By Drew Grant 2/05 3:37pm

pickup artists

Coming to a 3 a.m. near you! (YouTube)

The Paul Janka Experience: New York’s PUA Poster Boy Makes Cash Money, Infomercials (Video)

For those of you both old enough to have been reading Gawker during its “microcelebrity” phase–when being a huge jerk/desperate scenester in the city was enough to warrant 24/7 coverage–might remember the name Paul Janka. Paul Janka was a pickup artist, or a “PUA.” He wrote a 19-page PDF called “Getting Laid in NYC,” which just sort of ripped off tips from the seduction community at large, which is in essence just different forms of teaching men self-confidence but also Ladder Theory. Then he wrote a book, The Attraction Formula, which appeals to exactly the type of person who thinks sexual attraction can be explained and manipulated by this guy.

Anyway,for as many women as he claimed to have boned (250 or so) in his 2007-2009 heyday, he was also a creep who deflected some serious attempted rape charges and then bragged about it on Dr. Phil.

For the past four years however, Janka has been off the grid. We assumed he met an inevitable fate in a Thai prison, but the slick-haired stubble-puss love-child of Dylan McDermott and 80s soap star Don Diamont resurfaced last month in Austin, Texas, giving an interview to Highbrow Magazine. Obviously. Obviously that is the correct publication for Mr. Janka to make his comeback. So, what has he been doing for almost half a decade? Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 1/15 3:25pm

Trading Places

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Deadspin and Gawker Swap Editors

New day, new hiring changes over at Gawker Media. Deadspin, Gawker’s sports blog, is trading managing editor Tom Scocca to Gawker. Gawker’s current managing editor Emma Carmichael will move back to Deadspin. Mr. Scocca will become Gawker’s deputy editor, where he will be on the command chain below newly installed EIC John Cook. Deadspin announced the deal in a post on their site.

“Scocca wanted to write about politics and media. He and Cook are pretty much the dream team at Gawker,” Gawker head honcho told us in an email. “And Emma’s on a site lead track for us. This was on the cards last week, but Slate was also making a run at Scocca. That had to play out.” Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke and Hunter Walker 1/10 5:28pm

Comings and Goings

A.J. Daulerio (Photo: Facebook)

A.J. Daulerio Is Leaving Gawker for ‘Who the F#@K Knows’

Gawker editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio is leaving the site. He sent out a memo to Gawker staff this afternoon shortly after the news broke on NY Mag’s Daily Intelligencer blog. In his email announcing his departure, Mr. Daulerio was vague about his future plans.

“This is the right move for the site in 2013,” he wrote. “As for 2014, who the fuck knows?” Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 11/05/12 9:00am

sandy recovery

Gawker's Back!

Gawker’s Website is Back After Sandy

Gawker Media sites returned to their regularly scheduled format last night after the websites posted on a new, spare looking tumblrs while the servers struggled to get up and running after they were flooded.

“Hey, Old Pre-Superstorm Sandy Gawker is Back, You Guys,” Gawker EIC A.J. Daulerio posted last night. The tumblr had its fans, however. Mostly fans of the way things used to be, pre-Gawker redesign, post-invention of the Internet-weblog. And those fans will be inevitably disappointed that the site is back to normal.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 11/01/12 3:47pm

Kissing and Telling

Look familiar? (Screenshot: Gawker).

A.J. Daulerio Spent The Hurricane With a Certain ‘Glamorous Drug Addict’

Natural disasters sure have a way of advancing a relationship, don’t they? You go from drinks and late nights here and there to spending days together, unable to leave. It’s like pushing the fast forward button on a relationship. You learn a lot about someone. Like that “Glamorous Drug Addict” you are hooking up with is kind of a handful. Who knew?

If you are Gawker EIC A.J. Daulerio and you spent Hurricane Sandy shacked up with Cat Marnell–or someone who sounds an awful lot like her (and looks like her too), you can use the opportunity to share all the things you learned with the world.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 10/30/12 4:29pm

hurricane sandy

Not the best location for a server.

Nick Denton Calls Gawker Media ‘The Indestructible Cockroaches of The Media World’

Gawker Media sites and BuzzFeed went down last night during the worst of the winds and rain, but they are up and running again–although Gawker is in a slightly different format. Both have servers at Datagram–which, incidentally, is in lower Manhattan and was heavily impacted by the storm.

Gawker sites went down around 7 pm last night. Late this morning, Gawker Media started posting on more spare-looking tumblr sites that were set up when the sites failed. Now, Nick Denton just wants to get the word out.

“If we’re the indestructible cockroaches of the media world, now’s the time to show it,” Mr. Denton wrote in an staff email (full text below).  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 10/30/12 9:23am

hurricane sandy

Screen shot 2012-10-30 at 9.18.42 AM

Gawker, Huffington Post Still Down

Last night, as the internet started to flicker in and out and Manhattan went dark, so too did some websites and news outlets. All Gawker Media sites and the Huffington Post website are still down for the count as of this morning. BuzzFeed was down last night, but is back today.

“In a nutshell, it appears the emergency backup power did not kick in when Con Ed shut off power,” Thomas Plunkett, Gawker’s chief technology officer, emailed us last night. Gawker servers are at Datagram on Whitehall Street, which also hosts BuzzFeed and some Huffington Post servers, explained Mr. Plunkett.  Read More