I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - August 29, 2008

As you may be aware, the media blog Gawker has, for the last three weeks, been posting about me and this movie. Gawker's schtick is to be hateful and snarky about everything other than themselves, so of course they are comically negative and attacking in their posts about me. For example:

They seem to think it's controversial that I'm an asshole, they don't like that I have hot girls in my movie, they apparently hate the FBI, they accuse me of plagiarizing myself, they think my stories are fake and in the SAME post say everyone has similar stories, they believe clearly made up emails (even when my REAL assistant writes to say it's fake), and they even criticize me for being professional to actresses and loving my dog. And of course, they think my movie sucks, even though their "source" on set tells them that it's good.

This doesn't upset me at all. It's just the current state of media, and the way the game is played, especially with Gawker. I get it, and I don't take it personally. Come on--how could I be upset when someone calls me an asshole, considering that the first line on my website is "My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole."

If anything, I like what Gawker is doing. How many movies get this kind of incessant press a year from release? And how great is it that a site I hate is constantly talking about me? It'll never aggravate me when people talk about me, even in a negative way, because like Eminem said, "I love being hated, it's great, let's me know that I made it." Every time Gawker breathlessly posts a fabricated email about what a jerk I am, it just throws another gasoline soaked log on the raging inferno that is my ego.

But there is something about this situation that does get to me. I had trouble articulating it, until a few days ago when it hit me: What really pisses me off about the collection of hipster-doofus-illumnati at Gawker is not that they don't like me--they don't like anything, why should I be different--it's that they think they know what they are talking about, when in fact, they are the most clueless. They think they are arbiters of taste, of culture, of cool, but in reality they are nothing more than armchair critics, sitting on the sidelines shitting on the efforts of those who try, while too afraid to do anything of their own. To me, that sort of hypocrisy is disgusting and unforgivable.

I could easily spend thousands of words detailing how fucked up Gawker is, but that's not what I want to do (don't get me wrong though, the pitifulness of Gawker is well-documented). I want to do what no one else in my position has ever really done--I want to hold Gawker accountable for their bullshit. It's time someone stood up to their shameless hypocrisy and pseudo-nihilist snark. It's time someone called them out. They think they know culture, they set themselves up as arbiters of success, then let's see if they will put their money where their mouth is:

Gawker, your position is that I suck and my movie sucks. Ok, that's cool, my position is that none of you know what the fuck you are talking about. So let's settle these mutually exclusive viewpoints with a very simple bet on what the box office gross of my movie will be.

My proposed rules:

-$10,000 bet
-Gawker can pick the dollar gross amount; any number they want. They take the under and I'll take the over.
-North American box office, as reported in Variety.
-Since gambling is indeed illegal, loser pays 10k to the charity of choice of the winner [for the record, my charity of choice is Hear See Hope, which battles Usher syndrome, something that afflicts the nephews of one of the producers]

However Gawker wants to structure it is fine with me, if they want to add things, whatever, I don't care, I'll probably accept.

And because I want to make sure this is fair, here is some info to help them in selecting the box office gross they want to go with:

-The budget on the movie is less than 10 million.
-With a standard distribution deal, we will go into real profit at 20 million gross, depending on various factors. [That's a conservative number--we may get into profit earlier than that, but 20 million is the number where there's no way we won't be in profit.]
-There are no big name actors in the movie (you can see the cast on IMDB).
-It will be an R rated movie
-As it stands now, I am the biggest advertising draw about the movie (my book has sold about 400k copies, and is currently #4 on the NY Times Best Seller List)
-They can just pick the gross at which the movie goes into profit, not thinking it'll even do that, or they can be a fucking jackass and pick a ridiculous number like 300 million. I don't care--I'll take the bet regardless. I just want them to pick a number they don't think my movie has ANY chance of hitting, so when they lose, they are not only embarrassed, they will have to re-check all their assumptions about life and culture.
-And remember: We don't even have a distributor yet. If we don't get theatrical release, or just a small release and then straight to DVD, Gawker wins.

My email is tuckermax@gmail.com. Whoever is the point person at Gawker, feel free to contact me if you want to sort out the details. [Note that we wrap the movie tonight and I head straight back to LA, so I might be off the computer for awhile.]

Of course, if I were you, I'd probably think twice about venturing anywhere beyond the safety of blog snark. Your record of failure outside that area is long and illustrious.

Comment and discuss

EDIT: Oh look, GAWKER ANGRY! GAWKER SMASH! TUCKER BAD, GAWKER GOOD!! Yes, yes, I know, you are a much better person than me and it must be so hard to even see me from the heights of your pedestal, but no one cares dipshit. Either take the bet or turn the bet down. The time for worthless talk is over.

EDIT 2: Gawker accepts. Just got this email:

Hi Tucker

You've thrown us a bit of a curve ball as we were winding down for the weekend when your post hit the wires. A bit of a quick discussion amongst staffers, as well as firing it to the moneymen at the top and we made a very quick decision.

I'm pleased to announce that we would be more than happy to accept your bet, and we'd like to put the magic number at $18 million.

We can work out finer details next week, such as the charity we're choosing and anything else. Please feel free to email me back if you want to clarify anything, and feel free to run this post, we'll be putting up something ourselves soon.

May the best man, or douchebag, win..

Regards,
Hamilton Nolan

Awesome. 18 million it is. Glad to see they stepped up, unlike hipster god Michael Ian Black.

EDIT 3: OK, so I got fooled. The email I thought was from Hamilton was spoofed. Check the header:

from hamilton@gawker.com
to tuckermax@gmail.com
date Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 7:10 PM
subject Film bet
mailed-by pegasus.dreamhost.com

My bad--I probably should have checked the full header to make sure the email was really from Gawker, but I didn't. This is my fault, not Gawker's. [Unless they spoofed an email from themselves, which would be pretty fucking genius, I have to say.]

This means that as of right now, Gawker has not officially responded to the bet proposal. When they do, I will post about it here.

Posted by Tucker Max at 3:11 PM