I've certainly had enough of Peter Thiel's resentment in this post-Gawker world

 July 22, 2022

If there's an elephant in the room we probably shouldn't just sit tight and hope it goes away. Yes, Peter Thiel, aspiring tech overlord currently trying to "steal $1 billion from the Pentagon", is the same guy that bankrolled the lawsuit against Gawker by the former '80s pro wrestler Hulk Hogan.

A strange sensational case full of stupid people.

The Artist Formerly Known as Hulk Hogan got videotaped having sex with someone else's wife who was, I gather, a swinger in the first place. The tape got out, and was posted on the blog gawker.com. I haven't gotten into the sordid details of the factual background of the case because, to be honest, I'm not all that interested in seeing or reading about The Artist Formally Known as Hulk Hogan having fun: especially not about him having fun and then whining about it.

But yes, Gawker got a hold of the video of their liaison, which happened at her house. So, who recorded it? Probably her or her husband. I don't know or care at this point.

What is interesting and what was talked about in my circles, was that line of questioning that follows from the ask "what could've possessed Gawker to post the video?"

Now, this case is well and over, too fast for me to analyze it, but it's influence has lingered on. I'm not a lawyer and I didn't work on this case etc.; and I'm not all that interested in The Artist Formerly Known as Hulk Hogan, and his fame. But I am interested in the underlying free speech issues and what vampire spylord Peter Thiel had to do with it.  (Thiel, by the way, is responsible for Palantir, one of the spyware programs used by the US intelligence community and its effort to spy on everyone, including US citizens.)

I don't know if Gawker made the case for why it was newsworthy, but they had an argument for it, at least. They got got on a charge of invasion of privacy, which is at the very least, slightly weird because it's not like the woman The Artist Formerly Known as Hulk Hogan slept with, or her erstwhile husband, were charged. It's not like Gawker was in her house with the camera. But OK, they were charged. And it is a weird kind of revenge porn situation, but, you know, revenge on the artist formerly known as Hulk Hogan for taking advantage, in apparently his own admission, of the woman's open relationship. Sordid indeed.

Who know if Gawker made this case, but if we're being totally honest, pro wrestling has always been, shall we say, not unsexual in its portrayal of people fighting it out over televised feuds. And there have been some whispers and rumors of late about sexual improprieties behind the scenes of pro wrestling, or shall we say, behind behind the scenes, including at least suspicions of harassment and abuse, etc. and this is not a new problem arguably, just a newly-identified problem. It's not unlikely it's one of those elements motivating the kind of "kayfabe" manipulation of the plot about the characters on the screen. So The Artist Formerly Known as Hulk Hogan comes out of this environment and it's not unreasonable to wonder, as a layperson, if he is going to continue to act as his villainous character did once he gets out of that bubble. 

It's not an airtight case, of course, but I wonder if we can understand Gawker, from that perspective. Some amateur or semi-amateur journalist sees that, and says to theyself "oh, well that confirms my suspicions on that," and posts it.

Now, the part that I am explicitly interested in, is, given that backlog of problematic nonsense and/or salacious detail, it's not like pro wrestling is about to give its full-throated support to The Artist Formerly Known as Hulk Hogan. But who steps in with the cash to fund a lawsuit, not against the videographer, whoever that may be, but against Gawker? Peter Thiel, who already had a grudge against Gawker. 

So let's talk about Peter Thiel's grudge. Some other semi-amateur journalist at Gawker, he says, outed him as gay. It was another one of those partially-defensible but overall understandable things. The article in question from 2007 was basically a sort-of clumsy but to me not-malicious-seeming attempt to answer the question that goes something like "why is Peter Thiel being ostracized in investment circles?" with the answer voiced as a question "is it because he's gay?" I think Peter Thiel might have won that case. I don't know; he certainly has been very litigious, against Gawker, and, you know, generally. Ironically I think he financed eight lawsuits filed by Harvey Weinstein accusers too.

The whole thing was framed as invasion of privacy and not about free speech, but you know and I know it was the weird revenge porn angle that made it so titillating and kept the grudges underlying what actually happened under the radar.

Is it fair to out someone as gay? Nah. But what exactly that means is not so clear. People can have shame, and we should respect it to a degree. But you can't be coming back for seconds on the resentment over being outed as gay. That's not fair either. And that's what Peter Thiel's been doing, pretty much - and now to the extent that all of us, all of American society, are bearing the brunt of his resentment? What a fuckin' nightmare.

Ironically the tone of that 2007 article seemed to me, at least, to be saying to Mr. Thiel "own it, accept it, be you" which to my understanding is the healthy way to do it. That's my understanding. Just me. I'm definitely not here to teach anybody how to be gay...

Mr. Thiel has certainly parlayed this pity into a lot of attacks on free-speech and Free Press, mostly tangential issues that have a lot of sensationalism to them.  It has contributed overall to an atmosphere where we all are enduring a sense of being criticized for public participation on the Internet. And who doesn't want that nightmare to end? I certainly want that fuckin' nightmare to end.