Rex Sorgatz's Exaggeration
After igniting controversy throughout North America with his comments to the Observer, Web attention-trolling expert Rex Sorgatz backtracked. Or, as he put it, cleared some things up.
Sorgatz's comments to the Observer seemed to many an open bid to ratchet up his microcelebrity at the expense of accuracy and good taste. Some of the budding media mogul's critics will surely say his more recent comments are designed to keep the controversy.
Perhaps that's unfair: Sorgatz issued a clear and early apology to Rachel Sklar, the former Huffington Post writer who he dated for six months and then referred to in the Observer as "an exit strategy" to his tendency to date younger women.
I’m really sorry about how Rachel came across in that story. Most of you know her, so it doesn’t need to be said that she’s awesome. She’s taught me more about media and New York and maybe myself than anyone in my life. I appreciate her so much more than the story lets on, and I’m so sorry any of this happened like this.
There are also clear admissions in Sorgatz's most recent post on the matter. He admits he did not "technically" found the High Plains Reader, as he apparently told the Observer. "I tend to say I was there at the beginning because I actually was working with them from the start, waiting for my days at the student paper to end," he wrote.
Um, sure, but did you get $100,000 when the paper sold? Seems unlikely: there were four founders, two active at the paper when it sold for $150,000.
Sorgatz also confirms he had ownership of Web Guide, despite using the title of editor. Did he "start" the magazine, as the Observer reported? Not clear.
Sorgatz says he did in fact own a condo in Minneapolis, despite that one anonymous former (self-described) roomate who said otherwise.
One thing Sorgatz doesn't have to take any flack for: The erroneous assertion that he bought Wii game consoles for his nephews, when in fact he has only nieces. The Observer's Sencer Morgan has taken the fall for that error, telling us, "I regret that I mixed up nieces and nephews, it's always been an issue for me."
