Tomorrow - Episode 45: After Gawker, with Joel Johnson

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

Just hours before the shocking verdict was delivered in the Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker trial, Josh sat down in the studio with former Gawker Editorial Director Joel Johnson to discuss just about everything... including life in Nick Denton's world. While the two do spend some quality time hashing through what it's like to be part of one of the most controversial companies in media (and wildly misjudging how the jury would rule in the case), they also delve into other areas of import. Video games, Batman, CarPlay, politics, and much more are on tap. This is a lively episode to say the least. If you don't enjoy it, you're probably dead already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to tomorrow I'm'm your host, Josh Wattipolsky. Today in the podcast we discuss new Nazis, hell divers, and gun control. I don't want to waste one second, so let's get right into it. My guess today is a friend, a lover, son. I don't know, I know this is not a good intro for you, but these are all things that you are. My guess is Jill Johnson. These are all things I am for you specifically.

For that's correct. Former editorial director, a docker, former blogger, Gizmodo, right? It's close enough, yeah. What else? What are the other things that you've done? former blogger, it gives Moto, right? Close enough, yeah. What else? What are the other things that you've done? Former occasional freelance writer. Oh, yeah, animal.

You did animal, right? I did animal reading. I've been wired, I've been bored. I've been fired from the best places. You've been fired from wired? No, actually, I wasn't. I just started lying. Fired from boy-boy?

No, I quit on boy-boy. I threw a fight about it. We were all in a fight about money or something. So that's what I'll do. It wasn't within, it's the same. It's not only that. Money will end most relationships. Gawker, you were fired from several times.

I was only fired from Gawker once. You also quit. But I have a quit from there several times. I like that. I always thought this was a fascinating thing that Gawker seemed to have this ability to, it's very odd for business where people like leave, they're either fired or they quit and then like a year

or two later, they're like, I'm going back there. Like Bloomberg has a policy that people who leave Bloomberg can never go work there again. Did they implement that policy after you were there or they're like, make sure this, make sure this guy can never get back. No, I think that's a, I think it's a longstanding. It's been written about. I think it's a longstanding thing. They just said, it's like we just don't want it.

It worked for a long time. I used to, to counsel people for a long time. It's like if you were stuck in a certain position or you felt like you weren't able to do what you wanted to do at God, Kermedia, one of the best things you could ever do is leave. Cause Denton, the guy that runs it, like he loves to, to woo people back, you know, he loves that idea.

Oh, really? They went to the big mainstream media place, but really they want to come back to you. Right. Oh, I see that's sort of like a power thing for them. It's sort of that. And I mean, but it is, it's actually really good for the, I mean, I think as a general rule,

if you can, especially early in your career, go experience what other newsrooms are like, or what the workplaces like. Then you can go back to anywhere and see the good in the bad with a little more clear eyes. I do think being at a place like a modern company like Docker, like when you were there, you know,

it was still, I mean, how was your first year at Docker? Like what you were there? Three? Oh, three or a whole or something like that. So like a long time ago. Yeah, right there at Gauk, or like what year were you there? Three? Oh, three or a whole or something like that. Like a long time ago. Yeah, not right there at the very beginning, but close. And then for a while.

I mean, on and off until 2014. Right. But like you had some long runs there, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, most of the times I was there, it was very like a lot of times it'd be like two years on, two years off, right back and forth. But I do think I was going to say like I think being in an environment like that, which is loose and new and young and then going to undoubtedly like other play conda, you know, or being at other places where it's less you loose and less young. I mean, it's an eye opener.

Yeah. I think it's a real, I think you don't know. You kind of don't know. Like, you know, listen, I loved Vox, and I love a lot of people there, and I obviously was painful to leave. But, you know, when I left, I had gone from, you know, we had gone from AOL, which is very corporate, and, you know, like it was a horrible environment

to be creative to something that was like totally fresh and new and like a great environment. And then I went to Bloomberg, and it was like totally different vibe, because there was like a, any hope, the point is to your point, the more experience you can get being inside of other newsrooms or other environments is like highly valuable.

I wish I had done more earlier. Yeah, it helps you figure out what's important to worry about and what isn't. Right. And unfortunately those are the kind of lessons that you really need to learn on your own. You can have older people tell you that all the as much as you want,

but until you experience it first, Angie, you're not gonna listen to this. So, yeah, so I was very wise about Galker. And Galker was a great place for me, too, to be able to kind of, you know, run back into their open arms and do some work for a while, and then go try something else.

So, it was good, overall. And now, we'll plug, I'm gonna plug a little bit, you're doing some consulting stuff. Did you want this plugged or not plugged? I mean, I mean, I- It's under the radar. It's, we're not publicly advertising for new clients right now.

I understand. You're doing some very high level elite consulting. It's murder, yeah. We do a lot of murder. Sure. Consulting is, quote, corporate murder. But, you know, no, in quotes corporate murder, but you know, no, I There will be a point where we talk about what we're working on. It's probably still going to be a few months, but I like the idea of

Consultant. I like the idea of freelance and I think it sounds the well, I when I think about it, I think about when we when my brother and I had our studio and it's like One part unbelievably liberating and I by the way, I think you're at a different level than we were at like a Brooklyn studio level, which is like you're always, I was gonna say the other part of it is it's terrifying and horrible because you're constantly like chasing people for money and like, you know, you'd have a band, we'd have a band in for like a month. We had like this band from Warner Brothers and for a month recording. We're like, oh shit, like this is good money, you know, and then they were gone. And there was like, not another band that came right in. We're

like, Oh, now we have no money whatsoever. It's Feast or famine. Yeah. Like, that's one of the things I always, like when people talk about, like writers specifically say, I want to go freelance, it's like just plan on three months, at least of nine times, you need a backload or backfill or whatever you do. Yeah, just keep saying yes to things and keep waiting for that stuff to come through. But because the payment is also chasing down payment is insane. So yeah, I mean, that's what I do now. I don't want to get super into it, but I can't get sensitive subject for you. No problem.

If you need me, you know where to find me. If you need Joel's special service, he's ready for you. So let's talk about, we talked about Goggard. I want to talk about Goggard because they're, I mean, we're going to have about other things, but Goggard, you want to talk about Goggard. It's Friday, we're recording this on Friday, March 18th. Is that the date?

That sounds right. Yeah. If only one of your devices, you got a, he has an app, by the way, I just want to say Joel's wearing his Apple watch. He's been wearing it since the launch. Yeah. He's one of the few people I know is really hung on. It's terrible And what's that semi-send a heartbeat? I tweeted that the other day terrible It's terrible the whole product is terrible, but I bought it so I'm sticking with it

Yeah, I know I see that you're like I paid good month good money. I wrote him cook an email No, I've never done this really I wrote him an email I got to hear this like two weeks ago I was like you know I put in my time and like, I really don't think this is a good product. What happened that spurred that? I, I don't know. I was probably just bored.

But I was just like, I love that you actually wrote an angry letter to do it. It wasn't angry. It was very civil. I was just like, you guys can do better. A signed a customer. Not just a customer. I feel like you have some expertise in this area.

I mean, I'm not gonna, like, that's not the point. Like, the point was just to get my bile out. So every time I put this thing on, I don't get mad at myself. You don't remember if there was a specific thing that happened where you were like, I've had enough of this. I'll tell you what I don't like is the fact

that everything it does is slow and doesn't work. Like, it's a bad part of the process. That sounds like a bad part of the process. If you were happy to sit there and look at it and can we curse on this? Yeah, of course. Uh, and putts around with it. That's not like curse word.

It, in some places, you had issues. Curse works. I don't think that's going to be, uh, you go, you go through this whole thing. And it's like when you're first playing around with it, it's like, oh, I might use that. I might use voice control. I might use all of this stuff. But it's literally like every time you want to use Siri or any any of the interactive parts, it takes like five seconds. It takes longer to use the watch than it does to pull out your phone and do it.

Physically, that's the difference. Yeah. And that's insane. Like why? So the only thing that's useful for is notifications and as soon as I can find, as soon as I feel like I've gotten $250 or $350 out of it, then I will then you can see revisiting a smartwatch, you don't think. I think, yeah, I don't think it's... This is, when I reviewed this,

notifications were the only thing that I really found use from, for. And even those, it was just like, they just seem more aggravating and more distracting to me. It wasn't like, oh, finally relief from my phone. Like, if anything, it just made you more agitated. I found a very agitated, and the other thing that I think is insane about the watch,

tell me if this ever happens to you. And I know you can disable this, but it's not natively, I think you can disable it, I'm not sure, but it's not the, it's an opt out if you can do it at all. You're sitting at your laptop, you get a call. The laptop, because you have whatever the thing is where it can ring on your laptop. This is happening to me all the time. The laptop rings, your phone rings, and the watch rings all at the same time,

all within like, you know, a foot of one another. It's a good, that's one of the only good things. You like that. I like the wide, sensory experience. It's insane You like that. I like the fly. The fly sensory experience. It's insane. Like three devices that are all connected. I get that because I have a car play head unit in the Tacoma. And so when you're using directions, you get to see the directions on the screen.

You get to see the directions like on the phone that's plugged in if you have it open to it. And you also get turned by turn directions on your wrist. Is that good? I mean, why wouldn't you want to be distracted by three different things while you're driving down highway? This is sarcasm is what you're doing. I would never be surprised. You have a unit, you have an airplane unit.

I like where this is going. Oh, a car plane unit. You have a car plane unit in your truck. Yeah. What brand is the unit? It's a pioneer. How much was it? I think it was like $500 something like that.

You're the only person I know who's ever spoken about using CarPlay. I think it's insane because you have to use Apple Maps, which is like, I don't try still to trust. One of the pieces, if I were still writing gadget review pieces that I would be writing right now,

which I, now that I've moved entirely to audio gadget reviews, there's literally 12 car play apps, it's insane. And it's been out for two years. So you can't use Google Maps, you'd Waze doesn't work. But this Apple won't let you use Google Maps. What does it matter? I don't think the reason is, right? Yeah, so it's like, you have to use their map.

You have to use their maps, which are still terrible. It's a chore show. And like, it's just, it's fine, because it was easy for me because I didn't have a touch screen, like a nice screen in my truck. Like, it didn't come with one. So I switched in a touch screen that Pioneer Units been great.

Spotify. Don't use that. No, I don't think it's on the internet. There's no app. I use Apple Music, because that's what I'm using. That's insane. I mean, the whole thing is Asunae. I'm completely bought into this Apple stuff. And I've always felt kind of weird about it

because some people expect me not to like Apple because of the reporting I've done on it. Sure. It's hard to explain that it's like, I just don't care either way. I'll just do whatever is the most convenient and useful to me. But I am at a point, this is the first time in years

that I've been like, you know, like maybe I wouldn't mind Android. Yeah, so the new Galaxy S7 is pretty nice looking. It's a nice phone. I literally have been toying with the idea of just, of getting a second line just to carry that with me because I also this, I've also been toying with getting rid of my iPhone just because, which I always do, every few months

I like after I've been to remind myself why I am on, the only thing that I really believe is keeping me now on the iPhone is I message and FaceTime because Zelda likes to FaceTime with her grandparents. But honestly, those, that's it. Like there's no advantage. I don't see any other. I haven't switched anything because I'm bought in

and I, you know know one ecosystem makes it easier But there are times like when razor comes out with a new gaming laptop, and I'm like Maybe I could have a window like if you a windows guy and play like video games in between my work the second I heard windows phone was in trouble. I was like Maybe I should get a windows phone. I was kind of like I want the thing that I want the other thing I don't just we can't we got to talk about something else. I feel like we're gonna talk about what we are gonna say. We're sitting and talking about people wearing a love this.

People who listen to this are gonna be like, finally he's talking about tech. Cause I come on here and I'm like, taking about like drug experiences or something. And I'm like, I just want to hear what you think of the Galaxy S7. And spand your mind, people. But anyhow, but getting back to the thing about the car, play shit just to wrap this up. Car play is actually kind of interesting. But I think what's annoying, and I've talked about this

a million times, and I actually might write something about it soon, is like this, the closed system concept is like I think it really broke and really flawed. And ultimately will fail because I don't think human beings are desirous of closed systems at their core. I don't know if I agree with that. Human beings are far too malleable politically and spiritually. There is a reason we have gravitated towards cities, Joel. Food. Food. Mostly fast food and slow food. Okay, so let's talk about gocker versus egg.

Yeah, sure. Now, obviously, you everybody involved in this Gokker trial. Let me set the stage for the people who maybe listening that don't know what's been going on. I'd be surprised if there's a lot of people listening who don't know what's going on, but you know, it's kind of an inside baseball media thing. So I take that back. So Gokker was sued by Hulk Hogan.

Apparently Howard Stern was talking about this today. I caught the tail end of a show of his, I didn't hear it, but Howard Stern is actually factors into this a little bit because Hulk Hogan went, okay, let me set the stage. Hulk Hogan's suing Gawker for $100 million because Gawker published a sex tape of Hulk Hogan having sex with Bubba the Love Sponge. Is that his name?

Bubba the Love Sponge's wife. Yeah, at the time wife. And it was an excerpt they published. They didn't publish the whole thing. Well, they published the sex. Yeah, but it matters, right? They published a clip of the sex. A clip of the sex of Hologogan having sex

with Bubba the love sponges wife. Whose name? I don't know. Heather Clem. Heather Clem. It was concentra, it was like a bubble was like gig. They're like wife's whopping. Yeah, that was, there's some question about like exactly what that is

But I know they're having sex right it was presumed that that the sex was consensual for all three parties But that the recording Hogan's lawyers and Hogan are are Suggesting that the the recording of it was done unbeknownst to Hogan. Oh and The recording. I did the unbeknownst to Hogan. Oh, and the recording. And the recording. To fuck Hogan. Right. Which is like, yeah, right, not obviously. So they've been in court now for a couple of weeks, something like that.

Like, it hasn't been that long, two weeks maybe. Yeah, they're running through it pretty fast. I think people thought it might take a long time. Many of the many of the staff members who were present at Gauk at the time who were working there have been, there have been depositions. There have been, there's been, have people been in court at like AJ? There's been, was he in court? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick was in court. Yeah. Nick Den. And my assumption is like having heard what is, you know, what is being reported and having seen some a little bit of the live stream because there was a live stream of it, which I think Gokka was running. They embedded it right. No, I mean they didn't create it, but they embedded it, which is sort of a funny. Yeah, it's cheeky. It's very meta. It's very meta. It's in Florida. In L.S. County. Florida. Nellies County cases in Florida. The jury doesn't seem like they maybe understand what Gauker does or who the beat Gauker people are.

Yeah. I mean, that's the presumption. We don't really know anything about the jury. I mean, one of the jury questions was to Emma Carmichael, one of the former editors, current editors. Yeah. The question was, did you have a sexual relationship with Nick Denton? Right.

Nick is flamboyantly gay. He's not flamboyant at all. He's a well-known gay man. But he is wildly gay, he's a well-known gay. He's not flamboyant. He's wild about being gay. But it's very, but everybody knows he's gay. Yeah.

So it was a weird question, but also a really weird question in general. It's also like a really weird sexist question to ask. But like, it's like, you just, when I heard that question, I was like, these people don't really know like at all anything about what Gauker is. Like they don't know these people, they don't understand the business.

There's no like connection there. Well, there average people who may be aware of the properties that Gauker runs and maybe even read some of them. Yeah. But they're certainly not like hip to the removed ironic distance that most of these things operate in.

Right. And so I just felt like this is not going well for Gauker. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you think is happening right now, whether you think where this leads. I mean, so the received wisdom is that there will, that gocker will lose. There will be some sort of judgment that that judgment probably won't be a hundred million dollars.

Because it makes a decision on the, on the award. I believe that jury does. I'm not 100% sure. But I think the jury actually establishes the financial or the, the monetary right now. So they could, they could be, they could if they wanted to they really felt like and there's At least three defendants because there's gochermedia as one Nick Denton as one the owner and publisher and AJ Delario the guy who wrote the post yeah have are all named in the suit So you know presumably there could be a dog right like they could divvy the judgments in different ways

They could say hypothetically a J on the hope for $75,000 I mean they could divvy the judgements in different ways. They could say hypothetically, A.J. is on the ho for $75,000. Well, I mean, they could say whatever they want. I think that would be, I mean, of course, that'd be horrible for A.J. But yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be pretty fun to hear the guy. He's one of the few people like to think of that would not, you know, probably take that fairly well. Yeah. But the, you know, the question is going to be, it's, it's almost certain they're gonna lose.

Right. It's almost also certain that it'll be appealed that they deserve to lose. Do you think they deserve to lose? We should talk about that. But like, we should talk about it not on recording. No. I mean, how do you hear your real opinion?

Well, I mean, we don't have to recap the whole, that's gonna have to recap. I can tell you what they're gonna lose. I think they're gonna lose as well. I can tell you what they're going to lose. I think they're going to lose as well. I can tell you what I feel. What I feel is that it's like however this works out, it's fine by me.

Like I think it would be hilarious if Hulk Hogan wins this first case. A lot of times people ask me because the, the, the mortal judgment or the mortal condition here for, for Gawker is that if they have a huge judgment They have to put up a bond against the judgment even if they appeal which so if let's say hypothetically a hundred million dollar Judgment is made like they got to put up a bond for that which probably ends the company because nobody's going to Where would they get a hundred million they have liquidate and they already sell us They just took a bunch of money from a Russian investor and like, you know, they're trying to bulwark against some of this, but you could hypothetically, you could hypothetically

sell a stake. Well, they just sold it some stake. I don't know. I think it's more to sell, right? And keep the company. Yeah. As is. And, and, you know, it's like, on one hand, I think it would be hilarious. The whole thing gets taken down by whole Cogan, right. And if that happens, it certainly would be. It certainly would be fitting in. It'd be perfect. I mean, there is something I'm not saying I wanted to happen. But I think it would be a really like, you couldn't write a better script.

I mean, I also would be really bummed out if a lot of those people at Gaucker many of whom are still my friends and people that I like and read every day, loss their jobs. That would suck. No, obviously. I mean, it would suck, but I also would suck. And as hard as it may be to hear this or even to say it sometimes when you, you know, it would be bad for journalism and bad for our industry, even if you don't agree with what a lot of a gocker does, and I don't, you can't deny that gocker has also done some amazing shit and really important shit and that that's a voice you want in the mix. Yeah.

I mean, so it would be like this gets to one of the core weirdnesses of operating in the journalistic space in 2016, which is that there was a time, and it wasn't that long ago, three or four years ago, where people sort of understood the role of this tabloid thing. A lot of people didn't like it. And of course, the excuse slash justification that we always used at Gokker was,

yeah, we're gonna have some tabloid stories that you're not gonna particularly love, but our freedom to do those stories and sort of creating the space to do those stories also allows us to do the more journalistic stuff when it comes out. In the grand scheme of things, do I think that journalism and society will be fine if Galker doesn't exist? Like, I absolutely do. I think there's still a role for it. Do I think the first amendment would be damaged

by this lawsuit? Like I think it could be, but I can't imagine it going all the way through appeals and not getting shot down. That's a point. But we exist in this really weird space now. It's like the decade of Gamergate, right? Like it's this notion that everybody,

that outrage on both sides of the fence is now treated differently than it was three or four years ago. Yeah. And so on one hand, I'm very sympathetic to the people who are hurt when their private information is put out there. And like, there's certainly times when I, when I am empathetic towards those things,

but they sort of logical geek part of my brain really has a lot of reservations about setting up boundaries around what is appropriate to publish and what isn't based almost 100% on taste and more. Right. Right. So I mean, almost 100%, not entirely. They're definitely our cases where you could say, all right, you know, this is not a taste question. This is like, was it? Did it matter? There are arguments we made there. I mean, the reality is there is a legit argument

as much as it pains me to say this about a Hulk Hogan. The legitimate argument was this newsworthy, didn't need to be published. Like was, was Gokker doing something in the interest of like in the public interest and journalistic when it published the stuff? You know, like you, I think that could be a, that along healthy debate. I mean, I think that there are many stories that Gokker and in its sister sites have done over the years that would have been much better cases to prove why that sort of journalism is valuable and useful. No, that's what I'm saying.

This is not the top tier. Yeah, I mean, I just think that putting up a, you know, nine seconds of Hogan's dick is unfortunately the one that is going to trial. Right. So anyway, you know, it's totally mixed because I'm not a fan of Denton. I'm not a particular fan of all of the bad decisions that he's made to that, that have impacted that company over the last couple of years. Right.

Not the least of which is hanging me out to dry and trying to blame me for a lot of the you know, decisions that he's made. That's sort of a dent in thing though, isn't it? Oh yeah, yeah. To blame the people that work for him for all the things that he decided to do. Yeah, he's very good about stabbing you in the front. I mean, that's, but you know, that's, of course, that's like his role as like the CEO and owner.

Yeah, but all that's to be, as you know, Teflon is possible. I mean, whatever, it's fairly transparent, but I find that I just think that this whole thing is, I don't know, the whole thing's asked to nine. I don't know how, I agree. I don't really feel compelled to come down on one side or the other on this one, because the whole thing

is entertaining, and that, if anything, is in the spirit of Gauker. What spirit of Gauker lies within me still is allowing me to, without guilt, to enjoy the crazy circus that's happening now. I think, I will say this about Gauker. And I think it's one of the great missed opportunities of independent publishing in the last decade

is that Gauker has done the stuff I was saying before they've done really incredible stuff. If you had just taken, if Gauker could just have taken, it's not about being 20% nicer, but like taking shit 20% more serious. And funneling some of that, the desire for like the quick hit, the salaciousness, funneling that into real journalism, not doing journalism. What was the quote, the Denton quote?

It's like what we do journals by accident or yeah, incidentally. In some shit like that. If you actually said like, hey, we're one of the few independent media outlets that exist that could do really meaningful, really like, well, there's two things that there's two decisions that Nick has made over the years that made that impossible. The first is that he never actually wanted to invest in real journalism and give people the time and the space and the money to do that kind of work. Right. Like if you go back and look at all of the big hits that Gauker media in general has had,

there's some of them that there was reportage involved and you know, it's there, but I would say the lion's share of those were just things that were emailed to Gauker that they had the balls to publish as opposed to some other plays that didn't. Right. And there is a role for that, but that's not They had the balls to publish as opposed to some other plays that didn't right. And there is a role for that, but that's not that. That plus, but that plus. Oh, I absolutely agree. And then, but the second problem is is that didn't never knows. He's institutionally or, or, or constitutionally rather unable to know when is enough.

So, you know, gives me a little gets to iPhone 4 in the morning, everybody's like, wow, what a scoop, great tech scoop by the afternoon when Nick has told everybody that you should really publish how this engineer is an asshole and what a dummy and his name and all his personal details. Then you get to the end of the day and everybody's like, Gizmato, it's the worst, then the whole team. Steve Jobs, like, please, please, please give me my phone back. Oh, yeah. And it's like not without a no without some ransom. I yeah there was such a good moment. And I to be fair I know I didn't think about it until months later. But it was like we could have had a video of

Brian Lamb walking down one infinite loop handing the phone back to that would have been great. Megavai. Yeah. They would have been fantastic. But like, It's so funny. What an interesting thing. I've never thought of that. But what an interesting alternative to the other thing. To the other thing.

Like, let me run like, it could have been like, yeah, we got it. We took some pictures of it. We totally get what you're coming from. We're going to bring it over in that's an event. And probably is like, Gizbo does not band and all the other shit.

Right. Steve Jobs doesn't talk about how he's gonna like. Yeah, because Jobs is actually pretty chill about that whole thing in the first few hours of it going down. Yeah, yeah. He was happy to talk and was willing, I mean, I had very little to do with it, to be fair, I don't wanna steal anybody's thunder.

But it was a much more polite situation until the information about the engineer came out. And I actually talked to that engineer last time I was in San Francisco, so like early last year. Yeah, he was at some event. What was it? Someone who was having drinks. To the benefit of people whose lives have been ruined by.

Yeah, well, I mean, it was really tough because like I talked to him and I'm spacing his name down, I feel bad. Probably good for him, actually. Yeah, it doesn't need to be. He always prefers that. But you know, he said basically, and he's still employed at Apple, but he said more or less what you would expect, which is like, yeah, that really sucked. Like that really screwed up my life

for a long time. Cause, and I think less at work, although maybe I don't know, but I think it was more about, you know, he's just a public, he's known publicly now for losing the phone, right? So it's just endless jokes and that kind of stuff that gets really old. Oh, God, can you imagine? And I, but it was funny. In this place is something in the office is constantly when I was talking to him. I was a editorial director of all of Gawker media. So while I was trying to be a sympathetic on one hand, on the other hand, I was doing that same song and dance that we have to do all the time, which is like, what do you see how this is valuable?

The publishing of information with no real questions about like who what where what the ramifications will be emotionally for people is important to me. I'm pretty impressed. But then you're also staring at a guy who's telling you, yeah, that totally screwed up my life. Yeah, my girlfriend left me and my dad died. I mean, he seems fine.

He's an engineering apple. I'm sure he's totally fine. It's funny. I mean, I haven't thought about that in a long time, but that was a crazy. It was the end of gadget writing. That was the moment where it turned into something else. Yeah, I mean, I definitely, that was definitely at the moment where things were radically shifting.

I mean, where that became, you know, when suddenly police were kicking indoors over a fucking lost phone. Yeah. It became like, oh, this stuff is more important than just, like, it's got a good screen. And that's how I always said it. Whatever.

That's the voice he's, oh, it's got a fast processor. You know, that was definitely part of the moment of the shift into like culture, tech culture versus like tech stuff, anyhow. Could you call it the intersection of tech and culture? You could, you really could. The intersection of technology science, art and culture. Right.

You definitely could, you definitely could call it that. The verge is really born out of the ashes of the stolen iPhone, lost iPhone, whatever we're calling it. Lost iPhone's stolen, because it was like the guys who had it, they actually got like, went to, not jail, but the police arrested the guy who had it, they actually got like, went to, not jail, but the police like arrested the guy who had the phone, right?

I believe so, yeah. I think you guys wrote about that. Yeah, probably. Or we did. This is when I was at Engagit. You can think of like, such this time, what was it, 2007, 2008? Eight, wasn't it?

That's a nine, I don't know. Yeah, I don't recall. It was all very exciting. At any rate, okay, so let's move on. So you're feeling, oh, you know what, I haven't taken a break. How long have we been talking? Oh, actually, that's a perfect time to take a break.

Perfect time, we're gonna take a break. We some words from sponsors. We'll make this all possible. And then we'll be back with more from Joel Johnson. Today's sponsor is Casper Mattresses, obsessively engineered American made mattresses at a shockingly fair price. And now you can get 50 bucks towards any mattress purchase by going to Casper.com slash Joshua and using code Joshua. Listen, spend about a third of your life sleeping.

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All right, we're back with Jill Johnson and we just got off a long conversation about Gokker and their trial with Hulk Hogan. Which is like, doesn't even sound real. Like, let me say that loud. Does anything get things actually happening? Gokker is in a trial with the wrestler Hulk Hogan who wants a hundred million dollars from Toggle because they published a sex tape.

It's the greatest country in the world. It's in Florida. Speaking of Florida, are you a political guy? You're not political. I mean, it depends on what you mean. You don't wanna talk about it. You're like a libertarian, right? I'm even just the freedom to do whatever.

I'm nothing, like, I'm not a liberal, I'm not a capital or lowercase libertarian, although I obviously know the distinction between those. I didn't know there was a distinction. Yeah, I mean, whatever. Like, I'm basically a Democrat effectively, if you'd like, Bernie or Hillary. You know, I think they're both kind of terrible candidates.

Really? Really? Yeah, I mean, for a wildly different reasons. Why is Hillary terrible? I am, the primary thing is not even per fault per se, but I just really against dynastic presidencies, like, you know, that's worked once, like it worked for the Roosevelt and that, and they didn't even like each other. Is it, is it Hillary's dynasty that's allowing her to capture all these delegates?

Or is it the fact that the people who say they support Bernie, the young people aren't coming out to vote during the primary? I have no idea. I don't, I, I, I mean, the numbers are lower than in, in the last, support Bernie, the young people, aren't coming out to vote during the primary. I have no idea. I don't, I, I mean, the numbers are lower than in the last election. Nobody knows anything on this. Like, everything changes so much. I think Trump has been evidence that you can't predict any of it. People are weird.

We're heard animals who just do crazy things. And, and like, and it's not that I don't care about it, but I guess not that I don't care about it, but I guess, because I don't care about it, if you look at the amount of time I spend thinking about it and reading about it and processing it, but I have kind of lumped almost all politics at this point into the same bucket that I lump a lot of things now in my do-dodge,

which is like, it's out of my control. I can't really worry about it that much. Let's see where this goes. Do you think we're living in a post-truth society? Do you think we're living in a, at a time when it literally doesn't matter anymore whether you're telling the truth or not, or whether like the things you say are provable?

I think it is increasingly that way, yeah, for sure. What is the cause of that? Because I'm actually really perplexed by this, and I'm curious to hear, I mean, I imagine you have probably thought about this a little bit, but it is a strange situation that we're in where we have more information than ever, seemingly more information than ever. And I think that ultimately is part of this, but Trump says whatever. I mean, he can say anything. I mean, all the candidates can kind of say anything, but Trump especially is like the perfect example

Somebody be able to say just like whatever comes to mind true or not and the press the press with the capital P Can call him on it all day long and it seems to have basically no impact on his his Basically no impact on his run on him as a person on his followers. Like, what does that say about what's happening in the world right now? Does it say anything? Well, I think there's a million threads that are all starting to be woven together into a new reality. Take this tab of acid and put it under your tongue. Let me take you onto a fascinating journey. I like this. You know, nobody, you have questions whether or

not people think whether they trust a government, whether they trust the press to tell them the truth, whether they trust the printed and traditional media to tell them the truth versus internet things. We have, you also have the amount of cognitive power that human beings actually have, being taxed or at the limit almost every day. Like because of distractions. I literally think that we're just not built for the world we've created to a great extent. Not yet. Yeah, I mean, you know, sure. I see Ray Kurzweil out in the lobby that's coming in here. I mean, I'm not curious. That'd be the lobby that's coming in here. It's all men ourselves. Yeah, I mean, not consciousness.

Like, that'd be great. We just have to upload ourselves to the machine. People have, people have chosen to make their own realities. And they have more and more anecdotal, if not actual experiences to fall back on to build that reality, right? So if you're a Kim trailer, like you have plenty of reasons why you would never believe the press about why popular mechanics might go right a thing that's like, here's why Kim trails are impossible.

They're definitely not true, but you have a couple of places online that will show how popular mechanics and this other issue showed that 9-11 was, you know, there was no conspiracy there in building seven. So that's why we can't trust popular mechanics. Right. So everybody's become like a media critic. Everybody's become, in some ways, the thing we wanted to create, which is an audience that's engaged with the brands and can kind of understand the nature of bias and all of this stuff. But, you know, I, one of the most, one of the things I've gotten the most vitriolic response for in my career for writing was years ago writing a piece that basically said, like, yeah, we're biased. I don't care about commenters. Fuck you all. I remember that. I remember that.

I remember that. And I think the reason, whatever that piece was fine. I was just biol that I puked up at a coffee shop one morning. But you were angry. I was like, I had some nasty comments, but what I also found did exactly what the coveners fought it right? Well, they didn't yeah, I snapped. But it didn't change anything, right? And it's also if you go look at like gamer gate, you could This is a stretch because there's many other factors involved But like I lost my job in part because of gamer gate, right? And I how I responded to the gamer gate thing happening at of Gamergate, right? And I cow I responded to the Gamergate thing happening at Gawkermeet.

Right. And what was funny about that, and an interesting, kind of, learning moment for me, was that my staff wasn't happy with my reaction, and the public wasn't happy with my reaction. And then ultimately, Nick decided he wasn't happy with my reaction. Can you give me a little back, give us a little background

just for the people who don't know exactly what you're talking about? Yeah, so Game of Gate was a, and is a, like a backlash against... It's turning, can I just say before you, what it is is like, it's now a thing that exists almost like a political party. Well, this is like, okay, before we even go down this road because I'm not sure I want to, this gets back to my original point.

No, it's, but I can also change this. Nope, can't, you gotta go down. This is my show. Gotta go down. I will do what I want. Gotta go all the way down. My point is they, labels don't mean anything anymore. People can get lost in the argument so long

that coming to some sort of consensus is almost impossible. And then conversely and perversely. That's a very nice. Nobody creates these center regions, like a neutral zone for things to be discussed, right? It's, it's, it's, I guess you've been a reddit recently. Right. Except for reddit. They are not for reddit.

No, like, whatever, I read reddit, that's fine. But what is there, what is the catacletan action? Oh, yeah, that's the, the gamer gate thing. That's the gamer gate. That's the gamer gate community on Reddit, right? Shout out to catacletan.com. What's so homey? Honestly, just the second this hits the air waves.

The second this is on the internet, you and I are both going to be completely swarming. Well, it was very interesting actually when, you know, a year and a half ago when a lot of the gamer gates have been blown up, a lot of people didn't want to write about it because the audience, that was the gamer gates have was blown up, a lot of people didn't want to write about it because the audience That with the gamer gate audience part of it. Yeah, like would attack publications that were taking a position. They didn't like they're there a mob there are mob of abusers

I mean they are a mob in the sense that lots of things are a mob they are but the people who associate with gamer gate I can tell you this I mentioned them in Kind of in passing and a thing I wrote about Twitter a few months ago and the people who associate with Game Regate, I can tell you this, I mentioned them in kind of in passing and I think I wrote about Twitter a few months ago and an entire weekend of mine was spent watching people from that community. There are complete turds in the Game Regate community. But here's the interesting thing about that phenomenon.

As a phenomenon. Yeah. The people that it's like this weird self-selecting thing, right? Like, it used to be that you could, you could tarnish a name, you know, like Nazis, is one of the last ones we've got, right? If somebody self-identifies, no, but that's absolutely right, not for long.

I would bet you, in another 10 years, somebody's gonna have a big thing about why they're a Nazi, what being a Nazi. What being a Nazi doesn't mean, you know, like doesn't mean what you think it does. We're not those 20th century Nazis. We're like the new Nazis. And they're going to use all the social justice. Neon Nazis.

No, we're not. We're not. We're not. Beodotsies were new Nazis. Right. We're the new Nazis. I like that. That's like you're taking notes.

I actually knew. We haven't talked about your startup by their side. I got that right That's like you're taking notes. I actually knew not to about your startup by their side. I got that right. I want me to pitch you. No, not to. You know what I mean? Like, there used to be a point that you could say we would sort of society as a whole would would at least carve out some places where we would say like, you know what, we're not even going to give those people time. Right. And then we had the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan for a long time. We've been like, you know what? Ku Klux Klan. Right. You don't get for a very long time. We've been like, you know what, Ku Klux Klan? You don't get a fucking vote.

But your finance strange bedfellows these days where Trump and right wingers and the Clive and Bundys of the world will kind of be like, well, this guy's listening to us. So yeah, he hates all Jews and black people, but we agree on these other issues. And comments all about finding common ground. Which is a sort of, and here's the really tricky part of it.

That is a sort of generosity and a sort of open-mindedness, right? Like that is a sort of consensus of terribleness. Sure. But it's like there. And so, you're in a really weird spot right now where people can kind of build these frameworks to believe whatever they want to believe. And if you go and you try to change things, it's both easier and harder than it's ever been. And so to get back to your question,

if you're like, hey, do you like burning your Hillary? It's like, well, like question. Like at one point. Yeah, at some point. At one point at one time, yeah. It's like, well, I mean, they both have parts that I like, they both have parts I don't like.

But it's weird now because I feel like I'm almost making judgments, not on who as a representative of the American people I think would be best in this current world or whatever. We're at now to point, we're almost making judgments about what we think is the fastness and permanence of the American system of government and the society around it. So it's like you have people that are basically

wanting Bernie to be president because they want him to tear down Wall Street and tear down all this other stuff. You have some people that want, are essentially voting for Hillary because they're like, well, she has the most real world experience and she's a diplomat and all of these things, which is totally the same stuff.

The same stuff. The same stuff. Or at least the stuff that is predicated on what the past has been. But then you also have like people like Trump where on one hand it's like, I don't want Trump's terrible. But I don't, there's another part of me,

maybe it's an nihilistic part, but there's another part of me that's like, well, if we could actually get to a point where Trump is elected, maybe things like having, you know, a third of our black population in prison or like making marijuana illegal all across the country, maybe these things, that everybody has said, these are hard problems and systemic and it'll take generations. Like maybe, maybe it's time to go do crazy stuff. Like, and so- Yeah, but that's, but your argument would be like for the guy who would probably keep those policies in place

Well, I'm looking for the like at the end of the You're saying you're like okay if we let Trump in the maybe next time is George Clooney And then maybe after George Clooney it's like an actual person with a brain and ideas It's just and then you get to like like after a 50 years of total like crazy oppression and disaster We might find a candidate who's like, just crazy enough to do the good stuff. I just, I want to have like one Chicago train lawyer for eight years, and then I want one winner of American Ninja Warrior for eight years.

And then I want like, you just want to get like, and then you, it'll be a pair. We'll be like, you know what? The president should be two people who've won the amazing race. Well, like, as a, because they could do the work of the president much better as a team. I mean, it is a little ass-knit that we have presidents still, right? Actually, you know what's fucked up is that we're not recognizing that we would get two presidents for the price of one with Hillary, okay? I think we kind of know that.

Well, we should be thinking more about it, because Clinton was a pretty good president. You may not like all of his policies, and yeah, he passed some bad laws, and he did some trade stuff, and some crime stuff. And, you know, do we agree with all of his sexual decisions? Maybe not. But the sex of his fine, it's just mostly that he kind of stepped into a good economy and I don't know that he gets to claim all the credit. Well, he can claim some credit, but yeah, he did find whatever.

The sex thing is interesting to me. I think the president should do whatever he wants. I think he should just be able to have sex with whoever he wants and there should be no issue. Well, it's very, it's a very interesting question. That I'm going to keep some sex slaves, whatever. visa V the gocker. I'm going to go to that. I know I wrote that down. We'll revisit that. No, no, no, no, no, no, that'll be added to that out. You know, this is one of the big questions that we're dealing with as a society is like the other big controversy with Gauker recently and the thing that Tommy and Max retired over was the, the, whatever he was, CFO of Kanye Nass being

outed as cheating on his wife. You and I have a very, no, we disagree on, but here's the thing. I'm happy to disagree on the air with you. My listeners, he just listed me. I'm weird. I bra raised the raging bull to the Polskies in the house. Regent to Polskie. Oh, right. Uh, to both ski, regent to ball, ski. The I think you could come out on the other side. I'm not even looking at you. So I can just get this sentence out. I think you could come on one side of the

other and the way I felt about that was like, the fact that he was, looking up at another guy was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The fact that people made that big deal. I think I'm a clean fan. No, no, no, but it all ties together. Everything's connected, man. Did you take the acid?

Hey, the truth is out there. The fact that people were trying to say they were outraged because he was outed was crazy. That's not the fact or what they were out, like outraged because he was outed, was crazy. Like, that's not the factor. What they were out, like the story that was being outed was that he was cheating on his wife. And so everybody was like, well, that's up to them, that's personal.

And on one hand, I'm totally down with that. I would, as a society, we could say, what people do in the bedroom is 100% not news. They can be open, they can be poly, they can be monogamous, they can, you know, like only, they can be open. They can be poly. They can be monogamous. They can, you know, like only they can, they can be whatever, whatever weird sexual orientation Katie Natopolis is like, whoa, that's just a lot of you talking about. They can be, they can be as sonic fetishes is all I meant. They didn't want to say it specifically. Furries. Yeah, whatever, I, if we could agree as a society that it doesn't matter and that those, that's not a point

of character judgment. That would be one thing, but we don't we're not at that point as a society. Okay. So, right now, we just, we just, we just go all in. No, I'm saying that whenever we say that marriage is presumed that monogamy is presumed inside of a marriage, which it is, whether or not people say that, like you, people, the traditional traits of a marriage, right? Right.

So, it's like, let's redefine. But in that, we're going to think that. I think that's possible too. I think in 20 years, it's going to be. We're going to think that's not a lot of America. Right. So it's like, let's redefine. But in 20 years, we won't think that. I think that's possible too. I think in 20 years, it's going to be. We're going to be fast on a lot of these social issues. Yeah, I think in 20 years, it's going to be all weird. I mean, we're going to be such old people. We're going to be like, what's going on?

Yeah. And what's like when Paul says that his kids are going to like be, come to him when they're 13 and say they want to, they identify sexually as unicorns or whatever. Like, it's going to be so weird. No, for sure. That we can't get out of the room when we talk about sexual preference. You know what's one of the best things about getting older?

It's surprisingly funny things, is that you become conservative, not because your opinions change, but because the space for liberalism erodes underneath you. So there's these things that I hold onto that I'm onto that, I'm not that precious about most of my belief systems because I think it's good to be able to change your mind.

Sure. But there are certain things as I get older, where it's just cracking me up how conservative I am becoming without changing my opinion. For example, I mean, I'm not anti-guns, like a lot of my friends are, that's a big difference between me, but you're here in New York You're not man out. Yeah, well in the circles you swimming. It's a lot of my yeah a lot of nobody in New York

Intellectual journalists are like yeah, I love guns. Uh, just the best ones. Oh, like who good name I want to name that many. I mean besides read Max reads out into guns I want to name that many. I mean besides I read Max reads out into guns I think Max read every time you imagine you're holding a gun. I could Have you ever seen an anger? You know the picture of Jack Ruby holding a gun? It's a great example of how not to hold a gun when he's shooting the heavy Oswald. I just see Max with like a big Mac in one hand and he's kind of swaying back and forth. He's got a gun. Yeah, he's that shooting it either He's just kind of he's waving it. I can see that. That makes sense.

But at any rate, the point is, do people you hang out with don't like guns? Yeah. Now, if you go back, where are you from? Missouri. Missouri. Missouri. My guess is there's a lot of people there who are into guns.

Yeah, I mean, it depends on one more. Missouri, actually, is the right to call it. The correct pronunciations. It's technically both are correct. Oh, really? I didn't think that was correct at all. I just thought George Bush doesn't have to say words. No, it's actually like, yeah.

It's okay. So anyhow, getting back to Game or Gate. Hmm. So now you lost your job, you said partially over Game or Gate controversy. How was it that you, I don't remember all the details, but here's what I vaguely remember. Sam Biddle, who I had on, who I had on the show

from whatever the place was, upstate. Yeah, yeah. We talked a little bit about this. I said he was, you know, the Bohemian growth. One of the most, one of the most hated bet on the internet. He said, something about,

he made some Twitter joke about bullying game or gate people, because they're dicks. Yeah, because they're like, ask, they're like bad people. Like, let me just say this, the game or gate people, because they're dicks. Yeah, because they're like, ask, they're like bad people. Like, let me just say this, the gamer gate people, I've encountered, there may be some really great ones who are like sponsoring, you know, kids with disabilities or doing whatever they're doing.

I'm sure the people I've come into contact with are bad, are bad, mean people who don't say nice things to other people. They're jerks, they're sexist, they're violent in their rhetoric. They're not good people. They're just not. You know, I'm not saying every gamer gamer gay person is bad. No, we're on the same page. There might be some good ones. Yeah. I have yet to meet them, but they could be out there. He was making a joke a very very stupid joke. I mean, even for the like in terms of just joke them, not even like for his position or whatever, it was just wasn't a good joke.

I thought it was pretty good. It was okay, but anyways. So, as Gamer Gators get really upset and they started like protesting and like emailing like your advertisers at Gokker. Just so I understand this story. And they were like Gokker supports bullying. Which is like a thing that is bullying is a thing that exists

as like a subject in America. I don't know if other countries are like this. I feel like other countries probably don't deal with bullying as much as we do. I think America as a bully has created a lot of tiny bullies, but so basically people are like dear proctoring gambler, whoever is advertising, dear Charmit or whatever they're probably on by proctor and gambler. We're boycotting gocker. Just am I getting this right? Yeah, and that's mostly right.

Boycotting gocker because Sam Biddle, one of their writers, who's like, at the time is like 23 or something. How old was he? 25. Yeah. 26. Not that old, right? He's a youngster, said that he thinks people should be bullied.

Yeah. And people actually started pulling ads. Is that correct? Yeah, the gocker lots like a million bucks or something in a, you know, a million bucks have projected reddit. Because the CMO, because somebody went to the CMO Procter and Gamble was like, yeah, these people are saying that gocker is supporting bullying. Right.

And you know how this is like what's gocker? You've operated as a publisher or you know, it's like, the advertiser, the guy that's handling that ad deal, he's not trying to have a nuanced conversation about like identity politics or whatever. Yeah, he's like, I heard there's a bad thing over here pull our ads done. And so there was a little bit of a, what? There's a supporting rate pull the ads. Right. Because that's probably what went down, is it?

They're like, yeah. Well, and the timing couldn't have been worse because it was like, I think like an anti-bullying week or something. So there was all these people that I remember Adobe in particular was a client that had pulled some money that had at the same time was running these commercials that were like, Adobe doesn't support bullying

in our schools, create things. That's good. That's good. They're like, so it would be a- No, remember the Photoshop. That's good. But like, no member of the Photoshop team is supporting the board. The, there was, I was asked by our executive team, like somebody had to take a bullet.

So I presuming that the bullet would not kill me, was I was like, okay, you know what? So you just be a little at wounded. Let's get rid of all of this, ironic remove in these voices and and you know, whatever. I'll just put something up on the site that says, just FYI, we don't support bullying. Now, to be fair, kind of Gaukert does support bullying, which was one of the things that some of my staff actually even said to me, which was like, what's wrong with bullying?

Like, we should be in the context. If you look at context, it should be okay. I mean, there you could make an argument at the condo and ask the CFO is a kind of bullying. And some of the arguments that I've heard from people who supported it were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, push people out into the like, push them out, force them to confront something. Yeah, that's been a gocker MO for years, right?

It's like you expose it in strongly, strongly. Right, so I put up a very short post that was like, let's just all be clear here. We don't actually support real bullying. Um, you know, I think it was like three sentences. Uh, thank you for your time. You're like, just like, oh, yeah. And by the way, I get this.

You're like, because we're all intelligent human beings, you can parse the difference between like a dumb joke on Twitter that's not a representative like statement of from the company. Right. It's like gocker at gocker was like, we support bullying bully people as much as possible. But it kind of was, I mean, that's the thing because of the way that people perceive and conflate individual writers.

And it's not gocker. That's one of my, it's one of my personal love bearings and I do it all the time, which is like, you know, so I'll read something on Forbes. And I like whatever, I'm not just picking a name out of the hat, but I read something on Forbes and it's a turd of an article and then I'm like, Forbes, how dare you like this storied institution, I can't believe they would say this. You know, I know more than most that, okay, that's just some pre-lancer that they had or, you know, whatever. But people use that as a rhetorical argument

all the time. Totally. Get it. And of course, it's actually because the perfect storm because there was all these people who had gotten sick and tired in quotes of, you know, social justice and all of these positions. And then also sick and tired of the way that Gaucker does its work, which is, you know, not a separate issue, but related to the reason why to open for that kind of. And so, you know, I put up an apology and said, sorry, if anybody took that the wrong way, whatever. And of course, what happened was that actually did modify a lot of our advertisers,

which was important in part of my role was to like, one of my editorial team writers had done something inadvertently that got out of hand. And so I was trying to put water on the fire. Yeah. But, you know, it also made my staff kind of look at me, I think, and go, well, you didn't stand up for us and didn't, you know, flip both middle fingers and say, fuck it, we're pirates.

Right. Here we go. And it's like, and Gagher does love to do that. Right. And, and, you know, that was, and I took solace in the fact that at the time, the rest of the executive team was like, thank you for doing this. You did a great job. That was awesome.

Like maybe we can get this under control. And we did, by and large, like, you know, put it to bed. It was always sort of boiling, but you know, it's, it, it, it chilled out. And, uh, and then like a month or two later, I got fired. And it was like, basically because you've lost the confidence of your staff was like one of the made up reasons that was there, which was one not entirely true. It's like gocker staff. That's coming from Den.

Yeah, I would be mad if everybody like you get your balls busted all the time when you are managing gocker people like that's just the culture. Yeah. And also all managers end up having to be like the bad guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But they are always the managing out of there whoever editorials are always going to the shitty in the shitty position of having to be like the bad guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They are always managing out of there, whoever, editorials are always going to be the shitty in the shitty position of having to do something

unpopular because that's what needs to be done. So, you know, to be like, I love 99% of the people I've ever worked with at Gokr are awesome. Like, really, I still, you know, even though it hurts and I get mad or whatever, like I love those guys and I love a lot of the work that we all did together to build that company. Right.

But after having been burnt by Denton several times, like when I finally got not just fired, but like publicly excoriated about like, it was a mistake to hire him and all of these problems we've had have become him. It was just like, what a fucking joker. Like, and so, yeah. So I do. I do think 10 has this. And this is not to, you know, just be a shit talking episode about Den. You know, he's obviously very talented guy who's done amazing things. He's literally

Satan. But, but there's two things that he does that I think are like completely bullshit. And I've seen it. I've watched it for a far, I don't know him at all. I've only, and I know a lot of people gocker, but I don't have, it's like I'm like, buddies with a lot of people, at all in life, but there, the two things he does that are so outrageous to me

that is just not why, like why he's able to get away with it makes no sense. One is, he blames the people around him for things that clearly come from him. I mean, what I know of the people that I know from Gokker, the things that I have heard, the things that people have said, unrelated to, like, oh, this thing and this thing match up to the same problem. It's like, you push people into doing something, you force them to do something, you make it your business literally, your business to do that thing,

and then not take responsibility for it. To me, it's like, it's your job if you own the thing and you run the thing to be fucked when shit is bad. That's just it. You get all the riches and the rewards and you also get the shit, basically. That's how it goes. I can push one of your people out on a limb

when that limb breaks, you're there to catch them. And that's actually what one of your people out on a limb when that limb breaks you're there to catch and that's actually like the that's like what you're supposed to do right this other piece is that like he basically can say anything and people will be like oh my god like this is something I've seen for years which I've never understood like New York magazine every couple of years will write a massive feature on Nick Denton about how like he's made a bold proclamation that something's happening like the blog is dead or comments are over or. Remember that time you read this?

We're gonna do ads like the way they did TV. I remember there's a big thing. He's like, we're gonna do time based ads. So they do have that TV. He started because he was like the future of the web is television. And therefore all our ads will be 16 by nine. And it's like, you really,

that's the takeaway here is that the aspect ratio. And like Kenja was like, we're not a tech, we're not a editorial company, we're a technology company. There's, I tried him, and I, you know, I bitched him out and feel sorry for myself all the time, but by and large, like I try to, you know, I try not to talk about this stuff one,

because I just want to move on. But two, because like, you always look like a weirdo if you obsess, but the one thing that I, that was always obsessed, I'm forcing you to talk to talk. No, no, I'm not making apologies for this here. I'm just saying in general. But like the one, the one thing that will always get my hackles up is when people say, is it hackles? I think so. Hackles. Hackles. Is it hackles? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Is when people say like, well, the one thing you gotta give,

then that guy's a genius. And it's like, my ass, he's a genius. There's no, he's made so many public mistakes, so many public proclamations that turn out to be false. He's only cognated, don't you think? He's very cognated. I think about it. He's just like, he does do some genius stuff.

He would love that comparison. Well, I hope he listens. I do hope he listens. You know, Nick and I have never had an actual physical conversation with we've exchanged, we have actually he owes me money. I, did I ever tell you this story? Many, many years ago, this is to give you like,

how small, how far we've come, many, many years ago. Now, in Sestu, it's our industry is. When I was, Edith, there was your van gadget and we were, it was like the iPhone Three GS event or something lucky like iPhone it might have been the four four ass something. I don't know what it was Denton tweeted Something like I can't remember the exact I should go back and try to find this exchange the gist of it was he was like I'll bet $1,000 that Gizmodo has pictures of the new iPhone before Engege does.

And I was like, I'll take that bet. And we had our pictures at first. I mean, of course it was by a matter of, you know, moments. But whatever. And you know, I was like, hey, when can I get the check and he didn't not respond? And that was like the literally the last direct interaction I have with Nick Den. Well, he very potentially could be having a lot of free time

soon, so you guys. But not a lot of money. So, I'll lunch. That's fine. You can try. I'll never get my check. But, you know, I know he's a very smart guy and can be very lovely.

But the reality is, like, I think a lot of what he's done publicly, as far as I'm concerned, is bullshit. And, like, and I do think he's taken, this is not like because we're friends or whatever, but like, it's taken really good talent and push them to do things that like, they probably wouldn't have done on their own and really left them out to dry, hung them out to dry.

And that is just on a personal and professional level completely shitty. And like, I would agree with you that the genius argument falls flat because most of the things I've seen him announce and talk about as like the future of X or the next wave or whatever has not worked. You know what actually has worked? Weirdly has been a through line that has worked

is people telling good stories has actually worked pretty well. And like, admittedly BuzzFeed has done something that other people hadn't done before than they like figured social out in a way that other people had. And there's all these pockets of like innovation. I can point to like lots of companies that exist right now, media companies that compete

with Gokker and say, here's the stuff you've done that's really been innovative. I think Gokker has done one thing really well for a long time, which has like been unafraid to publish things that other people was why Max and Tommy left, right? It was because that was the final, the final realization that the one good thing about working at Gaucker, which is that you could say what you wanted with almost no oversight in a positive way. And tell the truth how you

saw it, went away because they got worried that they were gonna lose all their money and they weren't gonna be able to sell the company. Well, and that was like another perfect example of people being thrown out of the bus. Yeah. And then another proclamation about the future. That is like, those things are perfectly coincided. Yeah, I mean, whatever.

It's still, I would never discourage somebody from presuming that, I mean, we're recording this while with our phones off. We have no idea what's happening. Maybe that I actually the jury's come back and it has like, you know, I'm gonna look, I just took my phone off of airplane mode. All right, of course this won't go up until Monday, so it'll all be all news by then. Let's see here. Gokker, Gokker. Destroyed. Gokker destroyed. Fire. Gokker destroyed. gocker gocker destroy

fire gocker destroyed Wow, it's it really went down by on a new search the building down that's crazy. Gocker burns down a court. Nothing here. I'm not seeing anything. Yeah, no, I doubt there will be a

settlement today. I've seen some great some great gocker content. Yeah, I mean, here's a, here's a, here's a lot of smart people. Here's a good word. Here's a tweet from somebody I searched for gocker. Let me just tell you the first tweet

they came up that was not gocker posting some content. I stand with Hulk Hogan 100%. I hope he puts these gocker scumbags out of business. Do the right thing, Jerry. Text book evasion of privacy. The sky I like with this guy thinking, he's got his strong opinions. Was this grammar good?

That's not like he gets looking for a job. They're gonna lose this. They're gonna lose this case. The public said to it is definitely not like your favorite. I could tell you that. Yeah. Consistency would be nice. And Den is not a consistent person.

That's, that's, you know, that's the only takeaway. I was spent a lot of time talking about gocker. Let's talk about video games real quick. Narek, are you in there? She's, she's dead. She's still there. I have no idea how long we've been going. Oh, you guys talk about gadgets and gocker. What an interesting conversation. Okay. Well, whatever. We're just going to keep going. All right. You're video games. Let's talk video games. Let's close this thing out with

a video game. I'll do that because you're a gamer. Yeah. For sure. It's funny. Consider the whole gamer game thing. I know. You know, are they all gamers? Do you have to be a gamer to be part of a gamer game now? I mean, or not. I or K thing. I know, you know. Are they all gamers? Do you have to be a gamer to be part of a gamer game now? I mean, or not. I don't know. I mean, do you have to be, do you have to to eat blind people to join the KKK? Probably not anymore.

I think you do, I think you do. I mean, they probably ask. I mean, you have to hate you. If you're like, like, like something. If you're a cute girl, but you're like, ah, you know, I'm okay, we're like, we're like, we're like, do you hate black people? Do you hate black people?

And she's like, not really, but I'm gonna hate it strong. But I, I'm okay. We're like, do you hate blind people? Do you hate blind people? And you see, it's like, not really. I mean, hate is strong, but I will wear the hood. Come. The, what are you playing? I'm playing, so in order the last games that I've played, I'm currently in the division. Yeah, I gotta talk about, I don't, I don't, we can talk about the division a little bit.

I'd like to have thoughts. But the one I want to make sure I call out, because I just thought it was great, was Hell Divers. Have you played with Hell Divers? It may be PS4 and PC only, I'm not sure if it's Xbox. I have a PS4, what's Hell Divers? Oh, you have a PS4? I have it all. I got it all.

Come on, you're kidding, really? You think I don't have both systems? How many clicky keyboards do you have for your Xbox one? Just in case you have to input some chat dialogue. No, Joe, I don't have any, but not even mention it. You should check out Hell Diapers. Super cool. The fuck is Hell Diapers.

Okay, so Hell Diapers is actually, in my opinion, very similar to the division in that it is four-player co-op that it's almost like a cross between a schmup and a like smash TV. Oh, I like smash TV. And, I like to like smash TV. And so it's it's maybe my fault. My one of my all time favorite arcade games. You're just as much trying not to kill your teammates

as you are trying to kill the enemies. Can you give me a little bit of the premise of hell divers? General kind of starship troopers, aliens, inspired space marine vibe. Is this first person? No, no, no, it's overhead. It's like smash TV. It's like an overhead? No, no, no, it's overhead. It's like Smash EV. It's like an overhead, like four player things.

It's like Commando style. Yeah, yeah. And then you drop into these missions and you have to complete certain objectives and then you get hella-vact essentially out at the end of the mission. You die a lot. You can lose the whole mission if you don't do it right.

And it's just a grind to get like more points and more abilities and more guns. But it is so good. And it's super fun because if you play, if you have a good group of people that you play with, like it's one of those games where you can, you have to rely on your teammates and everybody has to play together. And so if somebody screws it up, it's hilarious. All right. It's like, how does that work? somebody screws it up, it's hilarious. I was playing Battlefront a little bit before that,

the new start was game. I hate that game. It's fine. I was appointed. It was appointed. I mean, it's just a shooter, but I'm flat. Well, it doesn't need a plot, but it's, you know, I have gone on the record many times.

I have here. Oh, I did not. Saying that, you know, all the time I've spent, all the time I've spent playing competitive FPS games in my life, not wasted. What a delight. Really, I find that to be a total waste. What a delight.

What a great, how much joy and happiness have 20 years of FPS play. What a great thing. Like against other people. Yeah, mostly against other people. But that's it. God bless all of the people that made those things quick. John McConaugge. He's a big I was a big quake fan. I loved quake. Tribes is my all time favorite. What's the game? Is it quake? Is it the original quake with that one level where it's like you're

in space and there's all those you're probably doing an unreal tournament. Oh, it is unreal tournament. Yeah. It is unreal tournament where you can launch off those like that to you to you actually at end gadget and then later at the verge. We would at C s late. We would do late night land parties and play unreal tournament. You know, so it's fine. I mentioned this, which was so much fun. It's in a room full of people so much fun. I have been trying to organize a New York City land party. Oh shit. How good would that be? I'm in But none of us have gaming PCs anymore. Although I gotta build it. I have I have a gaming piece

I gotta build a new one because I'm getting a new Oculus so I gotta make sure I got it. We all to do it We all okay, so okay, so now I'm playing the division is the last thing Let's talk about the division really quick. I just started playing the last night. Very, very, very racist game. I don't know hilarious. I have yet to get into any racism. It's just the whole thing. It's what I want to know. Can I go to Greenpoint? I don't think so. Really? I don't think so. I just had to be in Dumbot. It was cool though because that, my first apartment in New York was in Dumbot and that first that's like a exact map of that area, right? I walked by it and I turned to the left and I was like, I remember when I lived in this building, and it was a shithole, and not cool, and it's a shithole again.

They basically, they basically got rid of most of Brooklyn, right? It's just a starter, right starter zone. So you can't go, you can't go north. Uh, I don't think you can go north to Central Park right now. No, North Brooklyn. Oh, no, they can't go. You can't go see your old house in Greenfield. That's what I want to do. That's all I want to do. It's fine. I just want to like go to the neighborhood. I want to wander out and execute rampaging Polish drunks.

Yeah. Why is the game racist? Because every bad guy either looks black talks in a really terrible like, like foe Italian New York accent. Like it's not like wicking. Hey, like, like faux Italian New York accent. Like, it's not like, wicket. Hey, hey, come on. Yeah, but it's, what are you doing? Oh, it's guy, come on. We're trying to do,

don't do that. In New York city. That's the voice, that's the voice. But you can tell it's like, oh, come on, we gotta get these smuggled drugs. That's what that's going on. I know, it's the versimilitude is amazing. It sounds just like when I walk out of this studio

and I walk down the street, all I hear is people going, oh, I got a goal, get me some of those drugs. Yeah, or like, what do they do? The only things I've done, I played like the first two, like beginner, it's like you gotta go, they're like, they're smuggling food that people need. It's like, you go find the guys in the food

and they're like, yo, we gotta load up this food that we stole. Yeah. And you're like, oh, you, the guy, one of the guys with the food. One of the bad yo, we got to load up this food then we stole. And you're like, oh, you, the guy won the guys with the food. One of the bad guy factions is all people from Rikers, which it's like, oh, hey, hey, spoiler alert. You know, maybe, maybe here's a guess,

not everybody in Rikers. If the society falls and Rikers doors open, I bet they all don't factionalize and gather into one mega. That's like, that's like dark night rises where all the, the prisoners are like, yeah, let's make the regular people pay. And it's like, I'm guessing a lot of the prisoners were just like, Oh, cool. I'm free now.

I'm going to go home to be fair. How cool was that? There's only a cool scene in dark night rises was when all the cops were down in the, in the sewers and they were like, yeah, we're going to like go get our city back. I like to think of cops being like, yeah, you're gonna do it. I could not take a second of this stuff in the underground seriously, because I'm like, let me.

Is that because you think all guns are undershipped? I was like, let me fucking get this straight. This is what Christopher Nolan, the genius director, wants us to, he saw the script and was like, that sounds right to me. Yeah, well, every single cop was somehow tricked by into going into the tunnels. The best Chris Rinole movie?

A prestige. Agree. Probably the last good one. I would agree with you on the last great one. Well, I think the exception's good. Inception has a lot of holes. Sure, if you concentrate on that. If you concentrate on the plot.

If you're familiar with string theory and quantum mechanics like I am, I think you'll find some serious plot holes. First up interstellar. They were great soundtracks. Oh my god. Interstellar, you mean signs? No, seriously.

No, it's very... Watch fucking signs and then tell me that interstellar is not just like a remake. Doesn't even have like, they both have like a glass of water scene. Yes, the whole thing, it's crazy. I watch that anyway. It's good. Science is a great movie. So division is good, especially if you have friends that you can go like, does it have a plot? No, I see. I see like other, I see like random people. Those

are people like real people, right? The plot is like, when I go in, there's like a surprise. Yeah, yeah, those are all real people. I hate interacting with real people. I want to interact with NPCs. That's what I'm interested in. You're playing the wrong game then. No, I know. I'm a guy who likes to be by myself, you know, have you considered to your own adventure books? No, I have a great collection of choose your own adventure. You know what? You're also uncharted for coming out very soon. We'll be perfectly.

Yeah, but I don't like games that are highly, um, I don't like games that are on rails. Uh, which is like, I'm like a fallout kind of guy. Did you play Jonathan blows game, the puzzle game? I don't like games that look like that. I like games that look pretty realistic. But you're talking to NPCs and you're like, but there's a plot that you're part of, but also you can kind of do it ever you want. So that's a far cry is a good example of far cry three. Same far cry three. Same developer as the division. All right, we got a wrap up way over time three same far cry three same developer is a division all right We got a wrap up. Yeah, we're talking where we're talking. I'm getting a look here. All right look Jill. This is a lot of fun

I didn't care for it. We really okay. Well, we got some deep stuff and I enjoyed it and that's really all it's important so you'll have to come back And tell me then you when you can talk about all the consultation you've been doing you can review yeah I would love to do that. I'm not trying to be KG for any reason. It's fine. It's fine. You know how it is when you're launching something.

I kind of want to like do you know. I would know anything. I wish I knew what that was like, but I couldn't tell you anything about it. That doesn't sound familiar to me. Joe is a great pleasure having you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming and do come back. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow.

And as always, I wish you and your family the very best. Although I understand they've been taken hostage in Dumbbo by some men with very thick booklet accents. you