Love it:

It’s Master Lodwick day here at CDC (Calacanis dot com). Here’s the most accurate description of Gawker Media I’ve ever read:

Gawker’s premise is “people are bad”. It acts as if all humans are inherently awful. Any achievement is framed as an accident; a distraction from the achiever’s underlying depravity. This worldview is directly at odds with our city’s best and brightest. Nick, it won’t be easy to recruit someone better than Emily and Choire; as the months march on, the pool of creative youngsters who are willing to turn themselves into professional assholes will shrink. If you would like to reverse Gawker’s premise and turn it into something else entirely, we should talk. A publication that celebrates excellence instead of negating it could be a big hit in the near future.

In fact, this is better description of Nick Denton than Gawker itself. Nick clearly was not loved enough as a baby, and was frequently teased as a child I’m told. He was odd and awkward as a young adult, and even today his cool facade only covers up 80% of his true need: to be loved–by anyone.

The model of love Nick knows best is to throw hate and scorn out in the world and try to win back the people you alienate. When Nick attacks you it’s flirting… he’s blowing you little kiss from across the room, or giving you a sultry glance while on his way to powder his nose.

Nick has turned his life of scorn into a publishing model. Smacking people down is the quickest way to get them to call you–and Nick is staring at his phone right now waiting for a call. After slamming someone, in Nick’s mind, you simply convert their scorn–and sometimes fear–into a relationship. Most of Nick’s friends are people he’s beaten down with his blogs in fact. The result of this is that Nick’s inner circle of friends are people who, in fact, distrust and feel sorry for him. Everyone who’s worked for him has learned not to hate him, but in fact pity him.

Denton is our Grendel–our collective Gollum.

We love you Nick, you can stop lashing out!

xoxoxox Jason