Gawker, a left-wing snark site, is shutting down…again. If you’re surprised to learn Gawker had reopened, that goes a long way toward explaining why it’s closing down…again.
“Well, after an incredible 1.5 years, BDG has decided it is done with Gawker 2.0,” Gawker editor-in-chief Leah Finnegan tweeted Wednesday. “Can’t say enough about how proud I am of the site and all the brilliant people who worked to create it, and what a staggering shame this is. I had an absolute blast, and I love you.”
Well, after an incredible 1.5 years, BDG has decided it is done with Gawker 2.0. Can't say enough about how proud I am of the site and all the brilliant people who worked to create it, and what a staggering shame this is. I had an absolute blast, and I love you.
— Leah Finnegan (@leahfinnegan) February 1, 2023
Gawker 1.0 died in 2016 after retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan successfully sued the site into bankruptcy.
Back in 2012, Gawker published a sex tape of Hogan and his friend’s wife. As a result, Hogan sued for invasion of privacy (duh) and won a total of $140 million in 2016. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who was outed by Gawker, helped finance the suit.
“I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest,” he told the far-left New York Times, adding this was “less about revenge and more about specific deterrence.”
In July of 2021, Bustle Digital Company (BDG) re-launched Gawker after acquiring its assets in a 2018 bankruptcy auction.
The re-launch was met with a hale and hearty shrug by a public. From what I could tell, the Hulk Hogan lawsuit did work as the deterrence Thiel hoped for. This ensured Gawker 2.0 was neither fish nor fowl. The pre-bankruptcy nastiness that attracted tens of millions of monthly unique users was gone. Instead, the site merely goofed on the latest headlines, which is the kind of content you can find everywhere written by much more talented people, like the crew over at Ace of Spades HQ.
With nothing fresh to offer, and no niche to call its own, Gawker slowly withered away over the last year and a half. Truthfully, Gawker mattered so little that had the site shut down without making an announcement; I wouldn’t have noticed.
I do want to thank Gawker again for helping to confirm my 2014 reporting proving Lena Dunham lied about being raped in college by a Republican. Although, by then, Dunham had already admitted the story wasn’t true, Gawker re-confirmed that by reporting Dunham’s alleged rapist was, in fact, a…Democrat.
No one will miss Gawker 2.0 because no one knew it existed. As far as the original Gawker, it was a cesspool staffed by the kind of people who tie cans to a cat’s tail to watch it run and run until it dies of exhaustion and fear.
No loss here.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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