at Deadspin at that point.

Today the only thing that's in the ballpark is the Daily Mail, which is ironic because it's basically a mouthpiece for pr and advertising. However, they do know how to do tongue in cheek humor, and that is why they are reposted here so often.

R73 I used to read One D at a Time. Tracie did not hold back any details, that is for certain

If they stick to criticism of elite media, politicians and corporate CEO types, new gawker might be useful. But if they regress back to attacking random people with no real influence or power then they are no better than YouTube or Twitter. We'll see.

If they quote the DL they are DIVINE

“74%, of the cases occurred in fully vaccinated people who had completed a two-dose course of the mRNA vaccines or received a single shot of Johnson & Johnson's.”

I wonder how many were J&J

“Overall, 274 vaccinated patients with a breakthrough infection were symptomatic, according to the CDC. The most common side effects were cough, headache, sore throat, muscle pain and fever. Among five Covid patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated, according to the agency. No deaths were reported.”

Some of the posts are interesting but dealing with the format is hard work.

Gawker is coming back and patients are getting sore throats

Now the formatting seems to have reversed?

Are new stories at the top or bottom?

tops will get sore throats, bottoms will get gawker

Well?

Well, well, well!

Does anyone remember that Rich Z. column that was basically about his crush/obsession with his straight roommate/editor dudebro AJ - it was so pathetic that many commenters thought it was bad satire and Nick Denton even showed up in the comments wondering WTF was going on. It actually made me feel sorry for him and shed new light on his constant need to humblebrag about his sex life. Is he still writing the same tales over and over again Jez?

WTF indeed

I hate, hate, hate the format. I can't see a way to see the posts in chronological order beyond the six in the "The Latest" section. Very difficult to see what is a new post and what is an old one. What a mess.

time to slap some faces

Gawker is never coming back. You need only glance passingly at the current site to see that. The “writing” is terrible. Their sister sites like Inverse are embarrassing, amateurish, and unreadable.

Maybe Choire Sicha can emerge from his firing and exile from the Times and try to restart it. Lol.

Sicha landed at New York Magazine shortly after departing the NYT.

No comments? I lost 85% of my interest right there.

I lost all interest after the new release

I just know it's only a matter of time until they start forcing trans nonsense down our throats. I wonder if Rich J. likes trans man pussy? Just kidding, he'd die before he got with a female.

Maybe nu Gawker can hire some hot AGPs to bring what Tracie Egan Morrissey used to do.

So the content is probably much the same as before (though I find the ratio of glib cutesyness vs incisive snark in Gawker 2.0 to be a bit off so far), but I think the layout is just an absolute disaster.

Gawker has always been a bit obtuse in their headlines, but at least with the old blog style format, you could glance at the first few lines of each post and quickly pick up what the article was actually about before. Now I feel like I have to spend the first paragraph or two figuring out whether the subject interests me, and by then I’ve nearly read the whole thing. And the lack of commentariat could just be the death blow

I want Tumblr back.

New York magazine has been dead for years R92.

New York magazine is a very well-respected magazine.

New York magazine's various verticals get incredible amounts of web traffic.

r98, my point was only that he has a job, so he isn't desperate enough to come crawling back to Gawker like r91 suggested. It had nothing to do with the merits of New York Magazine (which, love or hate, I have to believe is significantly more prestigious than Gawker 2.0.)

Ok, I checked it out. Won't go back. Articles, even the headlines, are too snarky for my taste. That snark shows a certain arrogance that is unwarranted. The whole approach is pretty much: 'This is why we look down on other people.' Datalounge has its share of snarky negative bitches. But here at least this is compensated by others who stay positive and constructive. And even the bitches here are at least funny. Gawker is just acid, no other flavor. Don't need this right now. Wishing them well in their future endeavors.

You never step into the same river require. Dent needs to do something different. I liked him. I liked Gawker. It's fall is the main reason I am here.

How many have checked it out yet?