Why Is Gawker So Mean?
They're just jealous, is all. That's the thesis of the widely undigested New York article on Gawker by Vanessa Grigoriadis. Of the small number of substantive mainstream pieces about Gawker, Grigoriadis's comes closest to attempting something interesting. But in the end -- or really, by the first section break -- it's hobbled by the need to make anyone care about Gawker who isn't already invested in Gawker, emotionally and/or professionally. The thesis about Gawker serving as an outlet for "the anxiety and class rage of New York's creative underclass" is backburnered in order to bring up scads of background, then resurrected as a convenient (and mostly visual) metaphor ... angry mobs gathered around allegorical "tumbrels" are mentioned twice, as a way to describe Gawker's audience and commenter population. To viciously paraphrase, Gawker and its readers and commenters just want to have fun tearing down successful or prominent journalists, celebrities, socialites, et cetera, because such people don't deserve public approbation or even anonymity if they do something stupid. From there, Grigoriadis can't help widening her scope and widening it again and again and again, until we're viewing the vista of Modern Success through the prism of Gawker and vice versa. This landscape of topicality has led to many who otherwise might really dig (or dig into) the Gawker article finding themselves unmoved about its generalities. I can sympathize, as it's very tempting when writing about Gawker to write about what Gawker means, man. I can barely restrain myself from going there, even when just writing about an article about Gawker. But instead of considering what Gawker means, I'd rather dwell on something which has always seemed obvious to me, even though it's trotted out all the time as an imponderable: why Gawker is mean.
