The Big Difference

I loathe what Nick Denton’s malignant version of success has done to a medium I used to treasure. I despise the way he’s turned personal publishing into personal manhunting. And, most saliently for me, I can’t and won’t ever forgive the deliberate harm he’s paid idiots, hacks, and clowns to programmatically visit upon awesome, hard-working, and innocent people whom I really love.

Nick Denton is the dictionary drawing of a dick.

But, dead honest? I don’t feel one shred of Schadenfreude over what the man’s going through right now. Not a bit. In fact, I feel awful for him and the rest of the folks he works with. What a goddamned mess.

Yes, there’s ample (and often sage) fingerwagging going around this week, so I’ll let you go find all of that on your own. I will just say that today’s a really really good day to stop using the same password for everything—IMHO the biggest lesson here is that, more than any of us wants to admit:

other people’s passwords are only as good as our passwords;
other people’s privacy is only as private as our privacy;
other people’s email is always at least 50% other other people’s email. Our email.

So, yeah. I wish Gawker’s tech Czars had looked into post-Victorian age encryption—and not cut the deadbolt off each registrant’s front door by shortening passwords. (In. Sane.)

But, mostly I just feel really bad for everybody. Including Nick. Who is a huge dick.

Thing is, apart from head size, soul blackness, and national origin, that’s really the big difference between Nick and normal people.

Normal people’s reaction to bad news is to say, “Oh, man. That sucks. I’m so sorry for you.” Whereas, Nick has chosen to earn his ghoulish living from wrapping bad news in ads, then hiding the source link “after the jump.”

No, it couldn’t have happened to a less nice guy. No question. But, still. In all sincerity:

“Oh, man, Nick. That sucks. I’m so sorry for you.”