Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Gawkerist: Anatomy of a Self-Promotion

I've gone almost a full week without saying something nasty about the blogosphere, so let's get back to speed. If the first failing of the blog world is the tendency of bloggers to fall, trance-like, into a state of circle-jerk self-absorbtion, the second failing is the temptation towards sickening self-promotion. (Hey! Next Thursday at noon I'll be on Iowa Free Radio, 610 AM, for five minutes! Listen in! Please love me!)

Today's exhibit A is Chris Mohney, aka the Gawkerist. A few weeks ago Mohney started a blog dedicated to poking gentle fun at Gawker Media and Nick Denton. Last week he gave us this post: Nick Denton Finally Pays Us to Stop Blogging:
about a month ago, I decided to try something stupid, which, obviously, became Gawkerist. I won't bore you (without an advance check) about all the details that went into constructing this blog, but rest assured it was more deliberate than it may seem. . . .

Many correctly guessed that Gawkerist was a stunt to attract attention and finagle work through nontraditional channels. What I didn't necessarily expect was that the first people to guess this (on day 2 actually) would be everyone at Gawker Media.

Fortunately for me, their acute self-knowledge was no defense against assaultive flattery by way of meticulous attention, and as a result, I'll be lashing myself to the mast of Gridskipper next week. Drop by, won't you. I may still post here occasionally, but now that I've sold out, I've lost all credibility that I earned through three weeks of intermittent labor as an anonymous nobody blogger with an extremely narrow focus. I'll just have to console myself with better tequila.

Ah, the wonders of the blogosphere. All hail the New Media.

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