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I remember enjoying Taibbi's "gonzo journalism" style fifteen-ish years ago in Rolling Stone. But whenever I've followed a link to his Substack newsletter, it s

I remember enjoying Taibbi's "gonzo journalism" style fifteen-ish years ago in Rolling Stone. But whenever I've followed a link to his Substack newsletter, it seems to be, ah, a lot heavier on the gonzo part than the journalism part -- down the rabbit hole of cranky contrarianism with nary an editor around to reel him back occasionally.

ashtonkem 6y ago
There seems to be a recent trend of formerly serious people going full crank. There isn't enough consistency in demographics for me to posit a useful theory, but it seems to be happening to a lot of people.
- op03 6y ago
  Too much spent time getting needled on Twitter. People think their brains are immune to trolling.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    This is it. I think the viral short form fast news hot takes format of Twitter (and its related cousins like Reddit) brings out the worst in people. It’s built to amplify the loud fringes who will engage in the worst ways at the drop of a hat. It ends up depressing all the users and turning them into reactionaries who can only tolerate an echo chamber of confirmation bias.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      It's a good thing that the people still employed by large media corporations rather than eking out a living on substack haven't fallen prey to this deadly malaise.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        I've read this a couple times and I'm not sure what it means. The large media corporation NYT just reported out that RH had to draw down a $600B line of credit and take a $1B round of equity funding in large part because of capital requirements from clearinghouses. Taibbi's substack, on the other hand, seems to believe that jet planes will never fly again because of COVID.
        jessaustin 6y ago
        It's a short comment. Or do you mean TFA? The only reference to Robbinhood therein is a link to a perfectly cromulent Bloomberg report of their by-now-well-known selective stock purchase limitations. There is no scandalous reference to Citadel. NYT's breathless 1 AM transcription of press releases doesn't seem to add much to the discussion either. Of course, that's not what I was talking about. I'm just giggling at the idea that alone among USA journalists, Matt Taibbi has had his mind addled by the Twitter, as discussed upthread. How is that "Russia-gate" investigation going now? [EDIT:] As I've observed before [0], I still don't get economics advice from Taibbi. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244242
        tptacek 6y ago
        I'm having a hard time following any of this, but the NYT did actual reporting that refuted a story that has been circulating all day about hedge fund interests halting trading in GME, and Matt Taibbi really did just write a story that said Delta is functionally worthless because nobody is ever going to fly on an airliner again.
        jessaustin 6y ago
        TFA is linked at the top of this page; please assume we can all read it. There is one reference to airlines, which reference includes several links to financial sources documenting (uncontroversially, one would like to assume) that they are harmed by massive drops in demand for air travel while they benefit from the receipt of hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. Taibbi takes Sorkin's comparison of GameStop and Delta seriously, and invites attentive readers to ask themselves how different one firm facing reduced demand is from some other firm facing reduced demand. Regurgitating a press release is not "actual reporting". We won't know what actually happened between RH and Citadel for some time, if ever. It's misleading to keep mentioning this in this context, because TFA doesn't address Citadel at all. ISTR you have described RH as "a force for evil". I didn't disagree with you, but it's disappointing that your famous animus for one of the rare decent journalists in USA has preempted that judgment. Every time Taibbi is linked on HN you're around to slag him. You seem more opposed to Taibbi than you are to DNSSEC. When you read Taibbi you imagine things that are not in the text. What did he ever do to you? Did he cut you off in traffic? Did he steal your dog? What gives?
- tedunangst 6y ago
  If you crank sufficiently, you achieve unserious status and critics no longer engage on detailed rebuttals. And then your fans can say, see, they just say he's unserious without providing a point by point explanation, so he must be right.
  - tanseydavid 6y ago
    Really? Can you define "crank" in the verb form you seem to be using it in here?
- meowkit 6y ago
  Its money and echo chambers. You just need a small audience who will fund your patreon, buy your merch, and look at your ads. Being in that environment creates an echo chamber which feeds back into selecting for a specific audience.
  - mat7447 6y ago
    So like NYT but smaller?
cma 6y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/contrarianleft/ https://www.reddit.com/r/contrarianleft/ A common element seems to be Patreon or Substack.
- esyir 6y ago
  Sounds like that's a symptom though to me. Once they fall out of the mainstream, they get booted out and sent indieland.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    I suspect it's a little of column A, a little of column B. :) While a theoretically great thing about Substack is that you have no editor, a serious pitfall with Substack is that you have no editor -- and, depending on publication, no research staff or fact-checking department. So there's no one to push back even with relatively gentle comments like "I see what you're going for here, but you need to support [thing] better" or "your snark here is magnificent but it's undercutting your larger point."

ashtonkem 6y ago

There seems to be a recent trend of formerly serious people going full crank. There isn't enough consistency in demographics for me to posit a useful theory, but it seems to be happening to a lot of people.

op03 6y ago
Too much spent time getting needled on Twitter. People think their brains are immune to trolling.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  This is it. I think the viral short form fast news hot takes format of Twitter (and its related cousins like Reddit) brings out the worst in people. It’s built to amplify the loud fringes who will engage in the worst ways at the drop of a hat. It ends up depressing all the users and turning them into reactionaries who can only tolerate an echo chamber of confirmation bias.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    It's a good thing that the people still employed by large media corporations rather than eking out a living on substack haven't fallen prey to this deadly malaise.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      I've read this a couple times and I'm not sure what it means. The large media corporation NYT just reported out that RH had to draw down a $600B line of credit and take a $1B round of equity funding in large part because of capital requirements from clearinghouses. Taibbi's substack, on the other hand, seems to believe that jet planes will never fly again because of COVID.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        It's a short comment. Or do you mean TFA? The only reference to Robbinhood therein is a link to a perfectly cromulent Bloomberg report of their by-now-well-known selective stock purchase limitations. There is no scandalous reference to Citadel. NYT's breathless 1 AM transcription of press releases doesn't seem to add much to the discussion either. Of course, that's not what I was talking about. I'm just giggling at the idea that alone among USA journalists, Matt Taibbi has had his mind addled by the Twitter, as discussed upthread. How is that "Russia-gate" investigation going now? [EDIT:] As I've observed before [0], I still don't get economics advice from Taibbi. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17244242
        tptacek 6y ago
        I'm having a hard time following any of this, but the NYT did actual reporting that refuted a story that has been circulating all day about hedge fund interests halting trading in GME, and Matt Taibbi really did just write a story that said Delta is functionally worthless because nobody is ever going to fly on an airliner again.
        jessaustin 6y ago
        TFA is linked at the top of this page; please assume we can all read it. There is one reference to airlines, which reference includes several links to financial sources documenting (uncontroversially, one would like to assume) that they are harmed by massive drops in demand for air travel while they benefit from the receipt of hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. Taibbi takes Sorkin's comparison of GameStop and Delta seriously, and invites attentive readers to ask themselves how different one firm facing reduced demand is from some other firm facing reduced demand. Regurgitating a press release is not "actual reporting". We won't know what actually happened between RH and Citadel for some time, if ever. It's misleading to keep mentioning this in this context, because TFA doesn't address Citadel at all. ISTR you have described RH as "a force for evil". I didn't disagree with you, but it's disappointing that your famous animus for one of the rare decent journalists in USA has preempted that judgment. Every time Taibbi is linked on HN you're around to slag him. You seem more opposed to Taibbi than you are to DNSSEC. When you read Taibbi you imagine things that are not in the text. What did he ever do to you? Did he cut you off in traffic? Did he steal your dog? What gives?
tedunangst 6y ago
If you crank sufficiently, you achieve unserious status and critics no longer engage on detailed rebuttals. And then your fans can say, see, they just say he's unserious without providing a point by point explanation, so he must be right.
- tanseydavid 6y ago
  Really? Can you define "crank" in the verb form you seem to be using it in here?
meowkit 6y ago
Its money and echo chambers. You just need a small audience who will fund your patreon, buy your merch, and look at your ads. Being in that environment creates an echo chamber which feeds back into selecting for a specific audience.
- mat7447 6y ago
  So like NYT but smaller?

cma 6y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/contrarianleft/ https://www.reddit.com/r/contrarianleft/ A common element seems to be Patreon or Substack.

esyir 6y ago
Sounds like that's a symptom though to me. Once they fall out of the mainstream, they get booted out and sent indieland.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  I suspect it's a little of column A, a little of column B. :) While a theoretically great thing about Substack is that you have no editor, a serious pitfall with Substack is that you have no editor -- and, depending on publication, no research staff or fact-checking department. So there's no one to push back even with relatively gentle comments like "I see what you're going for here, but you need to support [thing] better" or "your snark here is magnificent but it's undercutting your larger point."