The Ultimate List of Gawker Media Longreads
December 31, 2012 3:39 PM Subscribe
A Portrait of a Portrait of an American Family: A Day With the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Clanby Rich Juzwiak is an interesting look at the lives of the Thompson-Shannons. I had uncharitably thought they were basically unsuspecting rubes who were being exploited by TLC. I now get the feeling the exploitation is the other way around.
posted by ob1quixote at 4:10 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
These are links to lists of in-network long reads? I dunno. My most recent favorites of the year were Venkatesh Rao’s Entrepreneurs Are The New Labor (I, II, III), Evan Miller’s Mathematical Hacker and Thomas Frank’s To the Precinct Station.
posted by migurski at 4:58 PM on December 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by migurski at 4:58 PM on December 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
It's possible to find and read old Gawker articles? Who knew?
posted by Nelson at 5:03 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 5:03 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
I'm starting to go through these, beginning with Kotaku. This one is very interesting, about YouTube's quick-triggered attempts to punish people who they think might be abusing their Adsense program.
posted by JHarris at 5:22 PM on December 31, 2012
posted by JHarris at 5:22 PM on December 31, 2012
Kotaku's Guide to Bronies is accurate and well-considered.
Kotaki's Guide to the Wii-U is interesting, especially how enamored they are with playing console games without turning on the TV.
Kotaku: On why people don't trust game journalists has this great bit from Gerstmann, the guy Gamespot fired back in 2007 (has it really been that long ago?) for giving an advertiser's game a bad review:
Kotaki's Guide to the Wii-U is interesting, especially how enamored they are with playing console games without turning on the TV.
Kotaku: On why people don't trust game journalists has this great bit from Gerstmann, the guy Gamespot fired back in 2007 (has it really been that long ago?) for giving an advertiser's game a bad review:
"Some people have thought that this line of work is inherently corrupt for years," Gerstmann told me, "and whenever they see anything that even smells like impropriety, they pounce and won't let go. Those people's minds are already made up. We spent a lot of years at GameSpot trying to lay out policies and make sure we were on the up and up, totally buttoned up across the board. But that didn't change anything. Those people were still there, lashing out every single day with cries of bias and how everyone was on the take. Of course, that chapter ended with the world's greatest ironic twist, didn't it? The sad thing is that with a snap of their fingers those guys at the top [at GameSpot] blew up a level of credibility that took us over a decade to build and GameSpot's staff, whether they were there in 2007 or not, still suffers as a result."posted by JHarris at 5:40 PM on December 31, 2012 [2 favorites]
I LOVE long reads. Very few of my top 100 were from the Gawker network. YMMV.
posted by k8t at 6:42 PM on December 31, 2012
posted by k8t at 6:42 PM on December 31, 2012
On the Kotaku list at least, a lot of the articles are apparently not worth the time. Continuing to hunt out interesting ones:
Kotaku: Employees telling what they don't like about working for all the major game companies. Some of it is probably sour grapes, but there's a lot of stuff there. (The only one that's really positive in all areas is -- take a wild guess? -- Valve.)
Kotaku: The development of Natural Selection 2 by a very small team
Kotaku: About learning more about a friend through the saved games on his old Xbox.
Kotaku: On H.G. Wells' Little Wars, by many accounts the beginning of the miniature wargame.
Kotaku: Interview with the sister of the gymnast in this year's Olympics who did a routine to a medley of Zelda songs. The routine on YouTube (hard to hear though).
Kotaku: The decline of Sony. Suprisingly for Kotaku, has little to do with video games. The best of the Kotaku articles by far, interesting even to people who don't care what a Playstation is.
Next up: Gawker.
posted by JHarris at 7:11 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
Kotaku: Employees telling what they don't like about working for all the major game companies. Some of it is probably sour grapes, but there's a lot of stuff there. (The only one that's really positive in all areas is -- take a wild guess? -- Valve.)
Kotaku: The development of Natural Selection 2 by a very small team
Kotaku: About learning more about a friend through the saved games on his old Xbox.
Kotaku: On H.G. Wells' Little Wars, by many accounts the beginning of the miniature wargame.
Kotaku: Interview with the sister of the gymnast in this year's Olympics who did a routine to a medley of Zelda songs. The routine on YouTube (hard to hear though).
Kotaku: The decline of Sony. Suprisingly for Kotaku, has little to do with video games. The best of the Kotaku articles by far, interesting even to people who don't care what a Playstation is.
Next up: Gawker.
posted by JHarris at 7:11 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
The "The New York Times Profiled the Brant Brothers Because the New York Times Hates You" article is hilarious and spot-on.
It's articles like that which make me wish I read Gawker more often.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:08 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
It's articles like that which make me wish I read Gawker more often.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:08 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
Kotaku: The decline of Sony. Suprisingly for Kotaku, has little to do with video games. The best of the Kotaku articles by far, interesting even to people who don't care what a Playstation is.
I read that article (thanks to Digg), loved it, started to read Kotaku regularly, and stopped after a week. Articles of that caliber can raise new readers' expectations of content quality to unrealistic levels.
Judging by these Best-Of lists, I like Lifehacker the best, followed by io9 and then Jezebel. io9 gets extra points for having the shortest list. Gizmodo's list is just one entry longer, but I dislike unnecessary interfac-ing for lists so no cookie.
posted by fatehunter at 12:01 AM on January 1, 2013
I read that article (thanks to Digg), loved it, started to read Kotaku regularly, and stopped after a week. Articles of that caliber can raise new readers' expectations of content quality to unrealistic levels.
Judging by these Best-Of lists, I like Lifehacker the best, followed by io9 and then Jezebel. io9 gets extra points for having the shortest list. Gizmodo's list is just one entry longer, but I dislike unnecessary interfac-ing for lists so no cookie.
posted by fatehunter at 12:01 AM on January 1, 2013
Every time I read a Gawker article it comes from Metafilter (occasional exceptions: someone I know links Jezebel or io9). I'm glad to see the good stuff gathered in one place with specific recs so I can avoid the dreck.
posted by immlass at 8:57 AM on January 1, 2013
posted by immlass at 8:57 AM on January 1, 2013
combing through it, I did find this article: Internet Pulls Together 1,200 Cars For Terminally Ill Boy. And I am just a sappy sucker for that kind of stuff.
posted by billyfleetwood at 8:04 PM on January 1, 2013
posted by billyfleetwood at 8:04 PM on January 1, 2013
(These aren't supposed to be titles but content descriptions. These are all from Gawker.)
Finding the Goatse guy (Heed the warnings in the article concerning linked images!)
A young black man and his battles against the system and his culture. A challenging read.
Spending time with the Honey Boo Boo family. This article has already been linked above, and it's one of the more insightful things I've read about the family behind the most-loathed yet much-watched show. I live in semi-rural Georgia and I see people like this every day. Hell, I delivered pizza to many of them for a while. If you can bring yourself around to feel empathy for these people instead of horror, anger or hatred, you've taken an important step towards conquering the ego. For this reason, I think Buddhist monks should train in rural Georgia.
Their piece on the badness of Kid Rock is one of those pieces that drives hits to the site because of its funny, ultra-snarky tone, like a South Park episode, but ultimately makes you wonder why they spilt so many words on the subject of Wow, Kid Rock is really bad. Still though, beneath it all it contains a couple of tellingly insightful points. Pushes the definition of longread, though.
A Gawker reporter gets to know the KKK. Is pretty interesting.
posted by JHarris at 4:25 PM on January 3, 2013
Finding the Goatse guy (Heed the warnings in the article concerning linked images!)
A young black man and his battles against the system and his culture. A challenging read.
Spending time with the Honey Boo Boo family. This article has already been linked above, and it's one of the more insightful things I've read about the family behind the most-loathed yet much-watched show. I live in semi-rural Georgia and I see people like this every day. Hell, I delivered pizza to many of them for a while. If you can bring yourself around to feel empathy for these people instead of horror, anger or hatred, you've taken an important step towards conquering the ego. For this reason, I think Buddhist monks should train in rural Georgia.
Their piece on the badness of Kid Rock is one of those pieces that drives hits to the site because of its funny, ultra-snarky tone, like a South Park episode, but ultimately makes you wonder why they spilt so many words on the subject of Wow, Kid Rock is really bad. Still though, beneath it all it contains a couple of tellingly insightful points. Pushes the definition of longread, though.
A Gawker reporter gets to know the KKK. Is pretty interesting.
posted by JHarris at 4:25 PM on January 3, 2013
I messed up the link to the Honey Boo Boo article, but ob1quixote linked to it up top.
posted by JHarris at 4:27 PM on January 3, 2013
posted by JHarris at 4:27 PM on January 3, 2013
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posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:46 PM on December 31, 2012 [3 favorites]