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blind item guessing game

Who Is 219west?

Our hard-partying reporter has no trouble finding bedmates among his media colleagues, but he plays fratboy when trawling for one-night stands on the notorious Manhunt. "I'm a writer, runner, ex-football player and Zeta Psi brother, bar-hopper, people-watcher—and I'm a blast," he writes. There's nothing that shocking in the profile: he lists the usual menu of kinky gay sex; and he's not the only person to have been caught out with an online ad. Here's the mystery: this journalist is on the biggest and most sensitive story of his career, and he's been rooting around in other people's personal lives. How on earth does he have time to trawl gay hookup sites? And why would he leave so many clues as to his real identity when he's so much in the public eye?

viral video

How Levi's Jeans Duped The Internet With Their New Secret Ad

My friends are blogging about this viral video of guys doing backflips into their jeans. So neat! So shareable! So worth the million views the three-day-old clip already earned! But I could tell instantly (and I have no idea why no one else did) that this was a stealth ad — because it's a direct copy of a stealth ad that got over 3 million views last year. More »

bloglash

Cornell's Famous "West Bushwick" Writer Moves to San Francisco; Your Fault

Remember the famous "West Bushwick" item from last year? It started as a post by Doree Shafrir in response to a story Cornell student Erin Geld wrote for the Daily Sun, the littlest Ivy college's student paper. Geld stayed with friends in a nonexistant neighborhood she referred to as "West Bushwick" for the weekend and was overwhelmed and intimidated by her perceived coolness of it all. She marveled at the big lofts, the "spooky lots and the occasional shady passerby," and the fashion parade of Bedford Avenue. She came to the conclusion that she wasn't sure if she would be able to handle living in such a crazy place after graduation! Well, guess what: now you've gone and done it. In Newsweek, the same writer blogs that because of the response to the "rather neutral" item on this website, her column was "TORN apart" in our commenting section, a "New York hipster club." This "hipster attack" from commenters "managed to chase me to California." More »

magazines

Out Comes The Hatchet At Hachette

When Jack Kliger took over Elle and Hachette's other US titles in 1999, he established himself as one of the magazine industry's few multimedia visionaries. The former Conde Nast publisher pushed Hachette's content onto EchoStar's interactive TV platform; Hachette's Car and Driver teamed up with the USA Network to produce a reality show spin-off of Cannonball Run, the cross-country car-race movie. And, when Hachette closed Elle Girl and Premiere magazines but kept their websites going, Kliger the charmer spun the cost-cutting exercise as an embrace of online media. So how's that going? Try utter disaster. We've been getting reports all day that the group has laid off almost its entire online staff. And here's one good reason: even Hachette's most successful online properties have the reach of a mid-sized blog, according to previously undisclosed web stats. (Oh, yes, and Hachette's Elle is about to lose its cherished role on Project Runway, the fashion-industry reality show.) If the future of magazines is some multimedia magic, as Kliger has been saying for a decade, Hachette has not much of a future; nor the Hachette boss himself. More »

psa

The Five Most Dangerous Countries for Bloggers

Internet nerds became terribly excited recently when Twitter sprung a man from jail, but it's worth noting that in most of the world, blogging is much, much more likely to send you to to clink. While there are a number of bloggers whose eternal imprisonment—possibly in the Phantom Zone—we fantasize about daily, we grudgingly admit that throwing bloggers in jail for blogging is probably bad. So as a public service, we're here to tell you where not to blog if you value your freedom. China and Iran probably get the most press for their blogger crack-downs, and Malaysia just arrested a blogger this week, but if there's anything we learned from skimming the site of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, it's this: don't Tumblr in Egypt. More »

previews

More Closeted Athlete Details From The Gay Hip Hop Author

Terrance Dean, the former MTV producer who's about to release his hotly-anticipated-by-us book on the gay secrets of hip hop, has provided a few more details on "Preston," the mystery pro athlete who Dean says he had a fling with at an island resort. So all of you who guessed football players, baseball players, or Mike Tyson: wrong!: More »

anger

Harvey Weinstein Threatens to Destroy Democratic Party Unless His Gal Hil Wins

Hollywood strongman Harvey Weinstein is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton, because they share a similar megalomania. Weinstein, who throws a great deal of showbiz money at Democrats and who is known for his Hulk-esque temper, reportedly called up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month to threaten her unless the Dems handed his gal Hillary the nomination. Weinstein said he'd cut of all money to Dem congressional campaigns unless Pelosi backed the Clinton campaign's unfeasible plan to get the Dems to pay for brand new elections in Florida and Michigan. Weinsein has denied it all. Or at least he denied that it was a "threat." He owns up to calling Pelosi and "offering" "to put together a team of people to help finance a revote in Florida and Michigan." Then he threatened to eat the officials who leaked details of the call. Weinsein's owned up to a bad temper before, once telling Ken Auletta that it's the thing he dislikes most about himself. In fact, Weinstein's temper makes Weinstein so angry he feels like he's going to explode. An Entourage clip exploring this famous bad mood in a comedic style may be found after the jump. More »

politics

The 12 Internet Memes That Took Obama To The Nomination

Barack Obama is like Kermit the Frog: Someone else may be your personal favorite, but he's the one that gets the most attention, so he's the one who ends up in all the parodies. Obama can be mashed up with any meme, because anyone can assign him any qualities: like Kermit, his everyman status makes him ripe for satire. To demonstrate, in no particular order but numbered anyway, here are the top twelve memes that have carried Obama to the nomination. More »

clips

John Fitzgerald Page Joins Dr. Phil For 'Sad Perv Day'

So. Remember this? Online Dater John Fitzgerald, the worst person in the world, was going to be on Dr. Phil, the worst show in the world.Why? We are not really sure. It aired today! Dr. Phil copied his drivers' license—even his drivers' license is creepy—and discovered the horrible truth: John Fitzgerald Page is almost 41. Then they sent him to a bar, where he terrorized women and wore suspenders. "He needs his own table, really, for his head," said one lady. IT GOT WORSE. MUCH, MUCH WORSE.

newspapers

Why The Times Should Abandon The News-Opinion Divide

When Microsoft's bid for Yahoo fell through, hotshot reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin produced a scathing analysis of the deal-making skills of the Redmond software giant's boss, Steve Ballmer. 'Microsoft has tried to spin its reversal as a show of “discipline” and “self-control.” But what it really shows — painfully — is Mr. Ballmer’s indecisiveness about this deal.' Ouch! And fun! But you won't find Bill Keller and his fellow editors boasting about Sorkin's punchiness: because they're still in denial about the blurring of news and opinion, and so much else. More »

gorky park

Woman Wants Six Figures For Alleged Lohan Coat Theft

Further details have emerged about that $12,000 fur coat that Lindsay Lohan may have pilfered (pictured). The coat owner is kindly asking Lohan for six figures in pain and suffering. Masha Markova, perhaps a descendant of the noble line of Russian fur traders, claims that the drug-splattered actress stole the blond mink coat while they were both at a party at fancypants clurrb 1Oak. When Markova decided to leave the club, she saw that her coat, which was given to her by her grandmother, had gone missing. A couple of weeks later, she saw a photo in OK! magazine, taken the night of the incident, of Lohan wearing the exact same tan-ish animal pelt. Coincidence? Markova thought not! More »

feuds

Star Jones Calls Barbara Walters An Old Slut

While promoting her new memoir Audition, famous interviewer and Dick Van Patten impersonator Barbara Walters went on the Oprah show and dished about affairs with senators, adultery, and formerly obese woman Star Jones. She said that Star was "so obese she could barely walk onto The View set." Ouch! And, true! Barbara then went on to confess that, yes, everyone was lying about Star's gastric bypass, respecting her wishes to pass off her sudden, enormous weight loss as the happy result of Pilates and dieting. Fair enough! The truth comes out! But, ruh roh, Star is of course a crazy person and very angry about this. Her nasty "shut up, old lady" response (from Us), plus video of the Barbara/Oprah interview, after the jump. More »

previews

Gay Hip Hop Author Teaser: Sexing An Anonymous Athlete

Well now! Terrance Dean, the former MTV producer who's about to release a book about the secret gay secrets of the rap industry, is slowly unveiling some teaser stories on a blog (not to be confused with his own, vague blog). His first story concerns his sexy meeting and sexy rendezvous with a sexy male professional athlete, who proceeds to have sex with him! And is a closeted man! So who might this be: More »

megalomaniacs

Suicide Cult Phase Reached By Clinton Campaign

Hillary Clinton squeaked by with 23,000 votes in Indiana. The Democratic presidential candidate ran out of money. Supposedly she has canceled public appearances the next few days. Matt Drudge and Tim Russert say it's over. Who is still standing behind Clinton, chanting "Yes she can?" Crazy dead-ender cult people like the ones in the picture above, with goddamned stickers on their foreheads. After the jump, Gawker videographer Richard Blakeley (who spotted the stickers) imagines the conversation that led to this awful visual: More »

game over

Hillary Is Done, Say Media Overlords

Hey, look, Matt Drudge did something nice for the entire country: He ended the Democratic primary, even though it was supposed to continue until eternity. See the picture and headline at left, which ran atop Drudge Report tonight. Drudge's link went to a video of Meet The Press anchor Tim Russert calmly explaining to America that "we now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be" and that Hillary Clinton is probably about to quit (she cancelled her TV appearances and everything!). Then David Gergen, the Bill Clinton aide turned talking head, said on CNN the election is over, partly because Chelsea looked sad during Hillary's last speech. "You could see the anguish on her face," Gergen said. "I think the Clinton people know the game is almost up." Remaining voters, politely thank your media overlords for deciding the election on your behalf. Clips of Russert and Gergen, and a bigger pic of the Drudge page, after the jump. More »

peter olson

How 'Best Mommy Of Park Avenue' Secured More Quality Time With Random House Hubby

Peter Olson—widely reported to be stepping down from Random House after a debilitating bout of pneumonia—doesn't get much sympathy in the publishing industry. Here's how the publishing giant's chief executive will be remembered: as a money-minded philistine who's fallen victim to the same financial accountability he tried to instill at Bertelsmann's US book producing factory. But there is one endearing angle to Olson's comeuppance: his departure may have been dictated less by Bertelsmann's Teutonic board members than Olson's formidable wife, Candice. More »

television

How Blogs Helped New York TV

There are rumors afoot that Ugly Betty, the ABC dramedy set inside a gay person's head, will shoot its next season on location in New York. This makes perfect sense. An insider at the show says it's cheaper to shoot on location (really?), but here's our theory: these days, what with the internet at all, it's also a great marketing strategy. Look at a show like Gossip Girl, which is constantly showing up in tabloids and on, um, gossip blogs when they're filming around town. Free publicity! A cigar-chomping network executive's dream! Even a show like 30 Rock, which isn't exactly tabloid fodder, surely benefits from a few sightings once in a while. Shooting on location also offers a sense of immediacy just that isn't there on a studio backdrop (or green screen) or in a script written in a faraway writer's room. More »

polls

Which Celebrity Is The Biggest Environmental Hypocrite?

Celebrities: a bunch of hypocrites! They all pay lip service to environmental issues like global warming. But most of them are heavy private jet users. They also engage in a smorgasboard of other environmental sins, from investing in oil companies (Madonna) to wasting water by demanding 120 bath towels at each appearance (Barbra Streisand) to various other transgressions you can read about here. But it's primarily the globetrotting use of gas-guzzling private planes that make their frequent entreaties to save the earth seem empty. So we're polling you, our readers, who have some of the most finely tuned hypocrisy detectors in the world: Which of these six "green" stars is the biggest environmental hypocrite? Cast your vote after the jump. More »