Deadspin Advocates Co-Bachelorette, Bachelor Parties; Dies As Site

Nearly a decade ago I was an editor at Deadspin. The site was funny, irreverent, witty and smart under founding editor Will Leitch. When Leitch left I was hired to write whatever I wanted and told I would have complete editorial control. Neither turned out to be true. So I left within six months. But A.J. Daulerio, whose post about Hulk Hogan recently bankrupted Gawker, was an entertaining editor who didn't give a damn who he offended. The site was profane, absurd, and fearless under his leadership.

Deadspin was the little guy punching up in the sports world, the voice of the common fan.  

But at some point what had once been a funny and not very serious website decided it was the leader of the PC bro sports media. It became boring, pedantic, perpetually offended, and obsessed with far left liberal sports. It didn't sound at all like what normal people sound like when they talk about sports.

In short order, Deadspin became what it once hated about the sports media, a self-serious and unctuously predictable cavalcade of boring tripe, constantly refreshed again and again, perpetually marinating in fake outrage. 

Other than when they put Ku Klux Klan hats on me or make a misguided and poorly written attempt at ridiculing Outkick, like most of you, I haven't been on the site in years.

Until today when several of you emailed me the link to the post that officially ended Deadspin -- a guide to hosting a co-bachelor and bachelorette party.

The article is so awesomely awful that I thought we should excerpt the best parts and hold a funeral for Deadspin, which once mattered, and now is dead.

Let me make this clear before we begin: if you have a joint bachelor and bachelorette party you are a first rate loser.

Period.  

No sports fans do this, so, of course, Deadspin thinks you should do it. 

From the opening paragraph comes this jewel: "keeping these people (of the opposite sex) from your bachelor/ette party because they're the wrong gender is incredibly retrograde and self-defeating, is it not?"

"Retrograde and self-defeating." My God, it's like PC bro slam poetry.

Once I read this half-sentence, I knew this was going to be good. But I had no idea how good. 

The next paragraph is where things really get rolling:

"Sure, there's the option of having the bride and groom each have their own special weekend with their own special people, whoever they may be, and whatever gender they may be. But having a joint bachelor/ette celebration has the benefit of actually cutting down on any potential awkwardness ”you don't have to buy into gender essentialism to recognize that certain (sexist) traditional bachelor party events might be impacted by the presence of the groom's little sister while also facilitating friendships across the aisle, as it were."

This might be the worst paragraph written in the history of the Internet. 

Yeah, sure, why would you let the groom hang out with all his friends and the bride hang out with all her friends like 99% of normal people do? That's so stupid. And retrograde and self-defeating and sexist. 

Also, "gender essentialism" what does that even mean? Is that like a penis and a vagina? They're essential, right? Biology is sexist too. 

What bachelor party events are sexist? Strippers? Bachelorette parties can have strippers. So how is this sexist? I'm honestly at a loss as to what bachelor party events are sexist. If both sexes can do it, it can't possibly be sexist, right?  

"For my own bachelor/ette party, we just lumped it all together into a single, shared weekend. We spent a few days crashing at my parents' suburban home while they vacationed in New York, with one afternoon designated for splitting up the guys and gals. It was lovely."

YOU HAD YOUR JOINT BACHELOR/BACHLORETTE PARTY AT YOUR PARENT'S SUBURBAN HOME WHILE THEY WENT ON VACATION?

AND YOU AREN'T 15 YEARS OLD?

HOLY FUCK. 

It's impossible to be whiter and lamer and more liberal than this. 

If someone called me and said, "Hey do you want to come to our joint bachelor/bachelorette party? We're staying at my parent's house while they're on vacation." I would think it was a prank. And my second thought would be, "This better be an "Eyes Wide Shut" party and you parent's mansion better be on twenty acres and feature an orgy." 

But that didn't happen at this party. 

What did they do the first night?

"Honestly? Don't plan too much that first night. Someone suggested we download and play Heads Up! and Psych! and with ample beer and burgers (and baseball on TV because we know our audience) that gave everyone the chance to get to know each other without making it feel like summer camp...And one of the best parts was how well everyone got along and how much more exciting our wedding seems now that our friends are friends with each other."

JUST SHOOT ME IN THE FUCKING HEAD RIGHT NOW.

This is the worst bachelor/bachelorette party in the history of mankind. How bad is this party? Baseball on TV is the best part.  

And baseball on TV is fucking awful. 

You had people over to your parent's house and played games on your iPhones while watching baseball and eating hamburgers. This would be a pretty boring party if you were in 8th grade. As an adult party it is impossible to suck more.

"Don't plan too much that first night."

Yes, god forbid you actually schedule something fun on the first day. What are you 95 years old? You're staying in your parent's house, you better pass out cocaine and mushrooms the minute everyone arrives. 

Well, surely by the second day they got things squared away and they had an awesome....nope.

"We considered a museum outing (if your city has an interactive science museum that doesn't have to be taken too seriously, all the better), an unstructured park day, a movie marathon, fruit picking, and trivia night at a bar. For our own event, we organized a welcome night cookout; a homemade brunch; an afternoon apart (a beerhall for one group, a botanical garden for another); an evening of sushi, karaoke and gelato;" 

This is a real paragraph in a real article on Deadspin.

And this is the lamest parenthetical in the history of Deadspin: "If your city has an interactive science museum that doesn't have to be taken too seriously, all the better."

I don't know about you guys, but I take my interactive science museums deadly serious. 

Every single one of these suggestions: a museum outing, an unstructured park day (as opposed to a structured park day?), a movie marathon, and fruit picking is exactly what I might do on a Saturday with my eight, five, and one year old boys. I don't even know what to say about suggesting these activities for an adult bachelor or bachelorette party. If I saw a bachelor or bachelorette party at one of these events when I was there with my family, I would pull the future groom aside and say, "What are you doing with your life? Your future is just one long train ride to shitty Saturdays. Why are you starting now? Run!" 

And they organized a cookout, a brunch -- honestly, if you ever have a brunch scheduled your penis doesn't work -- and a botanical garden trip. This sounds like the worst day of my life.    

I mean, seriously, Hulk Hogan can't take over Deadspin fast enough. If you have a bachelor party and end up at a botanical garden that isn't filled with naked women I think you're obligated to murder the groom and bury his body beneath the weeping willow trees. And I don't believe you'd get convicted of any crime for doing this.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client went on a bachelor party trip and they took him to a botanical garden and he, well, he just snapped."

Jury foreman, standing and nodding to the other 11 jurors: "We have a verdict, your honor. Not guilty."

By the way, the guy who married the writer of this article Tweeted me already wanting to know what's wrong with going to a botanical garden on a bachelor party.

Pray for him.

He seems like the kind of dude who would propose in a fedora.

So, of course, he did.  

Speaking of which, I have to go PC bro here for a paragraph -- sushi, karaoke and gelato -- uh, culturally appropriate more why don't you. Are you Asian and Italian? If not you're really being offensive here. You might as well have worn sombreros and drank tequila and eaten pizza at your party. How was there no trigger warning for this paragraph? I'm in the fetal position right now. 

"Not to brag but all of this was a smashing success. We had enough people to obliterate the food-and-beverage cutoff to get the karaoke room rental fee waived"

"Not to brag." Don't worry about that. The only people who think this is bragging live in North Korean death camps and don't have access to the Internet. 

This party got so wild they "obliterated' enough sushi and gelato and didn't have to pay for the karaoke room!

They fucking killed that sushi and gelato, guys! Then they all talked about how much they like Bernie Sanders! It was the whitest party ever!

Rest in peace, Deadspin. You had a decent run.

But today you officially died.