yep you should read the emily gould essay

To hear at least half of media Twitter tell it, you’d think the early days of digital media — specifically the 00s, when blogs like Gawker ran the internet — were 4000% sunshine and rainbows for everyone involved, and for those who missed out on those “good ol’ days,” welllp, as a great philosopher once said, it sure sucks to suck. 

That’s why this NY mag essay from Emily Gould, Replaying My Shame, should be required reading for anyone in the industry today. In recounting the 13-year fallout from an incident from her Gawker editor days, Gould untangles the far uglier parts of that unguarded period of time when anything and everything felt like fair game — and edgy employers were barely equipped (much less willing) to look out for their own. 

When Gould writes, “It wasn’t clear how consequential Americans’ deep ambivalence about fame and its shadow twin shame would soon become,” it’s a line that applies just as well to Gawker’s eventual fate as it does to our collective relationship to virality but also the way we handle women under a spotlight. 

Anyone staking their (esp. early) career on the careful alchemy of audience attention will read this with a protracted shudder. Just wait: It’s the last line that’ll just kill you.  

//

Deez Links is a dailyish newsletter written by @delia_cai. You can support the newsletter by sharing it or hitting up our merch store!