Rob Ford Crack Video: Gawker's Campaign to Obtain Video a Waste

Culture

The Rob Ford Crackstarter is Gawker’s attempt to raise $200,000 to obtain the footage of the Toronto mayor smoking freebase cocaine. The 90-second video features Ford ripping from a clear glass stem, pontificating on his status as a conservative, and calling a football team “fucking minorities.” Although these details are hilariously damning for the already controversial Ford, the 200K price tag is not worth it.

Consider an apples-to-apples comparison with the Mayor Barry’s crack-smoking hidden camera sting, which was released for free by the FBI. Has America out-sensationalized Canada yet again? Millennials may not remember the legacy of the Washington D.C. Mayor, nor the highly publicized sting against him, or even his successful re-election post controversy. In the grainy, pre-YouTube style video, Barry is seen casually lighting up with a prostitute, unaware that he being videotaped by the FBI. After officials show up to arrest him, Barry repeatedly says “The bitch set me up,” and is taken into custody. And that’s about as crazy as it gets.

Undoubtedly, Ford is a larger personality on and off camera, and on and off the pipe. However, given the fact that we already know the finer details the constitute the “dirt” in this crack video, isn’t the point of watching actually moot?

Moreover, with the indiegogo campaign currently hovering at $77,000, Gawker’s crackstarter is an inappropriate bid for crowd-sourced means. Gawker could be the recipient of the same kind of criticism posed against Zach Braff for his kickstarter campaign.

To sully matters further, the unnamed source who is selling the video seems to be greedily over charging. On the Crackstarter’s page, the author claims that this high asking price of 200K (American, not Loonies and Twoonies) is for “security.” This source fears political retribution from Ford’s connections, and thinks the price is fair considering the cost of moving our of Toronto. Is moving that expensive? Not to mention, if this video is truly damning, why would the source still fear Ford’s political muscle?

Almost everything about this fund-raising campaign is questionable. Still, if you don’t disagree with this sort of attention-grabbing, rubber-necking, low brow bid for a video that will bring about even more attention grabbing and rubber necking, feel free to donate $150 and get a “Canadian flag defiled Gawker owner Nick Denton’s signature.”