I think they were victims of their own success weren’t they? Gawker was already kind of a tech-tabloid, happy to report rumors (which were often true or at least truth adjacent).
That kinda made them popular with both hardboiled techies who wanted to know when my shit was going to come rolling down, and regular folks who just wanted some good gossip… maybe wanted to touch our feet or whatever ;-)
With that success and the capital investment it garnered Gawker bought up all the good tech news sites.
Unable to produce meaningful content for that many sites on the limited budget their investors demanded Gawker invented the listical. And humanity wept —and kept clicking for some damn reason 🤨
Many years passed and the listical was clearly dying, so Gawker sought out a real zinger to boost their profile… I’m a bit hazy on the details, but it sounds like Peter Teal fucked them up the ass with Hulk Hogan‘s penis.