"SHUT THIS THING DOWN, PLEASE!" Gawker Media joins our protest against filthy TMZ.com

"I can find nothing entertaining or redeeming
in any of the site's content.
It's all just base and poorly written
and arbitrarily amoral.
I'm just as complicit in the whole awful
celebrity-industrial complex as they are,
but good god let's try to have a little style
while we ruin people's lives, eh?"

--Gawker.com

For a while there, we thought we were shouting into the wind when it came to the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com.

Could we, old tabloid-loving, tabloid television pioneering hacks that we are, be the only ones who are really, physically repulsed by the coprophiliac power bottom filth they pinch out on an hourly basis? Are we the only ones who are appalled that the genre we helped create was taken over by the shaved bronzed midget Harvey Levin-- the guy we all laughed at back in the heyday (he was a butch little local news reporter at the time and did a lot of stupid things trying to imitate the trendsetting tabloid shows-- like almost getting the case against OJ Simpson thrown out of court).

For while, it seemed only that Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Report and Past Deadline site, was wise enough-- and in this town, brave enough --to stand up against the scumbags, going as far as to state, "TMZ is the AntiChrist."

But after our rantings against TMZ boys club's senselessly, needlessly cruel jokes about the death of poor Elliot Yamin's beloved mother, other good, smart Internet tabloid journos are joining the fight.

Nick Denton's Gawker.com is based in New York, but this afternoon they took our lead and hit Hollywood's festering pustule with a pop. Under the headline "THINGS I ACTUALLY HATE: TMZ will even make fun of your mother's death," Richard Lawson picks up the Yamin story, adding:

"Instead of simply saying "that was dumb, we're sorry," (TMZ) ran another post that included a poll. If 51% of readers said the line should go, they'd pull it. Almost 100,000 people voted and a resounding 78% wanted it gone. So, they got rid of the offending bit and continued on their merry way. Without ever issuing a measly apology. The woman died two days ago for chrissake. I'm all for an off-color joke, but a little human decency never hurt anyone..."

Then they were nice enough to credit and link to us.

And then, Gawker went even farther:

"You know what's funny about TMZ? No, I'm... uh, I'm actually asking. The site is so screechy and repugnant that I always have to click away before I can remember to look for anything remotely amusing. The way they eagerly roll around in pop shit and gleefully smear it everywhere, because it's so campy and naughty, reminds me of the dumb queens from high school and their haggish friends who would shriek and think they were hysterical because they said 'cum dumpster.' I can find nothing entertaining or redeeming in any of the site's content. It's all just base and poorly written and arbitrarily amoral. I'm just as complicit in the whole awful celebrity-industrial complex as they are, but good god let's try to have a little style while we ruin people's lives, eh? Shut this thing down, please. Oh, and the wretched TV show too. There is no reason to see and hear Harvey Levin and his army of smug little shits every goddamn day."

The item was even picked up up by Gawker's distracted Hollywood cousin, Defamer, which in the past year has kowtowed to the ugly power of Levin's gutter operation. Interesting that a few hours later, Defamer's new managing editor Mark Graham ran another item about TMZ, this one about an old clip, unearthed most recently a few months ago, that shows the decadent Harvey Levin in a more positive light, many years ago, as a student activist.

Did Defamer get a call? More likely, it's the big-budget PR firms hired by TMZ's benefactors, AOL and Time-Warner, earning their pay by controlling the spin, and changing the headline.

But not here, Harvey.