Jezebel has been shut down by its owner, G/O Media.
The site of feminist commentary and news was launched with the tagline “Celebrity. Sex. Fashion. Without airbrushing.” A 2007 post by editor Moe Tkacik, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, said, “Jezebel is a blog for women that will attempt to take all the essentially meaningless but sweet stuff directed our way and give it a little more meaning, while taking more the serious stuff and making it more fun, or more personal, or at the very least the subject of our highly sophisticated brand of sex joke. Basically, we wanted to make the sort of women’s magazine we’d want to read.”
The Writers Guild of America-East, which represents G/O Media staffers, said in a statement, “A well-run company would have moved away from an advertising model, but instead they are shuttering the brand entirely because of their strategic and commercial ineptitude. Jezebel was a good website.”
The name Jezebel is a name writers of the two books of Kings in the Bible gave to a wife of Ahab, King of Israel, two hundred years after she existed (if she existed at all). The compilers of the biblical accounts of Jezebel and her family were writing in the southern kingdom of Judah centuries after the events they are supposedly depicting, which happened elsewhere. The name Jezebel is now associated with sexual promiscuity and with women who seek to control others – it is a derogatory term that the blog flaunted, and I loved it for that.
According to the newly laid-off employee, G/O Media editorial director Lea Goldman had reassured Jezebel staffers in recent weeks that Spanfeller was not looking to shutter the site. So, clearly, Goldman lied.
I am so upset at this news! Jezebel was not only incredibly fun, it not only explained trending celebrity gossip in a way that made such relevant and interesting, it wasn’t just an echo chamber for feminism: it challenged me so often, made me reconsider so many things. I didn’t always change my mind, but if I did, it was often because of how an issue was reframed by Jezebel. Plus, my c*nts on c*nts on c*nts sticker from Jezebel on my motorcycle top case was found to be oh-so-amusing to three guys on Vancouver Island recently, and offensive to all those I want it to be offensive to.
A major source of contention has come with automation and AI. In the summer of this year, the (parent) company announced that they planned to publish stories using AI, which resulted in stories that contained false information.
AI is so lousy at writing and even worse at accuracy – but the people holding the purse strings love it nonetheless. So, no more insightful, thoughtful commentary, no more framing of entertainment news in a way that made me care, no more biting insights that challenge how I think. Just crappy coppy and clickbait.
The world needs Jezebel.
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