Breitbart Grief Porn: The Unusual Phenomenon

Over the weekend, Breitbart.com associates unveiled a brand new website. Longtime Breitbart business partner, Larry Solov, wrote that this was what Andrew Breitbart "dreamed and planned" before his sudden death last week. Solov says, "Andrew's battle - our battle - has only just begun." But that isn't all that has begun. It seems there is a strange online phenomenon, an explosion of Breitbart grief porn happening one click, one avatar at a time. The battle, at least on the newly unveiled Breitbart.com, begins with a piece posthumously filed by Breitbart titled "The Vetting." Just weeks before he died, Breitbart warned that he would lead the charge to vet President Obama and warned that he had videos. In this latest piece, Breitbart exposes that Obama took part in a panel that occurred following a Chicago production of a play called "The Love Song of Saul Alinsky." While it seems a thin start to the vetting the website promises, you can bet that there's always something brewing in the Breitbart camp. To us, that's the legacy of Breitbart. You never knew what was going to happen next. Each story and stunt seemed more outrageous than the last. We're happy to just leave it at that. But, others want to take it further. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi infamously called his remembrance of Breitbart "Death of a Douche." Which led to Slate asking the question, "When Did Douche Become an Insult?" Have we really gotten there in the Breitbart debate? Does Slate really need to go that far off the map to keep the Breitbart topic alive? And this came after allowing writer Matt Yglesias to gloat over his death on Twitter. Twitter isn't any more sane when it comes to Breitbart's death, but it is telling. While co-workers and friends offered up remembrances of the man and relayed personal stories, there was a bizarre race to prove who knew Andrew best. There is an online movement for people to change their Twitter avatars to pictures of Breitbart. It appeared to begin with The Daily Caller's Jim Treacher, whose avatar is Breitbart on that yellow-hued piece of toast. (Can we just say how weird it is to scroll through Twitter and see dozens of Breitbart faces in various poses and frames staring back at us?) There's even a hash tag called #armyofandrews trying to convince the masses to change up their picture. Pundits were racing to see who could get the best picture of them with Breitbart as their avatar. Big Journalism Editor and CNN Contributor Dana Loesch quickly (and rightfully, he was, after all, her boss) changed her avatar to a picture of her and Breitbart. Actor Adam Baldwin, a contributor to Big Hollywood and a conservative pundit, also changed his avatar to an image of him and Breitbart. Over the weekend, he tweeted this out as a message from beyond. "Goodbye Fellow Patriots. Keep Up the Good Fight." - twitpic.com/8s0dab — Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) March 4, 2012 Other online conservatives followed suit. Like @KamaainaInOC, who posted this picture of her and Breitbart... Even as the week began anew, some were still hanging onto their memories. Brandon Morse, from Misfit Politics began yesterday by tweeting this: "I'm rockin the suburbs, just like Andrew #Breitbart did. I'm rockin the suburbs, except that he was talented. #stucksong" As we approach the week's anniversary of Breitbart's passing, we're sure some jockeying for his post-death approval will calm down. Meanwhile, the best tribute comes from people like Josh Treviño of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who simply says this: You wish to honor the man? Very well then: take up his sword, and fight as he did. — Joshua Treviño (@jstrevino) March 1, 2012

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Breitbart Grief Porn: The Unusual Phenomenon

Peter Ogburn

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Peter Ogburn