One of the weird strengths of the Gawker media empire, and the flagship site in particular, is that its writers and editors spend all day showcasing strong opinions about people that they don’t currently, and probably never will, know. Whether that is — as someone once told founder Nick Denton — a case of “losers talking about winners,” or, whether it is actually a rare example of outsider perspective undiluted by brand loyalty, archaic journalistic notions, or future job aspirations, it represents a larger trend. This perspective, while no longer unique in the blogosphere, is something that Gawker does best. And it’s why Ben McGrath’s New Yorker profile of Denton this week turns particularly strange and interesting when those writers and editors turn their sights on Denton himself — someone that they do know all too well. In one lengthy section of his piece, McGrath just lets these critics-of-life criticize the very man who gave them their voices.
The whole profile is worth a read, though as usual it will take you a while. But this section is particularly telling, because it uses the mythological (and occasionally humorously made-up) viewpoint and tone these writers and editors have developed to speak about the titans of pop culture to describe a guy who sits at a computer just down the table from them. Witness:
McGrath points out that “given the thin margins of online publishing, Denton’s cultural impact greatly exceeds his revenues, which are somewhere on the order of fifteen to twenty million dollars a year.” And yet here his personality’s given that exact outsize treatment. Is there any person out there who is actually like a character out of Dr. Seuss? Or have websites like Gawker just tricked us into believing so? If that’s the case, perhaps Denton is getting the precise coverage he’s hoping for. (Not that he’ll read it: “It’s like watching yourself on video,” he told us today of reading profiles about him. “And I don’t really mind playing tabloid monster. I always liked those characters in the old movies.”)
Search and Destroy [NYer]
Earlier: The Demon Blogger of Fleet Street [NYM]
