Gawker
Last night, as I settled into my favorite chair, the one upholster'd with the skin of ill-temper'd puppies, I was content. Her Grace Sheila had taken care of some unpleasantness earlier, and I thought my work was done for the week. I was content to merely sharpen my axe and watch the uneven yet amusing season finale of The Office. But I was interrupted by the incessant vibrations of my Blackberry. (Lovely technologickal advances in 2008.) All these elecotronick letters pointed me to the same post. It seems that some of you just don't get it. Here at Gawker, we don't anonymously slander the physical appearance of others. If you continue to feel it necessary to mock those you find unattractive, you will no longer be welcome here. However, mocking the stupid things that people do is wholly encouraged. For instance, feel free to dance on the graves of the sodding twits listed after the jump.
Executed: Buzz Killington
Crime: It's fine to have a contrary opinion, but not this one.
Executed: Kenneth212
Crime: No, it's not.
Executed: The-Cubicle-Dweller
Crime: Geez, I would certainly not like to read any more of your unfunny tripe.
Executed: Priam
Crime: Yes it is.
Executed: Miss_Msry
Crime: Seriously though, it isn't.
As always, condemnations, bribes, pleas for mercy, and sexist homophobic screeds may be sent to GawkerExecutioner@gmail.com. Don't email Denton, Pareene, Richard, Sheila, Hamilton, Nick Douglas, Ryan or anyone else from the Court of Gawker. I'm not them, and they don't care.
Comments
dancing and peeing.
First California, now the reaper - it's good to be gay this week. And like, every week pretty much.
The moving finger writes, and having writ,
moves on-- nor all thy piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."
I understand that it is not OK to say a lesbian looks like a man, but we can still say a man looks like a lesbian, right? B/c I learned that here:
[gawker.com]
Butchalicious baiting
@jackvinyl: emily was executed for that.
@jackvinyl: All that proves is that Emily Gould isn't Jack Ketch.
@EpponneeRae: With these folks gone, it isn't a bad week for the straights, either.
Jack: You're the Tom Rasberry of executioners:
Rasberry said he treated a half-acre plot with insecticide, returning months later to find the area covered thickly with two inches of dead ants. Living insects teemed on the top layer of insect corpses.
@BinkysDream: cannibals.
Buzz Killington reminded me of one those boys in high school who hung out with the jocks and occasionally said homophobic things but had a curious mind underneath it all and secretly liked chubby girls and maybe could be nice if he hung out with the right crowd so I hope maybe he wises up and reads some women studies, okay I'm too nice, bye.
This is like Playboy announcing that it won't run tit shots anymore, to see if helps circulation.
Wait, sorry, that's too classy.
This is like George Bush announcing he's given up golf in a time of war.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
My nom for a Ketch theme song is "Another one bites the dust".
@AuntPeniston: damn. you just took me back to roughly six years ago today when I trying desperately to pass my survey of world lit. final whilst sweating ketelone all over the stupid blue finals notebook thing.
the passage sounds much cooler now that I'm not trying to quote it verbatim without the text in front of me.
I wish I had a sex so I could be offended by some part of this.
@CodePink: That is bizarre! I was working on a similar, I-may-have-had-an-unhealthy-gay-boy-crush-on-Buzz-Killington-because-he-reminded-me-of-this-guy-on-the-wrestling-team-in-high-school post going, but I scotched it because it was dragging up a lot of, um, issues and made me seem weird.
@lawyergay: I shall take all those issues off your shoulders, my dear! The Hag of Hags, CodePink, relieves you of your crush.
I was convinced Buzz Killington was some sort of plant. Nobody actually thinks or writes like that. But I guess I should have read the Jalopnik comments. He was a plant though: a lily.
This should be getting easier by now. And it is.
@KarenUhOh: My future mother-in-law's in town, so I haven't had a sex in days. And I could use one.
Was Buzz Killington's name a self-fullfilling prophesy?
And again I ask, why is it permissible to mock SJP as horse-faced, which Gawker staff and commenters do lately on a daily basis? Whether or not she is, the riffing on the joke has transcended the joke itself and has become funny in its own right, IMO. Nevertheless, this constitutes a double standard. But I've already figured it out - you can mock the physical appearance of glamorous, successful, and/or attractive women--Britney, etc.--all you want but if someone is judged unattractive in anyway by a majority of people, then they are unmockable.
Second double standard: the Gawker policy regarding negative comments the physical appearance of men.
Bottom line: Gawker can obviously have whatever policy it wants, within legal bounds, but I think the double standards are evidence of an underlying defensiveness and lack of objectivity.
@SneakingThroughTheAlleyWithLalley: Yeah, apparently that quatrain was lurking in my subconscious and it took this weekly reminder of our mortality to drag it up. Nothing like death to inspire a girl!
A recent NYTimes oped by Susan Faludi would suggest that the fearsome Ketch is female (or is gender coded as one):
"For virtually all of American political history, the strong female contestant has been cast not as the player but the rules keeper, the purse-lipped killjoy who passes strait-laced judgment on feral boy fun."
[www.nytimes.com]
If you continue to feel it necessary to mock those you find unattractive, you will no longer be welcome here. Yet, the SJP looks likes a horse jokes are permitted to continue unbridled?
@IndianSlipper: Hey - that was my prom theme! Oh wait, it was Dust in the Wind - seriously.
@heyimtalkinhere: Ehh, the SJP horse joke is a weird meme that I don't have a problem with. It doesn't even have anything to do with her, really. And if you look at last week's executions, you'll see they were all people who mocked a man's physical appearance. Plus, Jack Ketch is one person and is free to be subjective. It's just commenter executions, for gosh's sake. They'll all be back very soon, I'm sure.
It's gettin' a bit Jezebelly in here...
@heyimtalkinhere: I think what it is is that Gawker has one of those "the opinions of the bloggers, editors and commenters in no way represent the opinions of Gawker Media" kind of things going on, you know? Which makes it difficult, contradictory and also wildly fun and unpredictable.
@heyimtalkinhere: [gawker.com]
@CodePink: EXACTLY. His comment was outrageous, but beneath it I think he was really trying to understand. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to get axed, but I'm a fan of stupid people saying what they think, so we can nip that shit in the bud. If they are scared to talk they will just harbor stupid ideas forever and only share them with other stupids.
@bytememehard: NICE.
Three cheers! Also, I'm pretty sure my girlfriend could kick Buzz Killington's ass. Which is hot. Trust.
@Incher_George: Thanks for the linkage! Love her. Everyone should read her book about 9/11. Brilliant.
@CodePink: Thanks! BK and I never would have worked out anyway...too many away matches.
@bytememehard: Well played.
@Richard:
"It's just commenter executions, for gosh's sake. They'll all be back very soon, I'm sure."
I hope Web 3.0 will amend that.
The Emperor Ketch: Klytus I'm bored. What play thing can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the S-K System, your majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as Buzz Killington.
CodePink said it already, but in case anyone was wondering:
THERE ARE NO RULES. Or, if there are, they change daily. WHEEEEEEEE!!
The headline is "Cynthia Nixon's Girlfriend a Big Ol' Dyke, OK?" and you execute folks who make big dyke jokes? Jack Ketch and all the other sanctimonious editors have a big old identity problem.
I stand in solidarity with @Buzz Killington, @Kenneth212, @The-Cubicle-Dweller, @Miss_Msry:
Sheila is a fat ugly dyke with a big head.
@heyimtalkinhere: That's not untrue.
@Richard: I could be.
@planet_of_the_snapes: Err, I mean, Nick Denton is a fat dyke?
@Richard: First, wow, Richard of Gawker responded to me!
Anyway, my post not only had typos but came off more outraged and earnest than I am. But Richard, that's horse manure that the horse face thing "has nothing to do" with SJP. You're being disingenuous there. And regarding the policy on male looks, it seems to be anything goes. I'm really not upset--as long as a comment's funny or insightful I'm down wid it. I just think it means something that this is Gawker's sensitive spot.
@planet_of_the_snapes: Adieu, sweet prince(ss).
@Richard: Like life.
@heyimtalkinhere: Fair enough. The SJP thing is completely hypocritical, but it's OK, because it's funny. (At least to me.) The joke is more the saying that she looks like a horse and finding clever ways to do it than it is an actual comment on her looks at this point. Sure it started that way, but for me it's kind of evolved past that.
Commenting is dead.
"Execute" means "turn off comments," not "cease metabolic function." It's all fun! Relax!
@planet_of_the_snapes: Actually, I'm a commenter, not an editor. Which is more than I can say for you!
@heyimtalkinhere: It's just Ketch's sensitive spot, although actually I think he's simply committed lately to maintaining a higher bar for comments. Which isn't to say that every appearance joke will be banned, but that maybe people will think twice.
I do agree a little bit with planet_of_the_snapes, but he really shouldn't have said that about Sheila.