Internet History
The Most Expensive Comment That Forced Gawker Media into Bankruptcy
Sex, Lies, and Videotape and a $140 million lawsuit.
Bollea v Gawker
Gawker Media was a blog network started by Nicholas Guido Anthony Denton in 2003.
Operating inside his bedroom, the one-man blog became an online media empire worth millions of dollars until it filed for bankruptcy in 2016.
What happened?
It lost in a lawsuit filed by Terry Eugene Bollea, popularly known as Hulk Hogan after a Gawker video leaked parts of a sex video of Hulk Hogan and Heather Clem, who happened to be his best friend's wife.
You can call it a classic sex, lies, and videotape scandal.
And while many survived a sex scandal and even became bigger celebrities after their leaked sex video, (insert your favorite celebrity here …)
Hulk Hogan sued Gawker for invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In 2011 a mysterious guy by the name of Mr. A hatched a plan for Peter Thiel, it will be the playbook from which the last pages of Gawker’s demise will come to be.
I know you’re obsessed with Gawker, and I have an idea to destroy them. — Mr. A to Peter Thiel.
The right to privacy vs. Freedom of the press
Who do you think should have won? A case that would soon involve a tech billionaire, who happened to have a grudge to settle with Gawker Media.
If only Gawker had made the connection much earlier, it would have saved itself from bankruptcy and the closure of Gawker Media.
Update: New Gawker is back online, same domain name, new people running the website and still trying to recapture the snarky persona it was known for in the 2000s.
Hogan’s sex video
Whaaat the Hulk had a sex video with the wife of his best friend? It happened when Hulk Hogan’s marriage was crumbling.
This gets really weird, his friend Bubba the Love Sponge, who is a shock jock offered free sex with his wife to cheer him up.
This Bubba guy is weird, IMHO.
Do you think Bubba was being generous? He could offer Hogan some beers or hugs, but no, he offers his wife to have sex with the celebrity wrestler.
But wait, he had other plans.
Hogan asked Bubba explicitly if it will be recorded, to which Bubba said, ‘hell, no!’
Bubba left his wife to have sex with Hogan, but he secretly taped the whole thing for his own pleasure.
As with any sex videotape, it got stolen and leaked to the media, (insert your favorite celebrity here …) but not to any other media outlet, it was leaked to Gawker Media in 2012.
And without blinking an eye, Gawker posted the video in a now-deleted post,
Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway
It was 2012, welcome to the world of clickbait titles, these were the ‘headlines that sell,’ back then.
Soon, Terry Eugene Bollea or Hulk Hogan sued Gawker for invasion of privacy.
Peter Thiel heard of the news, his lawyers called Hogan and promised to bankroll the lawsuit.
Hogan announced that he is suing Gawker Media for $100 million, anybody sued for that money would have peed in his pants, but worse it meant bankruptcy for Gawker Media.
Death to freedom of the press, or was it just Gawker?
And that news was like music to the ears of tech titan Peter Thiel.
Lies
The lies started with Bubba, he secretly videotaped Hogan and his wife while having sex. Then he kept the videotape in his office at the radio station where he worked as a shock jock.
Police confirm that a rival DJ stole the tape not to blackmail Hulk Hogan but to embarrass Bubba and take his time slot. Even with the evidence, the rival DJ was never charged.
[Although police and FBI investigative notes revealed those suspicions, that DJ was never charged or convicted of any crime.]
A rivalry with real-life consequences, jealousy went wrong, and when the dust settled down, only Gawker in the end was left to pay the bill of $140 million.
It had no other choice but to declare bankruptcy.
Peter Thiel
Paypal founder, an early Facebook investor, known for giving Mark Zuckerberg $500,000 for a 10% stake in Facebook, which he sold in 2012 for $1 billion, not bad for a half-a-million dollars investment.
But along with his brilliance as a venture capitalist or VC, he is also gay.
And Gawker ‘outs’ Peter Thiel in a blog post, but depends on who you ask.
Did the writer out Peter Thiel or was the message of the post all about gay representation in Silicon Valley?
But in 2007, anyone would click a headline like this:
Peter Thiel is totally gay, people
Owen Thomas, who wrote the story on Peter Thiel being gay, had this to say in a postscript to what happened in 2016 — Gawker, Peter Thiel, and me, only here in Medium.
Nick Denton
Derek Thompson sat down with Ryan Holiday, the author of the book that chronicled the whole Gawker Media fiasco for an interview.
Ryan had first-hand information from both Peter Thiel and Nick Denton.
He wrote the book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue which is available on Amazon. (Affiliate link, thank you.)
After the post about Thiel being gay triggered all this drama, the tech billionaire on occasion called Gawker Media “the MBTO,” which stood for “Manhattan-Based Terrorist Organization.”
He felt Gawker is a terrorist media organization that on Wikipedia, Thiel called Gawker, the ‘Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda.’
What’s the quarrel between these squirrels?
Nick was quoted to have said: “Thiel makes me sick!
Was there a hint of jealousy going on between them? What’s the beef?
And Nick Denton left what could be the most expensive comment that forced Gawker Media into bankruptcy, on the blog post about Peter Thiel's sexuality in 2007.
To Peter, it felt Nick was after him, to Nick it was a comment that would cost him his media empire.
“The only thing that’s strange about Thiel’s sexuality: why on earth was he so paranoid about its discovery for so long?”
Mr. A
In the interview, there is a mysterious character mentioned, his name is Mr. A. He was the brains behind the idea of how Peter Thiel can exact revenge on Gawker Media and Nick Denton.
I know you’re obsessed with Gawker, and I have an idea to destroy them. — Mr. A
It was in 2011 when Mr. A told Thiel how to destroy Gawker by way of creating a shell company whose sole purpose is to take Gawker Media into long court battles that will hurt Gawker where it hurt the most, its pockets.
And in 2012, like manna from Heaven. the Hogan sex tapes. The plot thickens, to get Gawker at all cost.
Karma is a b*tch!
In 2016, The website, founded by British journalist Nick Denton in 2003, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Peter Thiel and Nick Denton will never be squirrel friends.
In the end, the Queen’s gambit paid off.
Thank you for reading.
Sources:
Might a Gawker Hater be Covering Hulk Hogan’s Legal Bills?
The Most Expensive Comment in Internet History?
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