June 2008
25 posts
I'll Tell You How Fucking Come
keithgessen:
How come Gawker never links to my tumblr when I post a photo of a cute puppy? I’m one of the top cute-puppy posters in the entire blogosphere, and what do I get? Readers: Please send more cute puppy photos. We’ll take back the internet yet.
K
The answer is simple: your posting of puppie pics on THE MOST IMPORTANT TUMBLR OF OUR TIME is a borderline felonious sham. It’s a...
"You condescending people should read my book"
Cripes:
Oh, youth. “Inscrutable youth,” as Elif says, “with your enormous sweatshirts and tiny telephones…” And your three published lines of poetry, your day jobs, your bright fresh faces, your future masterpieces—how haughty you are! How condescending.
Well let me tell you something, youth. You should read the speech Morris Binkel makes at the bottom of p. 73 of my book. Attend to it! This...
How was your stupid fucking party, Keith?
Reviews from others have ranged from mockery to abject boredom. We’d like your personal take.
Lineup Changes
Come to think of it, our friend at toomuchawesome has a point regarding our imaginary dinner with Rue McClanahan and Dave Coulier:
I don’t know; that’d be a pretty awesome dinner.
We reserve the right to change our minds, here at TAKE BACK THE INTERNET. The stakes are simply too high for any other policy.
Hence, we opine that the roster of attendees to Gessen’s party tonight sounds...
The Starting Lineup for your Brooklyn Codgers
You answered one of our questions, which we appreciate. Sadly, the people you have listed are just a little more exciting than our envisioned dinner with Rue McClanahan and Dave Coulier.
There are five more questions here waiting, at least four of them deserving of answers. Hop to it, you fancy book-learnin’ boy!
The Pain Is All Ours
We are, to be honest, almost starting to feel bad for THE MOST IMPORTANT LATTE DRINKER OF OUR TIME. After all, if you were going to learn one thing—anything—in the Gawker comments section, it would be how to be funny (spoiler: mostly through liberal use of substance-abuse and sex jokes, with a smattering of truly awful puns). Instead, he comes up with this, a dialogue in which the conceit,...
Housekeeping for Vanity
To ensure a prompt reply, we present the following, mainly to ensure you don’t miss the post below in the Google Alert you inevitably have setup for yourself:
keithgessen keith gessen gessen keith Keith Gessen KEITH GESSEN All the Sad Young Literary Men Ubertwat Self-Important Authors Sloane Crosby is More Well Liked Than Me N+1 NPLUSONE N PLUS ONE N PLUS 1 Namedropping I don’t get it...
Waiting For Godouche
Let’s be honest, Gessen: we both know you read this blog. However, you have not yet responded to the six reasonable — okay — five reasonable questions we have posted here regarding your soiree in Directly Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO).
We reason, then, that you don’t think these questions are being asked with the earnestness and seriousness becoming of THE...
Questions about THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTY OF OUR...
What alcoholic beverages — if any — will be provided at your party?
What food — if any — will be provided at your party?
Who will be there?
Will music be played? If so, what artists?
What assurances do we have that this is not some elaborate ploy to kidnap your detractors?
Is there any required reading which we should complete if we wish to actively participate in...
Kid's Got Alligator Blood →
As Teddy KGB would say: “Lays down a monster.”
We’ll need a few minutes to digest Mr. Gessen’s latest post. More to come as the day progresses.
Take Note, Gessen.
Tom Wolfe’s anecdotes are far more interesting and winsome than yours.
Also, Max Abelson manages to insert an account of his first-hand interactions with a prominent literary figure without coming off as a name-dropping puppy eager for acceptance. You could learn something from this post:
abelson:
truly, the greatest thing in the world happened to me just now: tom wolfe phoned to talk...
Ostentatious Esotericism
Guess who’s back with another scintillating update? You “gessed” it!
There are six paragraphs. Four of them are a verbal vomitorium of names and publications Mr. Gessen apparently wants very much to be associated with. There is no other explanation for this post.
We are not fooled. Neither is the internet.
Bad Education
From keithgessen.tumblr.com:
My readers ask the tough questions:
I think you might need to shore up the case for why one takes the battle over the independent judgment of literary and artistic merit to a place like Gawker. Does the existence of gossip rags somehow preclude the existence of any other form of criticism? Is gossip where ideology critique went to die (as you hint)? Is this what...
Pls keep me out of yr microfeud you cunt, thnx.
Naturally, we at TAKE BACK THE INTERNET have been fans of Alex Balk for quite some time now.
alexbalk:
If I can speak for the anonymous blogger who was TMFTML—and I think I can—I’m pretty sure he’d say that he was as big a fan of meta as the next guy (or gal!) but cack-handed, semi-ironic attempts to distract attention from one’s own well-known reputation for misogyny by expressing a sudden...
Now What We Gonna Do?
From keithgessen.tumblr.com:
“Will I ever forget the moment I discovered “takebacktheinternet.tumblr” in my followers? “Ah!” I thought. “A fan site.”
It was not a fan site.
So, without further ado, I’ve decided to take the initiative and buy up all the potential tumblrs my less than enthusiastic followers might be inclined to one day occupy. These are:
[Ed note: unfunny Tumblr URLs have...
WE RESPOND TO THE MOST IMPORTANT TUMBLR-ER OF OUR...
In this Tumblr post, we see that Mr. Gessen has taken notice of our efforts here to TAKE BACK THE INTERNET, while cruising around followers of his Tumblr (keithgessen.tumblr.com). What an unexpected activity for THE MOST IMPORTANT NAVEL-GAZER OF OUR TIME!
Honestly, though, we are tickled to engage Mr. Gessen in an open dialogue. Perhaps we will all learn something about ourselves, WHICH IS THE...
THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTHOR OF OUR TIME DEIGNS TO... →
More on this later…
"It's possible incidentally that the Gawker...
First, and most importantly, you are a gigantic twat.
Having established this, let’s delve deeper and analyze Mr. Gessen’s latest piece of free copy for Nick Denton:
Saying that Gawker’s commenters represent a “class” is both offensive and indicative of a grossly antiquated Marxist worldview. What the fuck is class, anyway, these days?
Insinuating that Gawker...
Will Gessen Keep His Word and Turn this Stray Cat... →
You're not a lunatic. You're just massively...
Lunatics are far more interesting.
This Man's Pomposity Knows No Bounds →
“Look: Decide for yourselves what you want to do with your lives. If you want to work for Nick Denton, or if you want to write sub-Gawker stuff while not even working for him—man, that’s your business. But don’t blame it on history, economics, or a conspiracy of the cultural elites. If you are in a position to make fun of the cultural elite in public, well, guess what that makes you.”...
““[Sheila should be fired] for missing everything important.”
Tip...”
– Emily Gould, onetime romantic interest of THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTHOR AND TUMBLR RANTER OF OUR TIME
““That’s an interesting suggestion. But it’s part of the...”
– Keith “THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTHOR OF OUR TIME” Gessen, in re: commenter Multiphasic’s suggestion that Keith Gessen abstain from reading Gawker.com
It's mine now, Gessen
