Suck.com
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Sucklogo.gif
suck.com's logo
Suck.com was one of the earliest ad-supported content sites on the Internet. It featured daily editorial content on a wide variety of topics, including politics and pop-culture and was targeted at Generation X. Their tagline, and mascots, were "A fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun".
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The site
Suck.com was founded in 1995 by writer Joey Anuff and editor Carl Steadman who created original daily commentary with a satiric edge. The witty writing was accentuated by the unique artistic stylings of cartoonist Terry Colon. In 1996, they brought on the writing talent of Heather Havrilesky, who provided the sarcastic voice of her alter ego Polly Esther in their most popular column Filler.
In 1997, Suck published a compilation of their most popular essays in Suck: Worst-Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising and the Internet (ISBN 1888869275).
Style
Other than the distinctive artwork of Terry Colon, the site also had many other memorable characteristics that tied their daily articles together. The main text of each article was restricted to a table only 200 pixels wide. Most articles would feature multiple unexplained links, foreshadowing the same technique in modern weblogs.
Regular columns
- Hit & Run — A link-driven summary of recent events
- Filler — A weekly self-deprecating look at pretension in modern times
Automatic Media
Where are they now?
- Ana Marie Cox, executive editor, is now the writer of popular Washington D.C. based blog Wonkette.
- Heather Havrilesky, writer of Filler, is now a popular featured columnist at Salon's Arts & Entertainment section. She also writes and takes letters at the Rabbit Blog (http://www.rabbitblog.com).
- Carl Steadman, editor, is now the owner of plastic.com.
- Joey Anuff, writer and editor, is now an author and co-wrote the book Dumb Money.
Trivia
- The name of the site suck.com was chosen for its possibly offensive connotations, and is probably also meant to poke fun at the fact that questionably offensive domain names were approved only at the discretion of Network Solutions, who controlled the InterNIC system for the distribution of domain names before ICANN took over that authority.
External links
- suck.com (http://www.suck.com)
- Suck.com's final article, originally posted on June 8, 2001 (http://www.suck.com/daily/2001/06/08/)
- A Wired magazine feature by Josh Quittner (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.11/web_dreams.html)
- A News.com article on Suck (http://news.com.com/2100-1023-268152.html?legacy=cnet)
- A Salon.com article on Suck (http://dir.salon.com/tech/log/2001/06/08/feed/index.html)
- A USA Today article on Suck (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-06-11-net-mags-feed-suck-shut-down.htm)