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Nick Denton’s Evil Genius: No One Likes Humor in Tough Times
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Nick Denton, feeling good about himself
A few days ago, Nick Denton, of Gawker fame, and giant blogging empires, announced he was going to fold Valleywag, betraying some fairly old-fashioned Victorian sensibilities after all. Although there was the usual smokescreen of “having trouble paying his writers”, “hemorrhaging red ink”, and “encouraging Owen to sell a kidney to pay our creditors”, our sources tell us that Mr. Denton is simply acknowledging a well known fact: no one likes to laugh in tough times.
Yes sir, although the usual vultures are circling, a tip of the hat to Nick Denton is well deserved, because I mean, who really needs the tonic of humor when your entire world is crumbling around you? When your entire industry is self-destructing and people are being laid off, it makes complete sense — genius, really — to want to hold back, stop, fold your cards, and walk away. Who wants to hear a dash of levity and humor to make the sting of not making your rent a little less? And who really gets a kick out of taking the air out of venture capitalists, mega-billion dollar corporations whose idea of “cutting back” involves scaling back their lunch buffets to 50 items instead of 80, and internet celebrities who, much like cockroaches in a nuclear winter, will some how persist to broadcast their miserable “lives”?
Absolutely no one.
And that’s why Nick Denton’s the genius and not you (or me, for that matter).
The titanic success of the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and David Letterman on the backs of a crumbling and decrepit administration in a decade of flat growth, a war that’s bleeding America dry, and disasters natural and man made? The slimmest of coincidences. And Dilbert? Building a sarcastic and satirical empire based on the travails, stupidity, and utter idiocy of management during good times and bad — a series of strokes of luck, that’s all.
At a time when people are having trouble holding onto their houses, their jobs and their sanity, and when people are endless battered by bad news, there is absolutely NO ROLE for humor. None at all. And it would be the height of arrogance to claim that it would.
Valleywag would have absolutely no role in this world we live in, and Nick Denton knows it. Lesser men would have tried to capitalize on this horrendous opportunity and would have failed horribly. On the other hand, it takes an absolute virtuoso in their art to know when to fold’ em and leave it on the table for other unsuspecting and lesser boobs, charlatans and poseurs.
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