Opening Salvo // WHEN GAWKER WENT DOWN FOR THE COUNT
Dirty Secrets
Machiavelli in the squared circle
By Walter Foley
EXCERPT //
Perhaps you watched Hulk Hogan rip his shirt off at the 2024 Republican National Convention in July, barking variations on the catchphrases that made him famous nearly four decades ago, and perhaps you thought, Yeah, that makes sense. Everything’s weird now.
Or, perhaps you rubbed your eyes and shook yourself off and tried to see it anew: Wait, what the hell is this?
Donald Trump has been friendly with the professional wrestling industry for decades, but to really feel the Hulkster’s maniacal energy in that performance, it’s worth digging into the most entertaining backroom media spectacle of our generation.
In 2007, a Silicon Valley gossip blog called Valleywag, owned by Gawker Media, ran a 398-word post titled “Peter Thiel Is Totally Gay, People.” And most people didn’t read it or care.
Thiel, however, would spend close to a decade plotting and enacting his revenge, which culminated in a lawsuit that would ultimately bankrupt Gawker and result in countless thinkpieces trying to explain, from a distance, what happened. //
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