While watching Hardball with Chris Matthews today and voraciously gulping up whatever hilarious stories Wonkette has posted for the day, as is my MO, I came across an article on the internet menace that is national troublemaker Matt Drudge. Obviously I knew who he was before, and I read the Drudge Report as often as I can remember to, but it only struck me today how dead sexy he is.(Yes, you thought this post would be something different and unique, but it's another self-satisfying rave about yet another guy we inexplicably find hot. Sorry.)
But can you really blame me for my new crush? Just *look* at him. He's crafted quite the engaging image- like he works for William Randolph Hearst or something. He has the air of a tough-as-nails newspaper reporter of the 21st century that will intimidatingly ask you all the hard-hitting questions the world needs the answers to (in bed?). And if the biting smoke-filled typewriter room image doesn't turn you on, just look at the hat- Harvey Mansfield '57 would be proud. He's also faced some gay rumors, which instantly makes him even more objectifiable to us, whether or not they're true (given the make-up of GG, we'd prefer him to be bi, but at least some of us will always win no matter what).
But this post isn't just about how complete of a man Matt Drudge is and how much we would enjoy having a couple of whiskeys and some smokes with him and see where it takes us before we have to roll off of his bed at noon to hound down some corrupt Tammany Hall (UC?) carpetbagger. This post is about how he has influenced our style- how he is, in fact, our role model.
The parallels between Drudge's life and the world of GossipGeek are unintentional, but we can't help but love the guy and contemplate that perhaps a lot of our site has been subconsciously influenced by him. Let's take a few choice excerpts from his Wikipedia article (Wikipedia is always right). Consider replacing "Drudge Report" with "Gossip Geek", fix up the years, and you'll understand what we mean:
The Drudge Report began as an e-mail sent out to a few friends. The original issues of the Drudge Report were part gossip and part opinion.
In 1996, the newsletter transitioned slowly from entertainment gossip to political gossip and moved from e-mail to the Web as its primary distribution mechanism.
Drudge's website gained in popularity in the late 1990s after a number of reports in which he beat the mainstream media by reporting first. Drudge first received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 presidential election. In 1998, Drudge gained notoriety when he was the first outlet to break the news which later became the Monica Lewinsky scandal.And check out how the stuffy old media react to him:
"Drudge is a menace to honest, responsible journalism. And to the extent that he's read and people believe what they read, he's dangerous."We can't help but love a guy that gets dismissed by self-loathing Woodward and Bernstein wannabes that were once on the Crimson Ed Board.
With all this in mind, all this common ground and open admiration, we would like to extend an invitation to Mr. Drudge to come visit us next September. I'm sure the mainstream Harvard media would gobble up the opportunity to talk to you, Mr. Drudge, but we would love to have you visit and talk about your experiences with reporting gossip on the Internet, which is sort of our thing. You're a huge role model of ours and it would be an honor and a privilege to talk with you and show you our world.
It's not a "date" if you don't want it to be.
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