Every tabloid wants to die for its virtues

Rob Beschizza 1:42 pm Fri Jun 12, 2015

hhgn

You may have heard that a lawsuit targeting Gawker, over its posting of a Hulk Hogan sex tape, is going to trial, and that Gawker may have a long and unpleasant fight ahead of it. The Awl explains it best: in numbers!

100,000,000: Damages Hulk Hogan is seeking in lawsuit against Gawker for publishing his sex tape, in dollars

45,000,000: Gawker’s advertising revenue last year, in dollars

20,000,000: Amount spent to build Kinja commenting platform, according to former Gawker Editorial Director and record-holder for greatest number of distinct tenures at Gawker, Joel Johnson, in dollars

The thing that gets me, the thing that just makes my brain shut down over this, is that this sex tape is basically the worst thing in existence beyond legitimate examples of human suffering. Who wants to watch Hulk Hogan fuck? For principled reasons, Gawker must prevail, but it must be said they really did manage to optimize the first half of that famous and apocryphal Voltaire quote.

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