So implies Vanessa Grigoriadis of New York Magazine, in an article about Gawker that I somehow missed this past October. She’s obviously bitter that she doesn’t approach the $12 per article that the Gawker serfs rack up in their free-for-all fishbowl in SoHo, or that the plum $200K jobs in print publishing are going away. Or both!

This was a good read, but the article was more superficial — in a Gawker way! — than I might have expected from a lengthy exposé. Grigoriadis drops the requisite background/context clues, but they never tie together. The result is sort of unfocused and, ultimately pointless. So Denton is a soul-crushing harridan — yawn. Gawker writers snort coke out of each others’ cleavage — another yawn. Any regular reader could have conducted the same surprising research. Where’s the link between Gawker, Denton, and the rest of the new-media world? Where’s the compare/contrast stuff we learn in 8th grade English Composition class? I suspect that Grigoriadis is not enough of a technologist to know — or care — about these types of propeller-head data.

Interestingly I came to this article via a link on David Brooks’ page on the New York Times website (you read Brooks? – ed. Yes, sometimes.). That I found this navel-gazing peek at Gawker culture on the Gray Lady is a fabulous irony.