As you can imagine, most of the executions we wanted to carry out this week concerned people who sent us e-mail. Since that is sadly impossible (and, you know, illegal) we had to sate our bloodlust with the collection of commenters you'll find below. Thanks for stopping by, folks, we hope to see you again real soon.
Yes, there's something new going on up top of this here website! The powers that be believe that you, the person of the year, would like to have choices in the ways you look at things. So! Your default view (called, for no known reason, "Picks") will be just as it always was: New stuff at the top, our older blatherings at the bottom. "Popular" means that things will be ranked by what is supposedly most popular. "All" is a little misleading. It does not quite bring the entire internet into this browser window. That would make your head pop like an overripe pumpkin on Halloween night, as Ann Magnuson so famously said. Instead it brings in content from a good number of the sites we read throughout the day. (On that page you'll find some wacky "promote" buttons, which, if pressed enough, bring posts to the front page of Gawker, apparently. NEAT. SUPER. Ah, that turned out to be a management lie! Yay.) Beneath that are some popular categories. And up top on the side there, "summary" is for people who can't be assed to read a full post and "thumbs" is for the entirely post-literate crowd who'd prefer to not have much text disturbing them at all. Please enjoy exploring. And you can totally email us with questions! Except we'll be all, "What the hell do we know?"
What bloggers call "anecdotal leads" are like the drip, drip, drip of water torture to some readers, who want the facts fast and clean and don't want editors "to go on and on, in love with the sound of their own stupid voices, until they've forgotten what they were writing about in the first place," as a former, since returned, Gawker staffer once put it.
Because we all like to be warned when something changes—remember when you came home one day in third grade and daddy was gone and mommy was crying and then you had a new apartment to live in every other weekend? Or, say, when your New York Times arts listings were suddenly moved around? (I certainly don't!)—please be apprised that the tech people who actually run this site have installed something cute here. You'll notice more links appearing in posts to our stunningly-organized archives. They appear automatically. Anyway, enjoy, or ignore, and in the future, I'll try to give y'all a warning when little new things are coming. This one took me from behind and by surprise last night. (Yes. That's what he said.)
You might have seen in Variety that Dana Vachon's Mergers & Acquisitions has been acquired by a film production company "in a deal worth high six figures." (Related: Our Emily Gould is in the bathroom right now, bringing up an amount of vomit in the high six liters.) You might also have noticed, as we did when we rolled out of bed this morning, that Mergers & Acquisitions, a book that we have been prattling about regularly, is being advertised on Gawker today. We have also found out you might also see some sort of sponsored contest here for it tomorrow. You might have some questions about advertising and editorial on Gawker. So might we!
We've got the Grindhouse fever and there's only one known cure, short of actually seeing Grindhouse: execute the bejesus out of a boatload of commenters. Block 'em all and let God sort 'em out. Let's do it.
Today's New York magazine serves up a massive "OMG, did you know? Offices!" package, starring an insane, useless, and quite still exhaustive look into who gets smoothies with whom at ad agency Publicis New York. (Remember, they were so excited about being photographed!) What did we learn about Publicis? NOTHING. Smoothies? Sorry, is someone not doing someone in this office? So we decided to go behind the scenes at another Manhattan workplace and bring to light the tensions therein. After all, this sort of feature is way too stupid and easy to not be ripped-off on the cheap.
Two separate incidents on Gawker recently seemed to reveal a sense of conflict behind the scenes at the blog amongst its editors.
You've actually been a fairly well-behaved—even entertaining and sometimes enlightening!—bunch this week. It's a shame to see any of you go. But upon us all the axe must fall, and this week we say goodbye to five members of the commenting community. Did you make the cut?
Dear Gawker Ombudsman,
This Gothamist style book "royal we" around here is driving me crrrrazy! As those who care may know, here on Gawker we've got our Dickensian-monikered Alex Balk, and, pictured at right, Doree and Emily, and our new buddy Josh, and I pop in on the site now and then when I'm not lunching or leaving early or going down on management. (Plus, there's Jon Liu and Leon Neyfakh on Gawker Weekend!) At this point, it's gotten too hard for y'all much-appreciated readers to know to whom you should address your hate mail. Although it goes without saying that as at any publication, or in our case, "publication," each of us rarely acts entirely alone (we steal from each other, disagree, re-agree, and so on), still it seems that the benefits outweigh the deficits, and so henceforth let there be bylines. Obviously not every lil' round-up or whatever needs them, and of course, management reserves the right to change their—err, his!—mind.
Joshua Stein has labored in the lifestyle trenches as the editor of Gridskipper since last June. Now, we are magically teleporting him over here to Gawker. As our new After Hours Editor, he'll report each day on restaurants, dining clubs, chefs, hotels, beignets, sommeliers, Meatpackers, gentrification and un-gentrification, and neighborhood culture. And Balthazar. You are encouraged to reach out to him at josh AT gawker.com. [UPDATE: Yes, he will be posting about things that occur after hours, not actually posting after hours. Also, he likes to spend his actual After Hours times with his FEMALE WOMAN GIRLFRIEND. We know!]
As part of our commenting initiatives, we periodically reiterate for novice and senile readers how our glorious commenting system works. "How," some of you have asked, "can I become a member of exclusive, rarefied star chamber known as the Gawker commenting community?" We're glad you're interested in joining the snobby set! For the most general of generalized guidance, begin with the Gawker Comments FAQ.
Last night, a collection of New York's hottest media stars assembled at the Port Authority Bus Terminal - and this time not just to suck dick for a dollar! No, we were at Leisure Time Bowling for the latest round of NYAMBL matches. We are not ashamed to say that - challenges aside - we kicked some serious ass, rocking the worlds of Jane, Portfolio and new nemesis Comedy Central (nice use of office supplies, fellas). Here's video from the event featuring all your favorites: Richard Blakeley! Intern Kaila! The gay guy from Gridskipper! Hopefully, you'll enjoy it as much as we did. Actually, hopefully a lot more, it was fucking bowling.
Hey, did you hear something? Yeah, you're right, probably just the wind. Oh, no, wait, it's COMMENTER EXECUTIONS! We've chosen to do things a little differently this week, with a group cull. Are you part of the group? The answer is after the jump.
We're in a surly mood this week at Gawker; surly and curt. After the jump we determine who lives and who dies, giving impossibly brief rationales for our executions. Yours, though, is not to reason why, yours is merely to comment and then face our wrath. The newly departed lie in state below.
