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In case you didn’t know, Gawker Media is pretty much in flames right now. Last week, Nick Denton ceded control of the company over to a board, which he will still head. So, that in and of itself isn’t too major, although it does show that even Denton knows his current approach isn’t working. Firing the editorial director is another sign of Denton’s displeasure, not that he’s trying to hide it. Months of body blows at the hands of GamerGate, Hulk Hogan, insurance companies, and the FTC, would leave any media baron in a nasty mood.

A couple months ago they were laughing at GamerGate, but now the tables have turned. In truth, Gawker Media has been on a downward swing for a few years, at least. I remember Deadspin being one of my favorite sites to visit. I used to go there daily, sometimes multiple times per-day. The way they said fuck political correctness really spoke to me. Now, they’re a shell of their former selves, promoting whatever wacky Jezebel-lite talking point that’s going around on any given day. They’ve also started to dip their toes into political waters, and that’s not something I wanted to see them do, either.

Basically, the current leadership has put Deadspin into the shitter. That would be a way to sum the story up more concisely.

Another thing that has helped seal their reputation as a place you don’t want to do business with, is they way they treated ad partners who left them. Sponsorships end and resume all the time. But you don’t trash former backers when they leave. It’s a horrible way to conduct operations, and makes companies think twice about spending their limited ad dollars with you. Only insolent fools act this way:

If you’ll notice, that attack on Intel was written by Gawker’s editor-in-chief, Max Read. He’s made a ton of mistakes. One of the biggest, was laughing about our anti-bully pushback when it kicked off. It left the whole company flat-footed. If Denton had any fucking sense in that tax-dodging brain of his, he would have fired Read as well. But, I’m glad he didn’t. Because I’m sure this colossal fuck up will hurt them again, in an even bigger way. We just have to give him time. The guy is in way over his head, and it shows.

(He laughed that first day. But once the sponsors started dropping, he knew he had fucked up. Also, check out the emails he sent to readers around this time. He undoubtedly made the situation worse for his employer.)

https://twitter.com/max_read/status/522847925358329856

They used to laugh at us, until we wreaked havoc on their operations. They always hated us, of course, and still do. But now they know that we’re a force to be reckoned with. Milo Yiannopoulos explained it well in his column the other day. Gawker has become radioactive, and GamerGate has helped give them that status:

“In recent years, Gawker has become closely associated, in particular through its Jezebel blog, with these radical feminist activists, who demand that their stories of rape, abuse and harassment be believed without journalists being allowed to perform basic checks. This principle, say GamerGate supporters, critics of Rolling Stone and others, runs contrary to basic journalistic ethics, which require more skepticism before the widespread publication of serious allegations…

Although Gawker’s revenue continues to grow year-on-year, GamerGate supporters can rightly claim to have given the company a significant bloody nose.”

They’re not going bankrupt anytime soon, but they are becoming more stale, and out-of-touch. With all their legal problems, who knows what will happen. Personally, I’m hoping Hulk Hogan collects on that $100 million lawsuit. I’m not sure what the insurance company they fucked over is suing for, but I hope they clean their clocks as well. Here at TheRalphRetort, we’ll keep highlighting all the nonsense and bile that comes out of the Gawker shithole. As I said the other day, we now settle in for the long fight.