Gawker Is Dead-ish
I admire Carla Blumenkranz's long essay about Gawker in n+1 for attempting to summarize the website's history and predict its future. Or rather Gawker's lack of a future, as it's clear from the title alone ("Gawker 2002-2007") that the essay is meant as a funeral speech. I like this one more than I liked the New York article on Gawker, which admittedly had different goals. What I chiefly admire is Blumenkranz's ability to keep her knives sheathed for at least two thirds of the essay -- a thoughtful recounting of Gawker's progress from Elizabeth Spiers through Chorie Sicha's first stint to the beginning of Jessica Coen's tenure. You know the knives are there, of course, and they are gonna come out, but it's still an unhurried read almost free of judgment. There's some good meat here, as no one (that I know of) has troubled to really plumb the Gawker archives with this kind of eye. But then the knives are drawn, and the judgment must be rendered, and the focus goes soft, scratchy, and self-righteous.
As an aside, I was particularly irked that an otherwise careful history simply elides large details inconvenient or incongruous to Blumenkranz's aims. For my part, I'm perfectly accustomed to having my six-month tenure at Gawker overlooked. I believe everybody's more comfortable that way, right friends? But what about Jesse Oxfeld, who is mentioned (though not named) only when he's fired? Completely missing is Alex Balk, who I'd argue had at least as prominent an editorial role (and as devoted a following) as Emily Gould. Oxfeld and Balk are interesting pieces of this puzzle, but they're apparently not part of the puzzle Blumenkranz wants to assemble.
As with Vanessa Grigoriadis' article in New York, I'm most disheartened when an intriguing point is brought up and tossed aside without exploration. Blumenkranz criticizes Gawker's practice of gunning for little people with tenuous or nonexistent celebrity, starting around Coen's time. One could say a lot about that, but it gets folded into attacking entities "without much security or influence," like the New York Press. It's a stretch, though not an inconceivable one, to make me feel bad about laughing at a poor schmuck who gets his dating profile mocked round the world. But don't ask me to feel sorry for a newspaper. Either way, these cases are brought up with little explanation as to why they're particularly significant or telling -- obviously, as a good person with correctly calibrated distastes, you already know why, and Blumenkranz shouldn't have to justify these illustrations.
The most eye-rolling part of the essay is unfortunately its conclusion, which goes in an unnecessary and irrelevant direction. A few paragraphs of bush-league media business analysis -- largely unconnected to everything that has gone before -- attempt to make the point that Gawker's success has turned it into another burgeoning media corporation, just like its targets. This non-revelation mailed to the present from circa 2004 is held forth as the reason why Gawker no longer has the scrappy outsider cred nor the socio-economic freedom to comment acidly from the media sidelines. Now, the evolution of Gawker's relationship with the business it covers could make for an entirely fascinating other essay, but it's not this one.
Blumenkranz seems to peg the death of Gawker's legitimate sensibilities to the first departure of Sicha and the arrival of Coen. Her essay's conclusion attempts to yoke this demise (or its 2007 death rattle) both to the meanness factor and Gawker's financial success, though the actual connections are left undescribed. "You could say that as Gawker Media grew, from Gawker’s success, Gawker outlived the conditions for its existence." You certainly could say that, but what does that really mean? Who ever thought Gawker (or Gawker Media) was ever anything other than what it is now? Insisting that you can only pick on someone larger yourself -- in stature or cash -- isn't true, though it's the kind of thing that motivates a highbrow culture journal to write about Gawker. If only n+1 was funny.
