I Hear He’s Looking for a PR Person, Ladies

by Nicole Cliffe · August 14, 2013

Screen Shot 2013-08-14 at 11.30.08 AMQuiet, a businessman is talking.

No, it’s okay. We’re Jessie-come-latelys to this marketplace too. But our male publisher signs his emails “Grey Worm” and stays in the back room while our giant misandrist spider plies him with increasingly difficult riddles and waits for him to take a misstep.

This seems like a massive, massive failure of self-awareness on Goldberg’s end, and maybe the female editorial staff will create an actual product we will all be green with envy over.

Good luck, and may there be enough zero money for all of us to share.

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105 Comments

  1. icebergmama +15

    Yeah lucky he’s not the face or voice of the site, because they’d be rooted–oh WAIT.

    1. NicoleCliffe +12

      1. We use AMERICAN slang here, missy. And Roots Canada is a very popular, overpriced clothing brand which my aunt buys me a soft, grey hoodie from once a year which I will never wear to your fine country.
      2. We have used up our making fun of male appearances points for the week.

      1. icebergmama +7

        Ohh no I wasn’t making fun of his appearance I just mean he says he’s not the face or the voice but there he is writing about it and there’s his face on the article. I definitely want to make fun of how completely oblivious his “voice” is though, but I feel like better ladies than me have already slain that dragon.__Also, hahahahaha “Roots”

    2. daisymap +11

      Perhaps this is a genius double bluff. “Now, what is guaranteed to set the ladyblogs afire with rageous discussion and click-throughs? I KNOW, no DON’T STOP ME, I’ma talk to this camera about getting rich and eyeliner differentiation.”

      1. chnellociraptor +6

        That has to be it, right? Nobody could ACTUALLY be that lacking in self-awareness?

  2. anowlindaylight +9

    Some of us Jessies resent being the face of lateness, even if it’s accurate. 🙁

  3. tekkah +42

    “There are no women’s sites!” says a man who probably didn’t even bother to look first.

    1. emily_white +64

      OR the cloaking device we put on the excellent ladies’ corner of the Internet is working. Shhh!

    2. mkpatter +46

      Shh shhh shhhhh! I don’t want him to know about Lady Internet. It’s so much better than Regular Internet.

        2. victorytasteslikehashbrowns +40

          Let’s just pretend to talk about boring wimminsy things until he goes away.Have you seen my new concealer mascara? It’s eye-lining!

          1. WibblyWobbly +27

            I keep getting black stuff all over my face can someone please tell me how this works?!?!?!?!?!

    3. fondue with cheddar +17

      If he truly believes there are no women’s sites, what makes him think he’s the right person to make one?

  5. rkfire +16

    Well, now I’ve been introduced to Rookie, which… ::browses further:: is not at all for me, but I’m glad it’s around.

    ETA: Also, “I care about lady readers so much but I’m worried about finding lady readers.”

    1. daisymap +14

      ROOKIE! Isn’t it wonderful, in a way that I sort of don’t understand! I love it, and if I was younger I would wish I worked there so I could knit Kathleen Hanna jumpers and interview teen lawyers and glue glitter all over the internet.

      1. rkfire +3

        I’m so glad and jealous that these kinds of websites exist for teenage girls. I never found them when I was a teenager (1998-2004) but I wish I did. I think I found Jezebel shortly after 2004 though.. can’t remember.

          1. rkfire +1

            Oh man, I forgot about that! I did sign up for an account and poked around for a day or two, but it never captured my interest.

      1. rkfire +12

        To be fair, first he needs a binder of lady editors and writers, than a binder full of lady readers.

        So many binders! Poor man.

  6. stuffisthings +6

    I’m getting a Frank & Oak ad, so your misandrist ad server seems to functioning perfectly at least.

  7. ilikemints +15

    If you haven’t read Ann Helen Peterson’s amazing days-long twitter tirade about Bustle, absolutely check it out. It’s breathtaking in its righteous fury.

          1. whizzdumb +5

            Jeeesh, those tweets confirm he’s doing a great job at being an easy person to hate.

  8. victorytasteslikehashbrowns +39

    “Knowing the difference between mascara, concealer, and eye-liner is not my job.”
    I’m so pleased that this guy has really nailed the diversity that makes up women’s interest.

    1. emily_white +13

      Yup. And, come on, I don’t even wear make-up, but it’s right in the names for 2 of the 3. Concealer… conceals. Eye liner… makes a line on your eye. Mascara’s the one that’s left. If he wants to use it like rouge or foundation (again, right there in the name–red one, underneath one), that’s his prerogative.

        1. emily_white +2

          …and 90% of that video applies directly to his website, also! Dude writes like a lady?

    2. Faintly_Macabre +3

      There’s stuff for women with fine eyelashes, women with imperfect skin, and women with…unlined eyes! That covers pretty much everyone, right?

  9. TLO +13

    But you guys, his site is going to be so different from all those websites with a diverse mix of content geared toward women: It’s going to have a LOT of readers and a LOT of money and be RILLY popular.

    1. icebergmama +12

      yep that’s the main difference, and he KEEPS trying to explain it: “Yeah I know that what I said didn’t exist yet totally exists all over the place, but my version wants to make shit tons of cash. Those lady run lady sites just don’t even think about making money, they don’t want to at all.”

      1. msjinxie +7

        Yeah, after all, all that VC money could’ve been THEIRS, TOO if only they’d bothered to ask for it! Silly ladies!

    2. SarcasticFringehead +22

      And if a woman has a problem with it, what she’s REALLY saying is that she doesn’t want more women to write on the internet, and she doesn’t think that there should be spaces that are more women-friendly, and also she’s a jealous catty bitch.

  10. bgprincipessa +7

    There is a woman and a punching bag in the background of this interview video, kicking ass. She must be imagining that bag to be his face.

  11. chnellociraptor +24

    I’m not opposed to the idea of this new website — I’m all for more platforms for ladies writing for ladies — but I’m bothered by the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any commenting ability beyond social media sharing. Obviously, Bryan Goldberg and I measure success differently, but I would argue that by far the most successful aspect of sites like Jezebel, The Hairpin, xoJane, and our fledgling Toast is their ability to engage readers in a thoughtful way that encourages unlimited interaction with the authors and each other, above and beyond what you typically see on “men’s interest” sites. Maybe it’s a tech thing they’re working on, I don’t know, but I found it odd.

    1. anxious_mofo +18

      Yeah, I briefly clicked over yesterday during the initial hubbub and was surprised to see a lack of commenting function. Am I being too cynical if I say that that smacks of interest in page hits/revenue/consumption, not engagement with readers and the building of something that really IS unlike anything currently available?

      1. msjinxie +15

        I don’t think you’re being cynical at all, actually. I’d wager my copy of Flowers in the Attic this thing is 100% about page hits/revenue/consumption.

      2. chnellociraptor +5

        No, that’s exactly my thought as well. I mean, how many times does he reiterate in the press release that his goal is to appeal to advertisers? I guess advertisers dislike active commenters? Or don’t care, thus rendering comments irrelevant? Can we get a Nicole or a Mallory up in here to settle this for us?

      3. no_blues +7

        uh, have you been to this guy’s other site, Bleacher Report?* Get ready for a comments-disabled 11-page slideshow about the differences between concealer, eyeliner, and mascara next week!
        *I sincerely hope you have not.

        2. Caroline +4

          There was a comments-disabled 10 page slideshow on prison labor that was not nearly as interesting, enlightening, or informative as it could have been.

          (… I was curious. I was repaid for my curiosity with the expected disappointment. “I KNOW WHO TO HIRE” could totally have meant “I know some bitchin’ ladies who have great ideas that won’t be hampered by my quest for dolla dolla bills”)

      4. fondue with cheddar +15

        It smacks of, “I don’t care what women have to say, I will tell them what they need to know.”

      5. phlippin +3

        He has said so himself: “Bustle is a very different company from xojane or thehairpin. I would like for Bustle to be one of the fifty largest sites on the internet within this decade, and I would like to see it generate $100 million in revenue by that point.” (see comment section)
        http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/13/ive-raised-6-5-m…

    2. icebergmama +2

      I just tried to read more of an article I clicked on, because it said “Click on.” at the end of the article as though there was more article somewhere, even though I had already clicked on a picture on the homepage to get to the “article”, but there wasn’t a link to more article anywhere to be found! And yep, no commenting. What’s the point?

      1. fondue with cheddar +1

        I was recently on another site that had the same problem. I wish I could remember what it was. What’s that all about?

    3. karenbowness +18

      yup – i read stuff here (and on hairpin) that i’m not even that interested in, because the comments are so good. love you, toasties.

    4. SarcasticFringehead +5

      Well, it also depends on how you define “success” – if you’re going purely for pageclicks/ad revenue, having a robust commenting community may not actually be the best way to do that. I would actually be really interested to see the analytics behind the sites you mentioned, to see what proportion of site traffic is actually the people who are invested in the commenting community (not saying that money SHOULD be the only motivator, though).

      1. chnellociraptor +5

        I think money IS the main motivator, in that the original press release went on and on about creating a website that advertisers will want to spend money on and oh yeah there might be some feminism in there too. So obviously you can share articles on your favourite social media platform. But even if commenting doesn’t help you on the money front, doesn’t it help you on the “feminist website women will actually want to read” front?

        1. SarcasticFringehead +12

          Commenting definitely helps on the “want to read” front. Although if you’re the kind of guy who thinks women don’t read Politico because there aren’t enough makeup tips, you probably don’t have much of a grasp on that.

  12. rosalineee +10

    Trolling headlines from Bustle.com:

    BOOBS ON A PLANE! BREASTFEEDING MOM TOLD: COVER UP

    HOW TO ACTUALLY GET THE HAIRCUT YOU CAME IN FOR

    HOOTERS CHAIN DEEMS BOB FILNER TOO SLEAZY

    1. rkfire +6

      Btw, why is every headline in all caps? I just took a quick look, and honestly, hey, jokes aside, if it was decent I’d probably stay on there longer. But the website is just set up as a 2 x Infinity grid of big picture + ALL CAPS, which is not even visually pleasant! I thought all of us Internet folks had come to a consensus years ago about how all caps is the visual equivalent of shouting.

      1. rosalineee +7

        They need to make sure women (you know, with their weaker eyes and small attention spans) understand the content.

        (All jokes aside, I agree fully on how annoying it is. The all-caps made the headlines much more sensational-seeming than if I mentally read them in lower case.)

  13. EmDash +13

    Current events AND makeup tips? I’m not sure my tiny ladybrain can handle this. It’s … it’s … it’s all too innovative. Can someone explain this to me in .gif format?

      1. steampunk sparrow +11

        I’m willing to bet that I’ll learn more from this gif than I will from the entirety of Bustle.com’s content.

  14. msjinxie +28

    Maddening though this is, I think it’s been worth it to see the righteous smackdown DudeBro has been getting from the Lady Internet. It warms the cockles of my cold, dark heart.

  15. sednarea51 +10

    I’m dying to know the giant misandrist spider’s name. (Shelob? Or is that too obvious?)

  16. rebecca +15

    Not only does he seem to think he’s invented the concept of the ladyblog, but he appears to believe that none of us are reading…Gawker! And Politico! WHAT??? Obviously, none of his intelligent ladywriters looked over his big announcement before he put it out there for the horrified ladyworld to read.

    1. ilikemints +10

      That’s a huge part of what incensed me about it… Does he think we don’t read the news??

      2. steampunk sparrow +11

        What’s a news? And what can it tell me about eyeliner, concealer, and mascara?

  17. deitybox +11

    I’m looking forward to a series of articles about how to possibly concentrate on World Events when you’re on your period. It’s so hard!

  18. stuffisthings +25

    Dude to all available media outlets: “I don’t want to be the public face of this site.”

    oh, ok.

  19. steampunk sparrow +10

    “*[Editor’s notes: In Bryan’s final version of this story, he included shout outs to other major women’s sites he admires. We mistakenly uploaded the wrong version of the story and have added it back in since. We apologize to Bryan for grabbing the wrong version.]”

    It is to LOL.

  20. Lemonnier +14

    Oh my god I read his twitter feed and he is in fact a card-carrying member of The Worst. (“The Worst” to be sung in a falsetto a la Jean-Ralphio)

      2. msjinxie +6

        Another gem: “I’m sorry, Mr. Cab Driver, were you expecting a tip? You would have gotten a 25% tip, had you not disabled your credit card reader. #Dumbass”

        1. msjinxie +5

          OMG he’s like a parody of Clueless Dude Bros “Women’s Website Drama — one of the ladies didn’t get the bowling ball all the way to the pins. Maintenance guy on the way…”

      3. YLemonnier +7

        Another appropriate gif (if it existed): that scene from the Simpsons where Homer invents a makeup gun:

        Lisa: Dad, women won’t like being shot in the face.
        Homer: Women will like what I tell them to like!

  21. Es_Petal +13

    I feel like I ought to have something more intelligent and incisive to say than ‘he’s a cockwomble’ but I don’t seem to.

    1. 1sic1 +9

      He… collects and recycles cocks people leave lying around?
      Y’know, actually, that’s a brilliantly apt and concise description.

    2. amativus +11

      I can’t think of a single comment, about anything whatsoever, that could be better than “He’s a cockwomble.”

  23. whizzdumb +13

    My favorite line from yesterday’s onslaught of Toast writing by Mallory seems appropriate here: “His hairline is unbearable.”