Grave Dancing is Bad

Hulk Hogan is dead, there's no need to kill him

Hulk Hogan (real name “Terry Bollea”) died on Thursday. I was touched by AJ Daulerio’s remembrance of the man whose Peter Thiel-assisted revenge upended Daulerio’s life and empire he worked at. There was a sweetness and humility to it, cutting a contrast with the immature scorn from others in Daulerio’s cohort. After the famous Gawker trial, a sober and sober-minded AJ sent a letter to his adversary:

Dear Terry, I know this is a risk, and I do hope this remains between us. I want you to know that while I was in that courtroom and things were hard and uncomfortable in my life, having some of my worst moments splashed all over the news felt impossibly unfair. I realized later on that it is probably somewhat close to the humiliation and pain that you felt the day I published the post on Gawker. I understand that I caused you that pain, and I'm truly sorry. I hope we can discuss this further someday.

Having embarrassed people, at scale, and been embarrassed by people, at scale, I related to this letter. When Kevin Durant went at me, and I was thrown into the news cycle, I came to understand a bit of what I’d subjected others to. It didn’t stop me from being critical, but I gained a better sense of what the other side is like. I felt as though I now shared a particular sort of pain with people who saw me as an enemy. They may have wished me even more strife, but I now wished them less. It just so happened that I had to keep doing my job.

Hogan’s response, as relayed through the superb writer Ryan Holiday:

He said he is grateful that you sent it, that you're both on the same page (and spiritual direction), and he hopes you can both reconnect after the legal drama is finally over. He signed the text "only love, HH.”

For those who do not know, Daulerio was Editor in Chief of Gawker when it published a stolen sex tape featuring Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) having sex with a married woman. Hogan’s then best friend, radio host “Bubba the Love Sponge,” had pushed for the encounter with his wife to happen, which he then secretly recorded. That recording was leaked, altering Hogan’s cultural legacy and internet history. Yesterday featured a great many influencers talking about Hogan’s insanely racist rants. Those ramblings come from the sex tape, recorded without Hogan’s knowledge, albeit not the part Gawker specifically published.

I’m not making any point with that exposition. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong or right for hating or loving Hulk Hogan. I’m mostly just marveling at the seedy mess and fallout from whatever happened there. A radio host indulges his cuck fantasy by compelling his pro wrestling icon buddy to have sex with his wife, leading to the wrestling icon getting outed as a racist, while also leading to the destruction of arguably the most influential online publisher.

It’s really a choose your own adventure as to how to regard Hogan. You can hate him for being racist, or conclude that it’s unfair to judge people on the basis of private moments that should never have become public. You can dislike him because we’re more our true selves in private moments, or like him because his public persona is his true impact. You can feel how you want.

You can also do what you want, but I’d say that grave dancing is bad. You look small when celebrating a death. You don’t have to pretend to like the deceased and can even respectfully argue that you dislike certain contributions. But the jeering, snickering, celebratory reaction to life lost is ugly and a sadly common feature of the social media era. I understand it in matters of war, but this kind of reaction has spread far beyond the ambit of what should be acceptable for non-anonymous freaks. Public figures now cheer the demise of minor ideological enemies with a fervor reminiscent of how American normies reacted to Osama Bin Laden getting murked. What the hell.

I can make my rhetorical case against it, but it’s the kind of revulsion I feel more deeply than I can express in words. I can offer that it strikes me as wrong because blameless family members are exposed to open cruelty towards someone they knew intimately, but that’s not even the reason. There’s just a dishonor to it, a minimizing of human dignity for the sake of chasing cheap Internet engagement.

It’s just wrong. And needless. Death is the great equalizer. You’re not even in a war and gleefully mocking a guy for suffering your own fate? He’s just you in the future and whatever his sins, if he wouldn’t have danced on your grave, you look worse than him in that moment.

Personally, I did not grow up watching wrestling and was only aware of Hulk Hogan in the way my mom is aware of Tom Brady. Never watched a match, but knew of Hogan because he was very famous. David Shoemaker’s excellent Hogan obit filled in a lot of gaps for me because I’d never had occasion to learn about the man and what others saw in him. I found the history of Hulk to be fascinating because the ineffability of charisma always intrigues me. Now I almost need to know more. How did this balding crazy man spearhead what became a massive quasi sport? Why does it feel like I always knew who he was, without ever engaging with what he did?

Hulk Hogan never meant much to me, outside of what happened with Gawker, but post-mortem, I’ve suddenly gained a respect. It’s less related to an argument about his goodness than to Shoemaker’s argument for his undeniable greatness. The man, whatever his flaws, changed American culture. What’s most challenging of all, and happens often with the influential, is the indivisibility of flaws from impact. From Shoemaker:

When Hogan showed up on Raw in January, there to promote his new beer—Real American Beer, a salesman to the end—the crowd booed, loudly, and he seemed confused. Who wouldn’t be? Why would an arena full of wrestling fans turn on their onetime hero? An introspective person might have expected it, but an introspective person probably would have never been the shameless, guileless, fearless icon of pro wrestling, which is to say, he would have never been Hulk Hogan.

Hulk Hogan was an audacious liar, to such an entertaining degree that it fueled a now massive sport that’s based on acting. His qualities built empires that outlast him. That part is worth honoring, in my opinion, even if you believe the man himself to be dishonorable.