No One Really Knows Why Local Man Does Strange Thing: The Nick Denton Story
There are many ways to read today's New Yorker profile of Nick Denton, a New York City-based man who runs a network of popular websites. I think the best way I've found to read it so far is this one: print it out, or to otherwise somehow obtain a printed copy of the piece, and then highlight (perhaps in yellow?) all the quotes by Denton himself. As with all previous Denton profiles-and it's not a fault of these profiles or the writers, I don't think!-you will come searching for a "why" and you may again come away frustrated on a quick read. And yet still, when this one is given a sort of slow, math-problem like reading, you feel as if there's an answer just forming in your peripheral vision. You can sort of see this shiny correct solution hovering there for a second.
Why. Why indeed. Why would you do this to a perfectly lovely Monday. There is not enough coffee in the world.
Well, here we go.
I got to page two and suddenly felt really interested in getting into the shower, putting on a suit and heading to work.
I assume by "suit" you mean "bigger bottle of bourbon."
A formal bottle.
So now I have to go buy a paper publication to read about an ephemeral media that taught me long ago to not trust the man behind the curtain.
"Is there Gawker ethics? I mean, I guess there's Gawker ethics. It's a dangerous thing to talk about." Hey, you're right!
"The first rule of Gawker Ethics is…"
Hmm, so is this the shiny thing?
"What may be different is that in the past those people have been far more colorful and charismatic."
I got to a point where someone mentions Yoda for some reason. That's right around the time the sentences started bouncing off my thinkbone.
By the way, I look forward to seeing this comment stream characterized elsewhere. These grapes aren't sour, dear. They're plums.
No results found for "publicity's abyss".
Snarling Nicky wants to make sure you have PLENTY of tabs open today!
The part about Denton and Molnar in Hungary sounds like something out of the novel Scoop.
My, how exhausting. So many words, and so many of them have been written so many times.
As was said by someone far wiser than I, there's no their there.
Is there a film about this?
In stop-motion.
With a mime, a red balloon and a sled.
Do you think there's a copy editor at the New Yorker who resents having to insert tremata into words like "reëxamine," or what.
Diacritic-At-Large
Surely you mean "dieresis."Â At any rate, the diacritic you are looking for is the acute in élitist, actually visible in the piece.
Additionally: Condé Nast's ass-backward CMS introduced a few copy errors in transition to what it pretends is "HTML."
No, Miles is on solid ground:
"I actually think Gawker's fairer now than it used to be," he told me, and quickly added that this had not come about through "any great moral reëxamination" but because the numbers are inherently self-correcting.
But tremata is a fair term for the two dots. Umlaut, as it turns out, would not have been correct.
Sincerely,
Fact-Checking Cuz
I more suspect that there's a copy editor at the New Yorker who LOVES doing that.
"hee hee! dots!"
@dntsqzthchrmn: I [don't] know him and he does!
Well spotted! But tréma is French for dieresis, as le Grand Dictionnaire just confirmed for me.
So does he have any redeeming characteristics?
He's really good at what he does?
Again with Brett Favre's penis?
soon to come, maternity leave (not that many of them yet need it)
Yeah, but it requires the employee to give birth on February 29th.
And you must give him your firstborn.
I was suffering from alcohol-related over-service, yesterday, and couldn't commit to the written word. Is this still worth a read on a Monday? And by that, I mean is it worth cutting into my rigorous couch languor tonight?
Depends. How's your tolerance for NYer style. (Insert "Depends" joke here.)
Why that William Shawn is such a dickens.
- "I've created this monster. Neither the stories that I like nor the writers that I like are rewarded."
- "So you take those monkey instincts and you plug in all these wires: you're going to end up with some creatures, like in an animal laboratory."
- "You know how journalists, or former journalists, turn into monsters when confronted by a big story? The adrenaline surges through your body, and you're gleeful and unconcerned about civilian casualties, like a warrior going into battle."
Everybody knows he's a motherfuckin' monster?
So Nick Denton is Lady Gaga?
The story of Dr Heckle and Mr Strive.
More like a living, breathing moai. Because, you see…
Don't forget the Montauk Monster, secret emblem of the expendable new media footsoldier.
God was that really a first highwater mark? At least they didn't mention the… no, I won't mention it either.
But it would have been a good objective correlative for ND's indifference to other humans' well-being.
@ericdeamer: If he's fake, he ain't notice cause his money ain't?
"We've created a monster!" -Burt Cooper
Y=$
I got about halfway through this and decided that the lack of paragraph spacing was terrible. I used Firebug to slip in a ten-pixel margin and the improvement was incredible. "What the fuck am I doing with my life," I asked myself.
I imagine the guy who invented Readable asked himself that question a few times too.
This time, with Blingies.
Whoops! @John Ore: Brett Favre's penis photos could use some pizazz, is what I'm saying.
It will be admitted that I mailed the writer of the piece with the scoop that I personally know the only person to have received a sincere glowing recommendation from Denton.
No followup!
Christ, what an asshole.
+10
Bravo
"If you run it out of your house, then no one expects anything."
Yeah, I'm consistently surprised at what manages to come out of some people's houses.
Early-ish career indignation at the disinterest in his real stories, desire for approbation, loss of idealism and subsequent concession to accommodate "human's true appetites and desires." Should I be looking for more to it than this?
Maybe I share some of his contrarianism, which would at the very least explain why I can't help but reluctantly grin at most things Denton, but I thought this piece made him seem very nearly human.
<–Humans'
I agree, but it is a fairly unpleasant human being.
I'm just shocked he's given so much of the company away.
I want to know who, exactly, is it that has those shares. Is Choire sitting on some hot Gawker equity? It's either him or Elizabeth Spiers. Or Ian Speigelman. (Disappointed they didn't let him get into one of his epic froths, BTW.)
Who, I wonder, gave Ian Speigelman's name to this reporter as a source? Someone who really had it in for Nick, is my guess ….
It's like doing a profile of Karl Rove, and being given Valerie Plame's name as a source.
Well, anyone who follows Gawker at all probably has run across Ian's rants. But what was the point? He barely got to insult the man! Lame.
Pretty shiny!@Vulpes
Thanks, TerseNurse! Still all a little speculative, though: I want facts, damnit! But at least we all agree: Choire is sitting on a goldmine.
Here's hoping! He certainly earned it.
"What can I do for today?"
"I'll have the Nick Denton."
"They like quotes generally."
It would have been funnier if Alex Balk had made fun of the author's wedding vows.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nick Denton's a jerk, but also a genius, maybe, The Way We Blog Now, blah blah blah. Can I just get the comments on Gawker to show up? I mean, that's the best, most worktime-wasting part of the sites and I haven't been able to see them in a month! Even Tom, the "other" middle-aged man, can't seem to find where they went.
Also, Denton's last word will be "Rosebud." Or maybe "Julia Allison."
Hope to read this more closely next week, when I finally receive this week's issue.
I don't know…I kinda wouldn't mind being him.
I guess.
I think so at least.
Maybe?
If there's one thing I don't want to randomly happen upon while reading The Awl it's a old photo of myself with Nick Denton.
Pictured: Denton (R) shows two students of the World Wide Web that what they type cannot disappear from the screen, no matter what they change their names to.
Blue Ribbon
Well hey: I believed in this myself, at a time.
But, what — even though I still read them, and have been (was) barred from the place… isn't this the most sanctimonius, conflicted, not-really-on-point modern institution you can think of?
(Except for all of the others…)
I Love New York! I'll never leave!
Wait.
Regards from Charlottesville,