Slate.com
After being called “a big immature baby” by Gawker in a 2007 post, journalist Katie Roiphe was surprised to receive a book-blurb request from a Gawker writer who was “a big fan” of her work. That had Roiphe wondering if she misunderstood the site:
If you are pumping out autopilot schadenfreude all day long, maybe there is nothing personal in it. The rage, the dissociated nastiness, floats through the ether and attaches itself fleetingly to a subject, but really, taking it personally is like being annoyed at the wind for messing up your hair.
Her problem with Nick Denton’s site is that “it’s all tone, no content, and the tone itself is monotonously unvaried — namely the sneer. …The highest form of keeping people honest demands more wit, more precision, more specificity, more sharpness. If you make fun of everyone in the same register, in the same tone, it begins to be a little generic.”
What Gawker staffers saying about her screed:
* Investigative reporter John Cook tweeted: “My mom tells me “you’re no Nabokov” enough as it is. Now I have to hear it from Katie Roiphe?”
* Media writer Hamilton Nolan’s tweet: “Hahahahahahahahahaha.” (He wrote a post headlined “Shut Up, Katie Rophie” earlier this year. (I’ve asked Nick Denton for his reaction, and will post it if it comes in.)
> Roiphe has never used Twitter, although she says her daughter set up an account to give herself a follower
> Earlier: “We don’t seek to do good” at Gawker Media, says Denton
