None of us can effectively audit criticism of ourselves, for obvious reasons. But there is one complaint about me that I know just isn’t true. At some point in the 2010s, when I was in grad school, it became the fashion for people coming after me to call me the “eternal grad student” or something. This was the insult, that I had been a grad student forever and would apparently be a grad student forever. I believe this originated in the comments section of the Bush-era group blog Lawyers, Money, and Guns, but who knows. There was just one problem: I in fact tore through grad school at a fast pace. I completed my MA at the University of Rhode Island in two years and my PhD at Purdue in four years. Six years total. The average time to get a PhD
Remind me again why I care what these humans think?
Anyway, my beef with Bari Weiss is that she was all in favor of cancel culture when she was dishing it out. When it came her turn to be on the receiving end, she decided that she didn't like it so much, Free Speech Is Important and so on and so forth.
I have never seriously considered being a journo, But If I Had-
I would have liked to be one of those weirdos who just travels to a hotspot on spec, strolls around the disaster area/war zone/Calm Before the Storm, talks to local bureaucrats and refugees and politicians and militiamen, and just generally get a sense of what the fuck is going on right there and then. Then take that raw material, do a little deep dive down the Wikipedia hole to learn some local history to put this shitshow in context, wrap it all up in a piece, and strain it through a couple rewrites, and sell it to an editor somewhere.
(I expect I would suck at this the first half dozen times, but possibly improve with practice. Also in this scenario I’d have the funds to travel for weeks at a time on spec.)
At no point did it ever occur to me that I could be a journo by passing out hot takes on Twitter and churning out random BS for the content mill for some shitty website.
The whole dynamic reminds me a little bit of how Gamergaters came to be. These were nerds who were bullied by jocks back in high school for their lifestyles and tastes, but then time passes, superheroes and other nerd stuff becomes popular, they end up on top and turn into the same style of bullies who once bullied them.
Same thing with these media types. Unpopular and bullied in school, but time passes, social justice politics become popular, they ride the wave, and sure enough, they become the same Mean Girls who once bullied them.
Lately when I read your articles about writing I think about a meme I saw once. It's a drawing Gregor Samsa, on his back in bed, saying 'well THAT happened' and it sort of sums up the whole media establishment as you describe them.
The “eternal grad student” thing reminds me of Mike Birbiglia’s story about being T-boned by a drunk driver but — thanks to a bad police report — having to pay to fix the drunk’s car. Sometimes you do indeed have to take the L, even when you’re right. It’s kind of a silly world that way.
In much the same way, I actually think the underemployed blogger is right that Williams would have a hard time proving reputational harm from a story about him attending a movie, EVEN THOUGH it’s quite obvious to everyone that the whole point of the Gawker piece was to damage his reputation. I think Williams just had to live with it, even though he’s in the right.
(Obviously, also don’t take legal advice from an anonymous fence repairman in Substack comments. But that’s my guess.)
I've always been kind of fascinated by just how huge of losers much of the old Deadspin/Gawker crew turned out to be. I started noticing when some of the old barstool hit pieces were objectively written in bad faith (regardless of your opinion on barstool). Freddie does a really good job of analyzing what's at the core of these smug personalities: part jealousy, part fear of not fitting in, part cynicism working in a dying industry. Just a tremendously unlikable crew.
Stuff like this makes the "is twitter real life" dialogue more impossible to solve, in my view. On the one hand, Twitter isn't real life because nothing new Gawker or its toadies do can materially harm Williams or win any serious debate. On the other hand, Twitter seems to be a substitute for real life, in the sense that it's impossible to imagine a website allowing such a fundamental error to still exist on their page for so long unless they were convinced their Twitter hive was going to stick up for them. Twitter seems powerless but also weirdly transformative in the way writers think about their roles.
"Most writers are insecure people who grew up without being especially popular, and most people in the industry get into it at least in some part because it presents them with a new popularity hierarchy in which (they imagine) they will be one of the cool ones. And the easiest way to become an insider is through being especially vicious towards outsiders; media relationships are defined by shared hatred."
There's a writer I hate-follow (I'm not too proud to admit it), and watching him struggle with this as a cis white man has been fascinating. There is a constant vacillation between viciousness and simpering, like a dog that growls at strangers but immediately shows its belly to the rest of its pack. He's so socially graceless I keep imagining things will blow up in his face, but so far he's stayed fairly ingratiated with enough of the right people to go unbothered.
Ironically enough, his subtweet of FdB as "that grad school student now doing political commentary" was what got me to seek out Freddie in the first place, after piecing together who my hate-follow was referring to
On the internet, when people like you, you can do no wrong. When people don't like you, you can do no right.
I am sometimes tempted to get in my feelings about the ethics of the internet, but then I remember that the internet has no ethics. It is one big gesticulating, self-fellating, hyper-anxious hive mind where sad people go to make themselves sadder. And Gawker DNA is a big part of the reason why this is the case.
There may have been a point in time when the media industry was so bloated and self-serious that it deserved Gawker, but today the media industry is Gawker. So what now? I guess we will find out. The only thing I know is that whatever is coming, we absolutely deserve it.
Not defending Gawker, but I don’t think the author of the article confused TCW with another Black man. I just think she saw Anna K’s Instagram story, which had some pictures from the premiere, and then a random picture thrown in of TCW wearing a Red Scare shirt at a different occasion. Definitely lazy reporting, to be clear..
I am pleased to be able to say honestly that I never read the old Gawker and didn't even know (unless I read it somewhere and immediately forgot) that there was a new one.
The thing about all these media in-crowd clowns is that for all their constant blather they don't seem to accomplish much and have no real power beyond (maybe) some influence over who can get hired in their segment of the media. They can mock you, Bari Weiss, and Glenn Greenwald all day, but it doesn't seem to do any of you any harm.
Remind me again why I care what these humans think?
Anyway, my beef with Bari Weiss is that she was all in favor of cancel culture when she was dishing it out. When it came her turn to be on the receiving end, she decided that she didn't like it so much, Free Speech Is Important and so on and so forth.
I have never seriously considered being a journo, But If I Had-
I would have liked to be one of those weirdos who just travels to a hotspot on spec, strolls around the disaster area/war zone/Calm Before the Storm, talks to local bureaucrats and refugees and politicians and militiamen, and just generally get a sense of what the fuck is going on right there and then. Then take that raw material, do a little deep dive down the Wikipedia hole to learn some local history to put this shitshow in context, wrap it all up in a piece, and strain it through a couple rewrites, and sell it to an editor somewhere.
(I expect I would suck at this the first half dozen times, but possibly improve with practice. Also in this scenario I’d have the funds to travel for weeks at a time on spec.)
At no point did it ever occur to me that I could be a journo by passing out hot takes on Twitter and churning out random BS for the content mill for some shitty website.
The whole dynamic reminds me a little bit of how Gamergaters came to be. These were nerds who were bullied by jocks back in high school for their lifestyles and tastes, but then time passes, superheroes and other nerd stuff becomes popular, they end up on top and turn into the same style of bullies who once bullied them.
Same thing with these media types. Unpopular and bullied in school, but time passes, social justice politics become popular, they ride the wave, and sure enough, they become the same Mean Girls who once bullied them.
It's a depressing human cycle, isn't it?
Lately when I read your articles about writing I think about a meme I saw once. It's a drawing Gregor Samsa, on his back in bed, saying 'well THAT happened' and it sort of sums up the whole media establishment as you describe them.
https://i.imgur.com/Q8fhO0O.png
found it. How long is this article? Not 1000 words
The “eternal grad student” thing reminds me of Mike Birbiglia’s story about being T-boned by a drunk driver but — thanks to a bad police report — having to pay to fix the drunk’s car. Sometimes you do indeed have to take the L, even when you’re right. It’s kind of a silly world that way.
In much the same way, I actually think the underemployed blogger is right that Williams would have a hard time proving reputational harm from a story about him attending a movie, EVEN THOUGH it’s quite obvious to everyone that the whole point of the Gawker piece was to damage his reputation. I think Williams just had to live with it, even though he’s in the right.
(Obviously, also don’t take legal advice from an anonymous fence repairman in Substack comments. But that’s my guess.)
I've always been kind of fascinated by just how huge of losers much of the old Deadspin/Gawker crew turned out to be. I started noticing when some of the old barstool hit pieces were objectively written in bad faith (regardless of your opinion on barstool). Freddie does a really good job of analyzing what's at the core of these smug personalities: part jealousy, part fear of not fitting in, part cynicism working in a dying industry. Just a tremendously unlikable crew.
Stuff like this makes the "is twitter real life" dialogue more impossible to solve, in my view. On the one hand, Twitter isn't real life because nothing new Gawker or its toadies do can materially harm Williams or win any serious debate. On the other hand, Twitter seems to be a substitute for real life, in the sense that it's impossible to imagine a website allowing such a fundamental error to still exist on their page for so long unless they were convinced their Twitter hive was going to stick up for them. Twitter seems powerless but also weirdly transformative in the way writers think about their roles.
Comments are back! Awesome!
Hey, Freddie-- How’s your shoulder doing?
"Most writers are insecure people who grew up without being especially popular, and most people in the industry get into it at least in some part because it presents them with a new popularity hierarchy in which (they imagine) they will be one of the cool ones. And the easiest way to become an insider is through being especially vicious towards outsiders; media relationships are defined by shared hatred."
There's a writer I hate-follow (I'm not too proud to admit it), and watching him struggle with this as a cis white man has been fascinating. There is a constant vacillation between viciousness and simpering, like a dog that growls at strangers but immediately shows its belly to the rest of its pack. He's so socially graceless I keep imagining things will blow up in his face, but so far he's stayed fairly ingratiated with enough of the right people to go unbothered.
Ironically enough, his subtweet of FdB as "that grad school student now doing political commentary" was what got me to seek out Freddie in the first place, after piecing together who my hate-follow was referring to
On the internet, when people like you, you can do no wrong. When people don't like you, you can do no right.
I am sometimes tempted to get in my feelings about the ethics of the internet, but then I remember that the internet has no ethics. It is one big gesticulating, self-fellating, hyper-anxious hive mind where sad people go to make themselves sadder. And Gawker DNA is a big part of the reason why this is the case.
There may have been a point in time when the media industry was so bloated and self-serious that it deserved Gawker, but today the media industry is Gawker. So what now? I guess we will find out. The only thing I know is that whatever is coming, we absolutely deserve it.
“A lie travels around the world before the truth gets to the door.”
Sadly, I do not recall the attribution… but accurate nonetheless!
Tillman
Not defending Gawker, but I don’t think the author of the article confused TCW with another Black man. I just think she saw Anna K’s Instagram story, which had some pictures from the premiere, and then a random picture thrown in of TCW wearing a Red Scare shirt at a different occasion. Definitely lazy reporting, to be clear..
If I don’t feel guilty and ashamed every day of my life does that mean I need to take an L, or go see a psychologist?
I am pleased to be able to say honestly that I never read the old Gawker and didn't even know (unless I read it somewhere and immediately forgot) that there was a new one.
The thing about all these media in-crowd clowns is that for all their constant blather they don't seem to accomplish much and have no real power beyond (maybe) some influence over who can get hired in their segment of the media. They can mock you, Bari Weiss, and Glenn Greenwald all day, but it doesn't seem to do any of you any harm.