Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Meet My Links - Deadspin

So, in the two or three weeks since I posted my last one of these, I've added another link (Welcome, The Luke!) and completely forgot who was next under the "Meet My" microscope. A quick check of the archives tells me that Deadspin is officially on the clock.

Deadspin

Synopsis: Billing itself as "sports news without access, favor or discretion", Deadspin is quite simply the most biting, caustic and comically subversive sports site on the internet. Editor Will Leitch post several times a day (from about 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM) during the week, while the weekend editors keep it coming on Saturdays and Sundays. Yesterday, there were posts mocking the Ron Artest domestic abuse 911 call, another on the similarities between Eli Manning and the Black president on 24 and still another on forecasting the NIT. It's like picking "potpourri" on Jeopardy!

Positives: When everything is clicking, it's easy to get lost for hours on Deadspin. In fact, there might be too much going on here as each story is usually linked to two or three source stories, which, in turn leads to previous Deadspin posts on the same subject matter. The writing is almost always snarky without ever removing its tongue from its cheek and it doesn't take long for readers to "get" what amounts to one long, daily inside joke. And, for the truly sophomoric amongst us, it's your one-stop-shop for gratuitous groupie nudity, pictures of pro athletes up to their ass in alcohol and gossipy tales about "Chris Berman, Caveman Pimp".

Negatives: Though this might be clichéd…Deadspin was a lot more fun before everyone knew about it. Profiles in Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine let the unwashed masses in on our party. Consequently, Deadspin's ubiquitous quotes and catchphrases began seeping into the mainstream. This must be how my friends at Broken Dial feel when their favorite indie acts go all VH1 on everyone. Another residual effect of Deadspin's popularity is the absolute explosion in the number of douchebag users/commenters. Threads on genuinely interesting subject matter can quickly devolve into flame wars, homophobia or race baiting and usually by the third or fourth post.

One Sentence Summary: If you're a sports fan and aren't (or are) visiting Deadspin at least twice a day, you'll surely burn in hell…

Next Week: Baseball Prospectus

2 comments:

Tom said...

Your new link has 4 teams in the NL Central over .500. That is not a positive introduction.

I call shenanigans.

Greg Wind said...

"Tom" may or may not write for another sports blog. I say there's room for both. Go NL Central!