Gawker, RIP

Peter Thiel, pictured above, finally got his wish and eliminated Gawker from the intertubes. Of course, nothing’s stopping a recreation of such a site with little difference, but still, it’s chilling. I know a lot of people hate Gakwer. And there’s no question that some of their coverage, including the Hulk Hogan incident, was terrible and in the Hogan case, nailed their own coffin. However, I thought this was an appropriate discussion of what is lost without the site.

Now those days are over. We live in a world where we are lied to every day. The only rational response is outrage, but outrage is an emotion whose energy is impossible to sustain. Even the strongest among us eventually submit, and most of us are not strong. We have allowed people who don’t want to hear the truth — people who don’t want the truth to be told even when they know that it is rarely an impediment to their success — to silence those annoying, inconvenient voices that say “No, what you are telling us is not true.” Fewer questions will be asked, more falsehoods will pass unchecked, and we will wake up each morning to a new set of lies with a diminished capacity for remembering that we don’t have to accept them unconditionally or make peace with living in a world where they are the norm. Will the circumstances ever arise again where a site such as Gawker can come forward to challenge the dominant discourse of mendacity? Only a fool would venture to predict it. But we are each a little worse off without someone else to keep track of all the dishonesty and remind us that we are not crazy in those moments where we look around and rub our eyes and stare in shock at all the lies. Whether we know it or not, we are each a little worse off without Gawker in the world.