A few years ago I made a joke in a column about how a certain Gawker writer should quit before the place ruined her life. Within moments of it going live, I got an email from Gawker’s founder and publisher Nick Denton asking what I meant.

For the owner of a site that regularly says horrible things about people for no reason but the fun of it, it was a rather unexpected display of sensitivity. Not sensitivity to the plight or emotional well-being of his writer of course (god forbid), but to the slight about his company. It was as if he was surprised that his little island of misfit toys might be seen as anything but a desirable place to work.

This realization has been slow in coming until now it seems, not just for him but for everyone — both for people who work there and for the public at large. Especially for the latter, if the reaction to last week’s incident in which a Gawker reporter senselessly outed a married man for possibly trying to hire a gay prostitute who then appeared to attempt to extort him. The public response was swift and decisive, characterized as much by its surprise as by its anger.