As reported by multiple news outlets yesterday, Nick Denton and the rest of the executive board were considering a rebranding effort for Gawker Media, to distance ourselves from the old editorial mission, to our new one of being nicer to brands. Nick told us in a meeting on Thursday that the new site would be “20% nicer”.
This morning, the U.S. government released a list of PDF books and other media found inside Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Alongside an issue of al-Qaeda’s online magazine Inspire and U.S. articles about terrorism and foreign policy was a copy David Ray Griffin’s The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, a book that argues that 9/11 was an inside job.
One of the more tantalizing and persistent myths in rock lore contends that “ Paul is dead”—that Paul McCartney died in a 1966 car accident and was secretly replaced with a lookalike. There are countless sites and rambling YouTube videos attempting to support this claim—based not just on the well-known middle-school myths about the cover of Abbey Road but on arcane evidence surfaced from the depths of pop-culture obscurity.
In July of 2000, the world was at the height of Harry Potter mania. J.K. Rowling was about to release the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was to be the first Harry Potter book released at the same time in both the United States and the United Kingdom. J.K. Rowling herself called it "a central book" and "the heart of the series." Rumors were flying that a major character would be killed off. The first Harry Potter film was to start filming in a few months.
In February of 2009, a man waving signs interrupted a meeting of the Sarasota City Commission to stand before the microphone and make a remarkable claim: John Lennon—shot and killed on December 8, 1980—had not been murdered by deranged Catcher in the Rye fan Mark David Chapman, but by none other than popular author Stephen King.
You are, in all likelihood, reading this post on a wireless internet-connected device—a computer, a phone, a tablet. Think about the last time you used (or wanted to use) a wired internet connection; now think about how long you've been slowly poisoning yourself with WiFi's ovary-killing, tumor-inducing radiation.
Hollywood loves a fairytale, and on March 29, 1993, it got one all to itself.
Assume a notable story on a notable day in history—the lunar landing, say—was fabricated. Now assume that 400,000 to 2 million such days were concocted. You begin to get a sense of the scope of New Chronology, the "empirico-statistical" theory that much of human history is a fiction assembled to serve the powerful.
Last week, we investigated one of the stranger celebrity conspiracy theories: That Katie Holmes had used a secret entrance to the Whole Foods in Chelsea, Manhattan to evade paparazzi after filing for divorce against Tom Cruise. Over the weekend, we learned something that might unsettle some of our readers: The conspiracy is completely true. Katie Holmes did have a secret entrance to the Chelsea Whole Foods available only to her. Our outré theory about how exactly she gained access to the entrance, however, was not entirely correct. Here’s how she did it.
On Me Against the World, the 1995 album from Tupac Shakur, the prodigious rapper foretells his death. "I'm having visions of leaving here in a hearse/ God can ya feel me?/ Take me away from all the pressure/ and all the pain/ show me some happiness again," he raps on "So Many Tears." Eighteen months later, while riding in the passenger seat under the iridescent glow of the Las Vegas strip with Marion "Suge" Knight at the wheel, Tupac was gunned down and mortally wounded. Or was he?
Are we all slaves to Big Pickle?
In the summer of 2012, shortly after she filed divorce papers to dissolve her marriage to Tom Cruise, the actress Katie Holmes moved into a Manhattan apartment complex called the Chelsea Mercantile. The prewar building has 354 units, a private garage, and, on the street level, a Whole Foods Market, where Holmes began appearing with her and Cruise’s then-six-year-old daughter, Suri. Celebrity photo databases contain blurry pictures of Holmes and Suri strolling the organic grocer’s aisles, and clearer ones of them leaving through the front entrance.
Beyoncé's 2011 pregnancy was more than just the buildup to the birth of Blue Ivy—it was also a gestation period for crazed baby-conspiracy theorists. Why did one of the world's foremost experts in self-promotion release only a few arty pictures of her stomach to document the pregnancy? How did she manage to give birth in a Manhattan hospital without any information about the event itself leaking from a third party? And what was with her stomach collapsing during that one TV appearance? All good mysteries, easily solved by the chaise-lounge conspiracy theorist: Duh. Beyoncé was never pregnant.
The 2012 Super Bowl was one of the most watched television events in U.S. history, with an estimated viewership of 111.3 million people. Three million more watched the halftime show. Madonna, the iconic pop star and headliner, crafted a thirteen-minute-long medley of her songs, a lavish production costing millions. The result was a spectacularly staged performance. The show opens on a stage decorated with Egyptian motifs and similarly costumed dancers as Madonna enters, dressed as the hierophant of an ancient mystery cult, seated in a throne on a chariot being pulled by dozens of "slaves."
What would Princess Diana be doing if she were alive today? Would she be on a reality show? Would she wear peplums? Would she have solved global hunger? Admittedly I think about this more often than I should, because so much potential, so much intrigue, so much gossip was lost when Lady Di, the Queen of Peoples' Hearts and One-Piece Bathing Suits and Foofy Blond Short Haircuts and Being a Humanitarian but Not in a Weird, Scary Self-Righteous Way Like Angelina Jolie, died. Or rather: was murdered.
Have you ever been to Colorado? You should go. It has skiing, the pot is free, and my sister lives there. It also has Denver International Airport (DIA) (or DEN), the largest airport in the U.S. and the second largest in the world. The airport is also home to a secret underground city built to shelter the world's elite in the event of a nuclear holocaust. And the runways form a swastika.
The five gyms I've used as an adult have had one thing in common: All of the elliptical machines—or the "good ones," at least—are always in use during peak hours. Every other machine—stairs, rowing, treadmill, etc.—usually have at least a vacancy or two, but not the fancy ellipticals.
In July 2007, the artists Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan ended their own lives. Both had grown erratic and paranoid in the preceding months, and on the 10th, Blake found his longtime romantic partner dead in their East Village apartment, overdosed on a lethal cocktail of whiskey and Tylenol PM. One week later, he drowned himself in the Atlantic Ocean at Rockaway Beach.
It's common knowledge that earth's only friend, the moon, is real. There it is, big and bright, careening across the sky in a dark orbit thousands of miles away. Wow, it's big! Big and real. We know the moon is real because we can see it up there, existing. It's very, very real. But have you ever stopped yourself to really ask—is the moon . . . real?
