You guys can't continuously expand the definition of "racist" and also expect people to continue to take it just as seriously. The term "idiot" used to be a clinical term for profound intellectual disability; now it refers to someone who someone who lost track of their car keys.
Ya know, I think my default method of consuming Internet: "Be Real Late To The Party, But Not Like, Boomer Late" might be worth a whole self help empire.
For instance, I still recall talking to a fellow intern at an engineering school in 2004 about this hot shit website called Facebook I had to get on cause only a few schools could be on it and my nerd school was. That kid sucked, his description seemed lame, so I didn't bother. Around 2006 I'm at a warehouse party and I express amazement at how they pulled it all together so quick and they're like "we just told people on facebook". I hop on, its pretty good for that stated purpose but already the cracks are beginning to show and by 2008 I delete the account, to which I credit not letting myself have been on long enough that this weird sunk cost fallacy (Delete your twitter. Jesus fucking christ. I don't want to hear about the work you put in it or your followers. If your lifes magnum opus is a webpage on a nazi forum no one uses, you can feel free to nuke it) that stymies everyone else could sink in.
The next 18 years have been nonstop stories, increasingly deranged, from people who didn't get off it. Oh, you can't see your friends posts, the whole reason you got on it? So what keeps you there? They run a shitty Craigslist clone? So what there's no scams, its easy to find your stuff? Oh its HARDER, Scammier, AND they show you ads? Nice cool. Its also run by nazis who do Stanford Prison Experiments and are directly responsible for at least one genocide. I see why its so, so hard for you to hit delete.
Likewise people talked SO much shit about Gawker in the early days and I was like why the fuck would I care about some rich new york asshole who goes to parties professionally. More to the point, why would I care or even have an opinion about a website that makes fun of them? And now, afterwards, a sizeable number of people still seem to think its that 2010 toxic swamp of weird gossip.
Meanwhile I check it out around 2014-15 (the "On Smarm" era) when it and its constellation are about the only place writers can actually discuss reality as it is without the Journalistic Remove Style. Jezebel, Deadspin, Gawker, hell even Jalopnik all had good social commentary. And, AND most importantly I was in too late to ever want to get involved with commenting. There were the power users that I would never get as prominent as, there was the weird toxic soup of cranks, boomer commenters, and drive by racists, in the greys I'd have to talk to if I even wanted to try, and I just stayed out of it. Got all the good and none of the bad.
Show up late, if its any good it'll be there in a couple years, get in on the peak and fucking bail when it gets lame. Take none of it personally.
Also, never, EVER get attached to a fucking social media handle, jesus fucking christ.
I think about this a lot in the context of podcasts becoming video experiences where guests can call in, alongside the patreon-ification (and also, eek, substack) model of paying more for more opportunities to communicate with the podcasters, writers, etc… I really miss the distanced model (I write while commenting)!
i was going to guess Richard Grenell and/or Kash Patel
Also lol that she decries the "woke monoculture" that caused her to leave the site almost 10 years after she started sockpuppeting on Gawker, apparently because of her dumbass wedding (why would she be remotely notable or important enough for Gawker to even talk about her then?), which was a few years after Gawker was effectively shut down.
I was wondering this myself. This might be the peak of inventing a guy to get mad at.
I've got to do all this insane shit in case this website that covers prominent new yorker socialites decides to make fun of me, one of New Yorks 2 million interchangeable lawyers.
Ten year personal transformation from saying “don’t read the comments” under most cleveland dot com articles, to “don’t read the news” (I fail(ed) at both)
"Your voice is (literally) suppressed, made subordinate, often hidden; your intelligence and expertise receives a fraction of the attention of the glib P.M.C. blogger you’re responding to, whose attention and approval you both scorn and desire."
I always thought it was rather ironic, back when Twitter was leftist, to hear its leading lights moaning about "inequality" while they were at the top of the heap on one of the most unequal platforms imaginable (in terms of influence/follower count)
"I thought if I can just have four Gawker accounts and sock puppet the thread and say good things about myself, then I don’t have to be afraid to get married because people, even if they bash me in public, I’ll be able to speak back."
This simultaneously makes me feel AGED, and also illuminates a lot of what feels ick and familiar about everything these days. I remember being SOOO proud to be an approved Gawker commenter, vaguely remember the comment that did it (some stupid joke that definitely involved referencing CAKE lyrics, omg, that shows how bad it was). Anyway I'd probably have 12 PhDs if DSL internet hadn't come to the dorms when I was in undergrad. But thank you, as usual, for illuminating things we kind of vaguely know and naming them. Also, PS, there's a certain kind of posturing on substack (NOT HERE OF COURSE) that feels very much That Era- this restaurant, that spot, these people, I know, you don't, money, blah.
The commenter resentment parallell to Trumpist politics is dead on. That bit about commenters simultaneously scorning and desiring blogger approval maps perfectly onto populist grievance structures. Rogers creating sock puppet accounts to defend herself from hypthetical criticism tracks with how current admin handles dissent. The peasants incident showing commenter paranoia about their position is basically a microcosm of status anxiety politics.
I never thought much of the Gawker commentariat (nor was I ever a member of it). It was pretty dull compared to, say, the Wonkette commentariat.* Certain Gawker posts (e.g., Ken Layne's "Hatetriot's day") struck me as outright trolling of the commenters, to, yes, darkly hilarious effect - the self-righteous dullards were comically incensed. So yeah, I can readily believe the current American regime includes some ex-Gawker commenters, in particular ones so stupidly obnoxious that they got banned.
"I think just as important to the actual silencing in the self-conception of many Trump ghouls is the sense that some other, less deserving voice was being heard or elevated.": They're stupid, nasty people who've never been willing to admit it or try to become less stupid** or less nasty. In other words, they're committed twits.
"that my wedding announcement and my husband and my family and myself were all going to be dissected by these malicious internet commenters.": I can't quite express how pathetic it is that she even cared what a bunch of yahoos on the web said about her, especially given her evident ambition to become a public figure. In that sense, she definitely resembles the man whose ass she now kisses for a living: like him, she's ridiculously thin-skinned.
"what does 'not racist in the sense that is morally pejorative' mean?!": I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest maybe it means she didn't use the "N word", at least in public. Neither did my faux-genteel North Carolinian mother. Sure, she was racist as hell, but she didn't use the "N word" - only "white trash" did that. (She was also classist as hell.)
Okay, now for the main point ...
"to be a regular commenter anywhere is to constantly put yourself in a subject position all but guaranteed to develop the kind of resentment that powers Trumpist politics": Tongue-in-cheek there, presumably. But for "the record", why do I comment? In order from more to less important:
1. To postpone doing work I need to do, but it's boring or difficult. Commenting is amusing and easy.
2. To articulate and clarify my thoughts about the topic of a post. Some people keep journals for that purpose; I write comments on Read Max and a few other blogs.
3. To encourage bloggers to keep writing about things that interest me or, much less often, stop writing about things that don't interest me. (I'm well aware they may pay no attention to me. They're certainly under no obligation, even if I'm a paying subscriber. They're free to keep writing about whatever they want, and I'm free to stop reading if I don't like it - it's The Marketplace of Ideas!)
4. To encourage like-minded commenters or, once in a great while, kick some egregious troll, just for the fun of it. (I don't expect to change anyone's mind, especially a troll's what-passes-for-mind.)
So Max, if you happen to read this comment, know that at least some of us pipsqueaks aren't looking for affirmation or comradeship or anything of the sort, and we don't have delusions of ownership. We just like what you write and enjoy pitching in to the discussions it generates.
-------
*"Back in the day", that is; I seldom visit Wonkette anymore. Not that it's bad; it just doesn't have that gonzo edge it used to have.
**The motto of the late, lamented Awl for most of its existence was, "Be less stupid," which is good advice for everyone, because even the smartest of us are none too smart.
An interesting thing is that she was not so much a genuine commenter as some early practitioner of the "build credible accounts so you can use them for reputation management and to promote the narratives that suit you" tactic that everybody (a whole lot of movie stars and countries, at least) is now using on X, reddit and other social media.
That audience description is so professional and at least inspired by a media kit because my memory of the era is that a Type of media studies grad student was "Gawker commenter."
just making it known that I've got a full clip of sock puppets and one in the fucking chamber if read max ever talks shit about my wedding
You showed great restraint in only using one ?! after the “not racist in the sense that is morally pejorative” quote
You guys can't continuously expand the definition of "racist" and also expect people to continue to take it just as seriously. The term "idiot" used to be a clinical term for profound intellectual disability; now it refers to someone who someone who lost track of their car keys.
Ya know, I think my default method of consuming Internet: "Be Real Late To The Party, But Not Like, Boomer Late" might be worth a whole self help empire.
For instance, I still recall talking to a fellow intern at an engineering school in 2004 about this hot shit website called Facebook I had to get on cause only a few schools could be on it and my nerd school was. That kid sucked, his description seemed lame, so I didn't bother. Around 2006 I'm at a warehouse party and I express amazement at how they pulled it all together so quick and they're like "we just told people on facebook". I hop on, its pretty good for that stated purpose but already the cracks are beginning to show and by 2008 I delete the account, to which I credit not letting myself have been on long enough that this weird sunk cost fallacy (Delete your twitter. Jesus fucking christ. I don't want to hear about the work you put in it or your followers. If your lifes magnum opus is a webpage on a nazi forum no one uses, you can feel free to nuke it) that stymies everyone else could sink in.
The next 18 years have been nonstop stories, increasingly deranged, from people who didn't get off it. Oh, you can't see your friends posts, the whole reason you got on it? So what keeps you there? They run a shitty Craigslist clone? So what there's no scams, its easy to find your stuff? Oh its HARDER, Scammier, AND they show you ads? Nice cool. Its also run by nazis who do Stanford Prison Experiments and are directly responsible for at least one genocide. I see why its so, so hard for you to hit delete.
Likewise people talked SO much shit about Gawker in the early days and I was like why the fuck would I care about some rich new york asshole who goes to parties professionally. More to the point, why would I care or even have an opinion about a website that makes fun of them? And now, afterwards, a sizeable number of people still seem to think its that 2010 toxic swamp of weird gossip.
Meanwhile I check it out around 2014-15 (the "On Smarm" era) when it and its constellation are about the only place writers can actually discuss reality as it is without the Journalistic Remove Style. Jezebel, Deadspin, Gawker, hell even Jalopnik all had good social commentary. And, AND most importantly I was in too late to ever want to get involved with commenting. There were the power users that I would never get as prominent as, there was the weird toxic soup of cranks, boomer commenters, and drive by racists, in the greys I'd have to talk to if I even wanted to try, and I just stayed out of it. Got all the good and none of the bad.
Show up late, if its any good it'll be there in a couple years, get in on the peak and fucking bail when it gets lame. Take none of it personally.
Also, never, EVER get attached to a fucking social media handle, jesus fucking christ.
the pitfalls of taking it to kinja
Fuck Kinja then, now, and for all eternity!
I think about this a lot in the context of podcasts becoming video experiences where guests can call in, alongside the patreon-ification (and also, eek, substack) model of paying more for more opportunities to communicate with the podcasters, writers, etc… I really miss the distanced model (I write while commenting)!
i was going to guess Richard Grenell and/or Kash Patel
Also lol that she decries the "woke monoculture" that caused her to leave the site almost 10 years after she started sockpuppeting on Gawker, apparently because of her dumbass wedding (why would she be remotely notable or important enough for Gawker to even talk about her then?), which was a few years after Gawker was effectively shut down.
I was wondering this myself. This might be the peak of inventing a guy to get mad at.
I've got to do all this insane shit in case this website that covers prominent new yorker socialites decides to make fun of me, one of New Yorks 2 million interchangeable lawyers.
Speaks to the narcissism and delusion that are viewed as key competencies in this clown shoe admin
Kash Patel makes a lot of sense. I think he went to Pace Law School in the early aughts
“I’m not racist in the sense that is morally pejorative” is one of the most amazing statements I’ve ever heard made by anyone
Ten year personal transformation from saying “don’t read the comments” under most cleveland dot com articles, to “don’t read the news” (I fail(ed) at both)
Guess I'll become a commenter!
"Your voice is (literally) suppressed, made subordinate, often hidden; your intelligence and expertise receives a fraction of the attention of the glib P.M.C. blogger you’re responding to, whose attention and approval you both scorn and desire."
I always thought it was rather ironic, back when Twitter was leftist, to hear its leading lights moaning about "inequality" while they were at the top of the heap on one of the most unequal platforms imaginable (in terms of influence/follower count)
"I thought if I can just have four Gawker accounts and sock puppet the thread and say good things about myself, then I don’t have to be afraid to get married because people, even if they bash me in public, I’ll be able to speak back."
This is psychopathic.
This simultaneously makes me feel AGED, and also illuminates a lot of what feels ick and familiar about everything these days. I remember being SOOO proud to be an approved Gawker commenter, vaguely remember the comment that did it (some stupid joke that definitely involved referencing CAKE lyrics, omg, that shows how bad it was). Anyway I'd probably have 12 PhDs if DSL internet hadn't come to the dorms when I was in undergrad. But thank you, as usual, for illuminating things we kind of vaguely know and naming them. Also, PS, there's a certain kind of posturing on substack (NOT HERE OF COURSE) that feels very much That Era- this restaurant, that spot, these people, I know, you don't, money, blah.
The commenter resentment parallell to Trumpist politics is dead on. That bit about commenters simultaneously scorning and desiring blogger approval maps perfectly onto populist grievance structures. Rogers creating sock puppet accounts to defend herself from hypthetical criticism tracks with how current admin handles dissent. The peasants incident showing commenter paranoia about their position is basically a microcosm of status anxiety politics.
Darkly hilarious, as Read Max posts often are.
I never thought much of the Gawker commentariat (nor was I ever a member of it). It was pretty dull compared to, say, the Wonkette commentariat.* Certain Gawker posts (e.g., Ken Layne's "Hatetriot's day") struck me as outright trolling of the commenters, to, yes, darkly hilarious effect - the self-righteous dullards were comically incensed. So yeah, I can readily believe the current American regime includes some ex-Gawker commenters, in particular ones so stupidly obnoxious that they got banned.
"I think just as important to the actual silencing in the self-conception of many Trump ghouls is the sense that some other, less deserving voice was being heard or elevated.": They're stupid, nasty people who've never been willing to admit it or try to become less stupid** or less nasty. In other words, they're committed twits.
"that my wedding announcement and my husband and my family and myself were all going to be dissected by these malicious internet commenters.": I can't quite express how pathetic it is that she even cared what a bunch of yahoos on the web said about her, especially given her evident ambition to become a public figure. In that sense, she definitely resembles the man whose ass she now kisses for a living: like him, she's ridiculously thin-skinned.
"what does 'not racist in the sense that is morally pejorative' mean?!": I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest maybe it means she didn't use the "N word", at least in public. Neither did my faux-genteel North Carolinian mother. Sure, she was racist as hell, but she didn't use the "N word" - only "white trash" did that. (She was also classist as hell.)
Okay, now for the main point ...
"to be a regular commenter anywhere is to constantly put yourself in a subject position all but guaranteed to develop the kind of resentment that powers Trumpist politics": Tongue-in-cheek there, presumably. But for "the record", why do I comment? In order from more to less important:
1. To postpone doing work I need to do, but it's boring or difficult. Commenting is amusing and easy.
2. To articulate and clarify my thoughts about the topic of a post. Some people keep journals for that purpose; I write comments on Read Max and a few other blogs.
3. To encourage bloggers to keep writing about things that interest me or, much less often, stop writing about things that don't interest me. (I'm well aware they may pay no attention to me. They're certainly under no obligation, even if I'm a paying subscriber. They're free to keep writing about whatever they want, and I'm free to stop reading if I don't like it - it's The Marketplace of Ideas!)
4. To encourage like-minded commenters or, once in a great while, kick some egregious troll, just for the fun of it. (I don't expect to change anyone's mind, especially a troll's what-passes-for-mind.)
So Max, if you happen to read this comment, know that at least some of us pipsqueaks aren't looking for affirmation or comradeship or anything of the sort, and we don't have delusions of ownership. We just like what you write and enjoy pitching in to the discussions it generates.
-------
*"Back in the day", that is; I seldom visit Wonkette anymore. Not that it's bad; it just doesn't have that gonzo edge it used to have.
**The motto of the late, lamented Awl for most of its existence was, "Be less stupid," which is good advice for everyone, because even the smartest of us are none too smart.
An interesting thing is that she was not so much a genuine commenter as some early practitioner of the "build credible accounts so you can use them for reputation management and to promote the narratives that suit you" tactic that everybody (a whole lot of movie stars and countries, at least) is now using on X, reddit and other social media.
I thnk Trump was a pioneer in this field. No wonder she has the job as Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy.
That audience description is so professional and at least inspired by a media kit because my memory of the era is that a Type of media studies grad student was "Gawker commenter."