A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

THE WEIRD SAGA OF KIMMEL’S WHIPPING-GIRL: I won’t get into the after-story to the article to which I’m about to link except to say that it involves betrayal, sex, pettiness, the unsarcastic use of the word “literati,” a Capulet-Montague plot, and very pretty people. I did, however, want to refer you to this somewhat old but really remarkable article about the history of Gawker and the idea that, as the author writes, it grew more influential than the institutions and people it mocked and therefore “outlived the conditions for its existence.” I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Choire Sicha and Jessica Coen (and their former LA colleague, Mark Lisanti), for better or for worse, strongly influenced both the attitude I have toward blogging and the voice I use when doing it, so it’s a bit uncomfortable for me to see how badly they, and particularly Coen, come off in this piece.