Standing up for the little guy against the big rich obnoxious guy: that’s the mission of blogs, don’t you think? Or, at least it should be.
Three satirical, American-based websites — which have been written about before on VanRamblings — have taken on this ‘class warfare’ task as their raison d’être. The creative forces behind the sites are a self-described collection of misfits, sitting in their underwear in front of their computers, publishing snarky, and timely, commentary — and to date have proved wildly successful in their mission.
Gawker, Wonkette and, the newest West Coast member of the gossip family, Defamer obsessively catalogue the superficial (whether it be about politicians or movie stars); get the scoop on, and take to task, poncy journalists and illiberal celebrities; and comment on American fauna of every variety for “smart consumers, smart readers who still love trash but want to know the real deal.”
Choire Sicha, the creative force behind the blog Gawker.com, says that job one for Defamer is “to cover the industry. We want to know the whole travails of Michael Eisner at Disney, about pilots, (and) box office.”
In the course of his NPR radio interview with Madeleine Brand, Sicha admits that “we say ridiculous, foolish things all the time, and I think that’s the way it should be on the web. It’s moving fast, we want to have breaking news first, and we want to have seat-of-the-pants reactions.”
