Suck.com was an

online magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer magaz ...

, one of the earliest ad-supported content sites on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. It featured daily editorial content on a great variety of topics, including

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and

pop-culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

. Launched in 1995 and geared towards a

Generation X Generation X (or Gen X for short) is the Western world, Western demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the millennials. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1960s as starting birth years a ...

audience, the website's motto was "A fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun". Despite not publishing new content since 2001, the site remained online until December 2018.

History

''Suck'' was initiated in 1995 by writer Joey Anuff and editor

Carl Steadman Carl Steadman is co-founder of Suck.com, creator of several pieces of early web-savvy literature and former operator of Plastic.com. He was also production director for HotWired, and appeared in the 1999 documentary Home Page. Works Suck Contr ...

, two former employees of ''

HotWired ''Hotwired'' (1994–1999) was the first commercial online magazine, launched on October 27, 1994. Although it was part of the print magazine ''Wired'', ''Hotwired'' carried original content. History Andrew Anker, Wired's then Vice Presid ...

'', the first commercial online magazine. Quittner, Josh
"CULTURE: Web Dreams: Young punks and Old Media hacks. They're all on the Web chasing the same dream: money, power, ego-fulfillment - and the quick Sell Out. This is the story of Suck, by Josh Quittner, the hopelessly conflicted editor of Time's Netly News,"
''Wired'' (Nov. 1, 1996). The name of the website, Suck.com, was chosen as a

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

with possibly offensive connotations — though apparently not enough to be disallowed by

Network Solutions Network Solutions, LLC is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network S ...

, which controlled the

InterNIC The Network Information Center (NIC), also known as InterNIC from 1993 until 1998, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until O ...

system for the distribution of domain names before

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

acquired that authority. The name also described the nature of "

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...

" sites that "sucked" stories from the internet and published them in magazine-like formats. During 1996, ''Suck'' integrated the writing talent of

Heather Havrilesky Heather Havrilesky (born April 1970)is an American author, essayist, and humorist. She writes the advice column "Ask Polly" for ''Substack''. She is the author of ''Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir'', the advice book ''How to Be a Person in the Wor ...

, who provided the sarcastic comments of her supposed alter ego "Polly Esther" in her column, ''Filler''. In 1997, ''Suck'' published a compilation of the site's most popular essays in ''Suck: Worst-Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising and the Internet'' (). In the years 2000 to 2001, cartoonist

Peter Bagge Peter Bagge (pronounced , as in ''bag''; born December 11, 1957) is an American cartoonist whose best-known work includes the comics ''Hate'' and ''Neat Stuff''. His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced ...

did a number of

comics journalism Comics journalism is a form of journalism that covers news or nonfiction events using the framework of comics, a combination of words and drawn images. Typically, sources are actual people featured in each story, and word balloons are actual quot ...

stories for ''Suck'' on such topics as politics, the

Miss America Pageant Miss America is an annual competition that is open to women from the United States between the ages of 17 and 25. Originating in 1921 as a "bathing beauty revue", the contest is now judged on competitors' talent performances and interviews. As ...

, bar culture, and the

Oscars The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

Closure

In July 2000, after a decrease in Internet investment, Suck.com merged with ''

Feed Magazine ''Feed'' or ''feedmag.com'' (1995–2001) was one of the earliest online magazines that relied entirely on its original content. History ''Feed'' was founded in New York by Stefanie Syman and Steven Johnson in May 1995, with novelist Sam Lip ...

'' to create Automatic Media. The concept was to streamline operations and collaborate on boutique operations with low staffing costs. The joint project, Plastic.com, was founded with only four staffed employees. Despite the site's faithful following and a combined reader base of more than one million, however, Automatic Media ended in June 2001. On June 8, 2001, Suck.com declared that they were "Gone Fishin'" indefinitely, and the site ceased to publish new content. Regarding the indefinite hiatus, co-founder Joey Anuff said, "It was a shame. On the other hand... it’s shocking how long ''Suck'' lasted."

Archive email newsletter

During the autumn of 2015,

software developer Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...

Mark MacDonald began serializing the website's archive in an email newsletter, which is sent on a daily basis 20 years-to-the-day after its original publication on Suck.com.

Style

From the beginning, site founders Anuff and Steadman created daily comically cynical commentary with a self-obsessed and satiric theme. The writing was accentuated by the art of cartoonist

Terry Colon Terry is a unisex given name, derived from French Thierry and Theodoric. It can also be used as a diminutive nickname for the names Teresa or Theresa (feminine) or Terence or Terrier (masculine). People Male * Terry Albritton (1955–2005), A ...

. In addition to Colon's distinctive artwork, the website also had many features common to its articles. The main text of each article was restricted to a table only 200

pixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...

wide. Most articles featured links within the flow of the content rather than as in labeled footnotes or references, which was less common then than it would become a few years later.

Recognition

Suck.com was nominated for

Webby Awards The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...

in both

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

(Books and Magazines category) and

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

(Humor category).

Regular columns

*''Hit & Run'' — a link-driven summary of recent events. *''Filler'' — a weekly self-deprecating satire of cultural pretension and dating in

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

times.

Staff and contributors

Staff

, co-founder, writer, and editor, became the owner of Plastic.com. * Joey Anuff, co-founder, writer, and editor. *

Tim Cavanaugh Tim Cavanaugh is a journalist and screenwriter based in Alexandria, Virginia. He is a news editor for ''The Washington Examiner''. Prior to that, he was News Editor for ''National Review Online'', Executive Editor for ''The Daily Caller'', Managin ...

, editor in chief from 1998 to 2001, became web editor of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' opinion page, and then a contributor to ''

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...

'' magazine. *

Ana Marie Cox Ana Marie Cox (born September 23, 1972) is an American author, blogger, political columnist, and critic. The founding editor of the political blog ''Wonkette'', she was also the Senior Political Correspondent for MTV News, and conducted the "Tal ...

, executive editor (who wrote as "Ann O'Tate"), was later the writer of the popular blog

Wonkette ''Wonkette'' is an American online magazine of topical and political gossip, established in 2004 by Gawker Media and founding editor Ana Marie Cox. The editor since 2012 is Rebecca Schoenkopf, formerly of ''OC Weekly''. ''Wonkette'' covers U.S. ...

and wrote for

Time.com ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

* Owen Thomas, copy editor and managing editor at ''

Valleywag Valleywag was a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006. After Douglas was fired,Peter Bagge Peter Bagge (pronounced , as in ''bag''; born December 11, 1957) is an American cartoonist whose best-known work includes the comics ''Hate'' and ''Neat Stuff''. His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced ...

Steve Bodow Steve Bodow is an American television writer and producer. Most recently he was Executive Producer and showrunner of Netflix's ''Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj''. From 2015 to early 2019 he was Executive Producer/co-showrunner of ''The Daily Show wi ...

Rogers Cadenhead Rogers Cadenhead (born April 13, 1967) is a computer book author and web publisher who served from 2006 to 2008 as chairman of the RSS Advisory Board, a group that publishes the RSS 2.0 specification. He graduated from Lloyd V. Berkner High Schoo ...

Mark Dery Mark Dery (born December 24, 1959)''Contemporary Authors Online'', s.v. "Mark Dery" (accessed February 12, 2008). is an American author, lecturer and cultural critic. An early observer and critic of online culture, he helped to popularize the ter ...

* Michael Gerber *

Nick Gillespie Nicholas John Gillespie (; born August 7, 1963) is an American libertarian journalist who was editor-in-chief of ''Reason'' magazine from 2000 to 2008 and editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason TV from 2008 to 2017. Gillespie originally joined ...

* Greg Knauss *

Josh Ozersky Joshua Ozersky (August 22, 1967 – May 4, 2015) was an American food writer and historian. He first came to prominence as a founding editor of '' New York'' magazine's food blog, ''Grub Street'', for which he received a James Beard Foundation Aw ...

Tom Spurgeon Thomas Martin Spurgeon (December 16, 1968 – November 13, 2019) was an American writer, historian, critic, and editor in the field of comics, notable for his five-year run as editor of ''The Comics Journal'' and his blog ''The Comics Reporter''. ...

Jake Tapper Jacob Paul Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American journalist, author, and cartoonist. He is the lead Washington anchor for CNN, hosts the weekday television news show ''The Lead with Jake Tapper'', and co-hosts the Sunday morning public af ...

Tapper, Jak
Jake Tapper on Twitter: "@owenthomas @carr2n @anamariecox that is some old school ish." / Twitter
''

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

''. March 23, 2013

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control Internet properties established in 1995 Defunct American websites Online magazines published in the United States