Today was an icky day on the interwebs as Deadspin decided to post all the old rumors in their inbox after getting scooped on the Steve Phillips story. What most surprised me was how damn vindictive this whole thing is. I just don't get it. From my interactions with AJ, I've always found him to be a nice guy. Accessible, funny, I want to date him, yada, yada, yada.
What happened? As usual, Lozo explained it best. For some reason, AJ lost it when a story he kind of heard previously got broke'd by a mainstream source before Deadspin had it.
Believe me, I know what its like. I constantly gets scooped. Just today I opened my e-mail and got the official announcement about SpikeTV's counter-programming on November 7th to go against the Fedor Strikeforce card. I immediately started writing up a piece for The Rumble because hoping to at least get it up around the same time as the rest of the bloggers who are on the Spike's e-mail list.
Then I looked at MMAjunkie to check a date of a fight and saw that Junkie already had a post up. 2 hours before I even got the e-mail. I had been SCOOPED!
I was pretty upset. So, see? I understand.
That being said, posting those rumors was incredibly off-putting. It wasn't fun to watch. As I said in both e-mail and Twitter-form earlier today, it reminded me of a powerful scene from The Wire.
Yes, I suppose I just compared Daulerio to Marlo Stanfield. Its a simile or something.
My point is, it was like Daulerio was just doing these posts today... because.
Of course, its not just because. I imagine this has been a long time coming. These are items that have been saved for a rainy (or vengeful) day. Finally, after who knows how much prodding, AJ started to empty his inbox and unloaded on people that lots of readers have probably never heard of. Why now after a stupid story about Steve Phillips? This isn't even a story that the non-sporting news cycle will probably touch. This seems like something that's been building as the Dark Side beckoned young AJ.
But, for now, ESPN, go in peace. I hope that 6 p.m. meeting went well. I think the one person who probably enjoyed this the most today (besides Nick Denton) is Sean Salisbury.
[...]
Sleep tight, Bristol...
No clues there. It could always be as simple as page views - today was heee-uge if you're counting the eyeballs on Deadspin. It reminds me of the bump in traffic Deadspin received when the Erin Andrews hit the fan. Of course, back then we were all saddened that some asshole had ruined our good time.
Look, we're here to laugh and have a good time and make the occasional lewd jokes and that won't be abandoned for the sake of reaching some higher moral ground to rise above this unfortunate situation.
Indeed.
