I Wish My Real Life Were Formatted Like The New Gawker
Published: July 11, 2009
Why, you may ask? Oh lawwwdy, for many a reason. Here goes my top ten list for why this would be totally awesome:
1. Obviously, this would mean that any response to how I feel about a subject (whether it be one regarding news in politics, technology, science, entertainment, feminism, etc etc etc) I could just fade it out and pretend like it never happened. Oh wait, I already do that HAHAHA
2. I could actually “star” witty things people say… and even promote them (hmm, but I guess that would mean I’d have to have a star too… so I guess I’d have to have a friend with a star “star” me – eeek!).
…if that ever happened, my list would continue like this:
3. Well, with all the starring and non-starring and fading out of opinions, I could totally create a clique of people who agree with me.
4. I could make the people who don’t agree with me that much more insecure and maybe lonely.
5. Who the hell doesn’t like another class system for our society!?!
6. People may think I’m a douchebag, but at least I’d never have to hear it – I’d just surround myself with myself (oh thank you, YES) and therefore feel like a *STAR* (a la Michael Jackson – oh wait, didn’t he end up dead because of this kinda thing?)!
7. Fewer dissenting opinions to mine in the first place, since my mind would take too long to load anyway.
8. Whenever I feel down and lonely, I could just “star” someone and we’d automatically be chill – til they don’t agree with me, because that’s not a real friend.
9. Sorta in addition to numero ocho – anyone who wanted to be my friend would have to kiss my ass so I’d “star” them.
10. “Friending” was over in 2008 anyway.
Raincoaster!
We had Mantooth here yesterday – now you!
“I could just “star” someone and we’d automatically be chill..” This was an obvious reference to becoming me, Chillbear. I didn’t become Chill by any awarding of stars, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt.
And with that, I am announcing that this is the last time I will use the lame chill-Chillbear double entendre joke during the month of July.
Announcement noted.
*places bet with shady bookie.
chillbear you can use any double entendre joke you want, you have the right to keep and arm bears. xoxo
@Chillbear: I…I wanna say something. I’m gonna put it out there; if you like it, you can take it – if you don’t, send it right back — I want to be you.
I have been afraid to comment on any Gawker site since this happened. I have no idea if my star still follows me around or not. I don’t comment to be graded; I comment to make stupid jokes and laugh at those of others. The future is terrifying. Hold me.
i been wondering what’s his motivation for dentonizing the gawker sites yet again, and the only thing that comes up is something i remember hearing about alfred hitchcock.
when a method actor wd ask hitch ‘wots my motivation’ in a scene, hitch wd just reply ‘you are getting paid.’ so somewhere, some way, someone must’ve shown nick denton the money.
@krismry: It seems to me that the motivation is something like this:
Denton & Co. understand that people are attracted to their sites by a combination of posts + witty comments. (This includes many many thousands of readers who visit a Gawker Media site only occasionally and are not interested in commenting themselves.)
If the comments degenerate into the kind of brainless crap you see elsewhere on the ‘net, then a big reason for reading Gawker sites is gone.
So how do you make sure that visitors see only posts+smart comments? Well, you could control who comments, like in the old days, when everyone had to audition and you ran the risk of being executed for failing to live up to the Kommenter Kode of Konduct.
But kit takes work to monitor everyone. So snstead, what they’ve done is decided that everyone can comment, but most people will see only the good comments. And what’s more, we’ll let the commenters determine what’s good enough for general viewership. In other words, they get to control the quality of the comments by letting US do the work. FREE LABOR!
Well, whatever. It’s their site. I don’t care if it’s democratic or not. It just has to be interesting if I’m going to continue to read it. I’m not convinced that will be the case since I can’t even tell who is responding to what in which order. Hurts my little brain.
That assesment is based on the four minutes yesterday when the comments actually worked in my browser, kinda. That’s the biggest fail here: rolling out something that’s so profoundly broken.
So basically, I’ve been reading a comment-less version of Gawker for a couple of days and you know what? Not so interesting. They may or may not care if I’m commenter. But they’ll be losing me as a READER if they don’t fix the thing fast.
@kid: Yes, the action is all off because of the backwards way you have to read. It is also really hard to get a new commenter name approved right now, it’s all on lockdown. Quel drag.
Kid T makes sense, especially the part about Free Labor. The proposed regime, as Bookish says, doesn’t exactly work yet. But the new order promises to be even more like going to The Job. Our days of wreckless fun are through, I guess.
In The Job, a thing by Bill Burroughs, someone reads a diary entry by a first grader in Tangier, who writes that he gets up at 8:30, eats his breakfast, and then “I go to the job.’
When they ask him what does he mean by the job he says, “school of course.”
So far, it’s sort of like that.
Fist off, it’s been awhile since I commented here because when the site was launched I was feeling less than successful with attempting to live up to my so-called extraordinary measures of greatness I set out before me. Okay- maybe they weren’t extraordinary, maybe just embarrassingly ordinary around this crowd, but still, I wasn’t doing what I had to do…so a new addiction here on Wordsmoker was dangerous.
Now the whole new world of gawker is slightly a relief, as I will never even be noticed in the vast open field of stars during the week days. I kind of like being starless for that, and for the fact that I have always had a disassociated complex of sorts. You tell me to do things one way, and I will find a way to do it my own way. But I don’t like knowing that no one notices my brilliance, it’s easier assuming that I wasn’t speaking loud enough than knowing I just didn’t cut it. Living in the land of gray can be quite a turn off. Sure, I wasn’t the biggest commenter around, but I was a regular, and that was dangerous, for me and maybe for you folks- heh.
More importantly, my snark is not as refined as some of you fine stars
Oh well.
For me, restrictions tend to be a deterrent. So hopefully, my days on Gawker are most likely finite and few…..
Good to see you all living the good life over here in Wordsmoker.