Yesterday, longtime GamerGate bete noire Gawker Media filed for bankrupcty. On KotakuInAction, Reddit’s main GamerGate hangout, the regulars cheered what they saw as Gawker’s long-deserved demise:
![AntonioOfVenice 76 points 1 day ago GAWKER IS DEAD. GAWKER DOESN'T HAVE TO BE YOUR LIBELER. permalinkembedsavereportreply [–]Cosmic_Mind89 25 points 1 day ago Gawker is over. permalinkembedsaveparentreportreply [–]Neo_TechniDon't demand what you refuse to give. 18 points 1 day ago Those obtuse wailing shitslingers permalinkembedsaveparentreportreply [–]TeuthexAwesome Person 3 points 14 hours ago We don't have to be their audience.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/gawkdead.png?ssl=1)
Of course, Gawker isn’t actually dead. Bankruptcy gives the company some financial breathing room as it tries to deal with the $140 million in damages a court ordered it to pay former wrestler Hulk Hogan after Gawker idiotically posted a sex tape involving the oversized human.
Still, the GamerGaters celebrated this “victory,” perhaps none of them harder than the odious embarrassment to humanity known as Matt Forney.
This overgrown Cabbage Patch doll is a man well acquainted with media failure — after all, he’s the former “editor” of reactionary gaming site Reaxxion, Roosh Valizadeh’s hilariously inept (and quite short-lived) attempt to cash in on the GamerGate fad.
(You can read more about Mr. Forney’s illustrious career at Reaxxion here, including the time he posted a GamerGate manifesto that, unknown to him, was almost completely plagiarized from an old John Birch Society newspaper ad, with the words “John Birch society” replaced by “GamerGate” and “Communist” replaced by “SJW.” No, really.)
But Forney didnt let his bittersweet memories of the utter failure of Reaxxion stop him from taking to Twitter to “rub [Gawker’s bankruptcy] in the faces” of Gawker writers and editors by sending them harassing Tweets. He was so proud of what he called his “quality sh*tposts” that he collected them in a Storify,
Let’s just say that Forney is no Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Here are some of the Tweets he sent to Gawker Media dudes. You may notice a theme here.
In his Storify, he declared these last two Tweets virtual “TKOs.”
Forney took a different tack with women. You may notice a theme here, too.
Many of his Tweets were responses to self-deprecating jokes and sarcastic comments from Gawkerites, which led to an assortment of cringey failed zingers like this one:
And this one, in which Forney reminds us that in addition to being a failed Twitter comedian he is also a raging semi-Nazi.
Some of Forney’s Tweets were just puzzling. Is this Tweet suggesting that its recipient commit suicide, or take a lovely relaxing bubble bath?
And here he worked in a cultural referent that ceased to be fresh roughly half a century ago:
When Gawker employees took a few seconds of their time to block him on Twitter, Forney did a little victory dance, which inevitably took the form of more uninspired Tweets.
It’s a bit odd that someone who looks and acts more like an overgrown baby than any other adult human I can think of would consider this a brilliant insult.
It’s always hilarious when someone says “I’m not dealing with your bullshit anymore” and blocks one of these fucks on twitter, and they parade it around as a victory.
“I ANNOYED SOMEONE ENOUGH TO TAKE THE TIME TO BLOCK ME! I’M A WINNER! AN ANNOYING, ANNOYING WINNER!”
@Axecalibur: I just had a listen, and my god, I don’t even care about the lyrics, her flow is just… nonexistent.
Apologies if this is overly sensitive, but isn’t there a bit of appearance shaming in this piece? Just putting that out there, not going to push it.
@ColeYote
“Gender Bender” makes “MC Rove” look like “Welcome to the Midwest”
(Someone will get my references)
@YoullNeverGuess
Yes, absolutely. And that’s not OK. But, like… fuck him. So…
I’m just impressed he spelled “thalidomide” right. Then again, spellcheck is a thing…
yeah, appearance shaming is bad, for sure, but isn’t this one of the MRA/RP dudes who thinks he’s a super hot “alpha”?
so… yeah… in that context, i think pointing out that he looks like a giant baby is something that needs to be said.
i mean… it doesn’t REALLY need to be said… because you can just SEE it, but still…
PI:
“People notice me! I provoke an emotional reaction! I matter! In your face, nagging voice of self-doubt!”
Of course, inspiring respect and affection would be preferable. But if you find that too hard, maybe you learn to settle for irritation and contempt.
The number of twitter followers you have isn’t a measure of current or future career success. ._.
WWTH:
I’ve notice that alt-right people frequently write comments which suggest that their final goal is imminent. Every little victory is hailed as the stone which will begin the avalanche which will sweep away the hated untermensch. It wouldn’t surprise me if Forney believes that there will be more such cases against other publishers he hates.
Then again, maybe this isn’t the real Forney? It’s so hard to tell, without that blue checkmark.
I think the site is called ‘The Escapist’, now.
Hey, show some respect! Some of us still have to live with an EiC who considers liberal positions inherently irrational (while claiming to be apolitical) and that “free speech” and “safe spaces” are mutually incompatible and diametrically opposed (while claiming to invite rational discourse).
…okay, so by “respect” I meant “pity,” but still, I’ll take what I can get. >_>
He does know that one of his silly little “Movement’s” heroes and his two clones all bought their Twitter followers, right?
This is quickly turning into the Sick Burns thread, and I love it.
@Moggie & EJ
The problem is that @realMattForney was suspended. So @basedMattForney is the REAL real Matt Forney.
@EJ: Well, after that last thread, I think we’ve all earned a snark thread.
“Take THAT, women who turned me down for dates/sexual acts! People notice me and have an emotion when I talk to them! I’m important enough to block on twitter!”
@EJ: Well, after that last thread, I think we’ve all earned a snark thread.
“Take THAT, women who turned me down for dates/sexual acts! People notice me and have an emotion when I talk to them! I’m important enough to block on twitter!”
Why…why did that double post?
David?
@Axecalibur
Oh jebus. It’s never a good sign for a rapper to be out of breath before the first verse has even started.
@PI
If all your posts were double posted, we would all be twice as happy. 🙂
This is a staple of conspiracy theorist thinking. 9/11 truthers, creationists, anti-vaxers, John Birchers, global warming deniers, you name it. They’re all convinced that the scales will fall from the public’s eyes any day now. Not sure if it comes from an evangelical apocalyptic tradition, or if this is how they resolve cognitive dissonance of believing something so out of the mainstream. It’s weird that it’s such an obvious and common pattern, though.
Ninja’d by IP ??
I was about to say something witty & complimentary about PI’s double post but got beaten to it, with style.
I don’t want to bring down the mood, but what do people think about this recent femicide of singer Christina Grimmie?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/christina-grimmie-dead-gunman-deliberately-targeted-singer-according-to-police-a7076836.html
I’ll confess I’d never heard of her, I don’t keep up with modern music, but it breaks my heart that yet again a young woman has lost her life to some over entitled man with a gun.
And I’m wondering how long it’ll be before David is telling us about some RoK article blaming the crime upon evil selfish girls not wanting to date the ‘lonely incel’, thus driving him to murder some innocent woman he’d never met.
But back to the OP, I never thought much of Gawker, I’d occasionally read Jezebel but only when researching something. I recall reading a defense of publishing the Hulk Hogan video and not being impressed. He might be a douchenozzle of the highest order, but everyone has a right to privacy, and the woman in the tape with him certainly should have had her rights respected.
The fact Forney thinks you can determine someone’s success or failure by how many twitter followers they have is hilarious. I don’t even have a twitter account, I suppose in Forney’s eyes that would make me a non person?
@Paradoxical Intention:
My mentions have been… uh, interesting lately, due to having gotten “caught” tweeting supportively at a Jewish author and saying I won’t vote for Trump. It’s the first time I’ve gotten dog piled on, and so far it’s seems like it’s been one-shot insults (heavily involving the word “cuck”). So far I have decided not to block any of the aggressors, in order to deny them the “LOL this [slur] blocked me” satisfaction.
I’m hoping it will also keep them from taking it as a challenge and swamping me with sock puppets and/or summoning the hordes against me.
It’s tough to cope with people who interpret negative feedback as a sign of victory.
@snork: My first thought– betraying my age– was “Geez, this sounds like the Rebecca Schaeffer shit all over again.”
The Christina Grimmie murder is sad and, so far, puzzlng, in that there seems to be no indication he was a stalker or someone obsessed with her. Which doesn’t mean that he wasn’t, just that so far there’s very little info and thus no clear motive.