GeenStijl.nl

infobox Website
name = Geenstijl


caption =
url = [www.geenstijl.nl]
type of organization =
location =
type = Blog
language = Dutch
registration = Optional
owner = Telegraaf Media Groep
author =
url=
author=
title= Geenstijl
accessdate=
publisher=
launch date = April 2003
commercial = Yes
alexa =
current status = perpetual work-in-progress
slogan = Tendentieus, ongefundeerd en nodeloos kwetsend

GeenStijl.nl (English:"NoStyle") is a popular Dutch blog founded in April 2003. Its trademark images are that of a female silhouette utilizing a chainsaw and that of a crown within a circle, both in a pinkish colour.

GeenStijl often uses a provocative tone when referring to other internet sites and blogs. Readers are encouraged to comment on other people websites (such as the one of GroenLinks-politician Femke Halsema) or to sabotage online polls, skewing the results. Famously, in March 2005, GeenStijl pronounced it was going to defeat the second Balkenende cabinet, which was experiencing major crisis at the time. D66 being a democratic party, held a party congress in Rotterdam letting its constituencies decide whether D66 should continue to be a coalition partner. GeenStijl professed it would bus in people from all over the country to Rotterdam, signing them up as new D66 members and then having an ultimate vote in the decision making process. The claim being void in the end, did create a media uproar, with even the respectable newsbroadcast of the public television giving attention to the (non)event.

The blog attracts around 75,000 visitors each day, and counts as being one of the top 10 news sites of the Netherlands. On March 17 2006, the Telegraaf Media Group took a 40% interest in GeenStijl. The editorial team of Dominique Weesie and Ambroos Wiegers both owned 50% of the shares, against 30% after the takeover. The deal was claimed to be worth €2.6 million.

As Dominique Weesie has pointed out, when he started the blog, there was a good market opportunity for a tough-talking, politically incorrect blog, because the existing ones used language which was too vulgar to be acceptable to the mainstream media. One feature of the blog is the use of four-letter words in a fantasy spelling, to reduce their shock effect. The site has been criticized for the xenophobic and extreme nature of the comments it allows readers to post. Anti-islamic and anti-immigrant comments are stimulated by the selection and the presentation of its topics, and the stereotyping in them: the number of stereotypes and ridiculizing names used for immigrants is far higher on the site than for non-immigrants. The blog aims to be a right-wing equivalent of the British tabloids, confirming the prejudice of its readers and thus provoking loads of comments. In combination with Weesie's network, who had been a reporter for the major Dutch newspaper "de Telegraaf" for more than 10 years, this has proven a successful formula. [nl icon [http://www.bright.nl/03-whois-geenstijl-nl Whois Geenstijl.nl: Nature and history of the blog] ]

In May 2006, internet service providers in Bonaire started boycotting GeenStijl after the blog had published secret and private documents of Bonairean public prosecutor Ernst Wesselius. GeenStijl claims it obtained the documents via the P2P software Limewire, although investigators did not find the respective software on Wesselius's computer. The ISPs stated that "this is a one time action, because the publication has infringed our sense of ethics". [http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/laatste_24_uur/nieuwsbericht/asp/artnr/99033/] Access to the site from Bonaire has since been restored.

GeenStijl had started working on the television program SteenGeyl with public broadcaster BNN in 2007. GeenStijl founder Weesie stated that they were to spend "tax payer's money." However, a dispute arose over the timeslot in which the program was to be broadcasted, and production was halted. [http://www.fembusiness.nl/fembusiness/content/nieuws/775/article.html]

Vocabulary

The editors and commenters on GeenStijl have taken up their own kind of language, taking clues from "street language," local dialects and other jargon. Some examples:
* "azijnbode", the "sour" left-leaning newspaper De Volkskrant; azijn is the Dutch word for vinegar
* "beller" ("caller"), someone who is assassinated. Introduced after a series of murders among criminals where some coincidentally had an interview by phone just the day before with a journalist
* "brEeZaH", references to sexually open teenage girls, named after Bacardi Breezer
* "Bubba" Jail. A person is supposed to share a cel with an inmate named Bubba.
* "fapfapfap", masturbation
* "Finnen" ("Finnish people"), immigrants of Moroccan descent who engage in criminal activity. After complaints in the general media of stereotyping Moroccan immigrants, the editors of the website suggested the word 'finnen', as almost nobody associates Finnish people with crime.
* "Gestopt met roken" ("quit smoking"), general phrase used to indicated that somebody has died
* "Groenteman" immigrants of Moroccan descent who commit robbery. Named after Dutch journalist 'Hanneke Groenteman' who wrote on her weblog she had been robbed by immigrants of Morocco.
* "hakbar", extreme Islamist, after Allahu Akbar
* "hakbarbie", extreme female Islamist.
* "hakbar-boem", terrorist attack by a suicide bomber.
* "heaumeau" ("homosexual"), word used for basically everything (a lot of o's are replaced with French spelling eau)
* "kaalkopje" (literally "little baldhead"), refers to Nazi-Skinheads
* "koekje erbij?" and "kopje thee?" ("cookie?" and "cup of tea?"), references to the seemingly "unsusceptible" policies of Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen, who wants to hold together that city's ethnic groups by discussion
* "lutser", a combination of the words loser and prutser. Prutser is a Dutch word for a bungler.
* "neqschot" ("executional shot in the neck"), a fierce rejection of certain ideas or acts by a certain person
* "pliesie", from the dutch word "politie" meaning police
* "reaguurders" commenters. a combination of reageerder,"commenter" and gluurder, "voyeur"
* "staatsjournaal" ("state news"), news by the national public broadcaster (NOS)
* "struikrovers" ("medieval ambushers"), term for police officers holding speed traps, where struik also means shrub
* "pipa" ("Pistol"), term for fire-arms Pistols

Notes

ee also

*Blog
*Shockblog
*Retecool
*De Jager

External links

* [http://www.geenstijl.nl GeenStijl.nl (in Dutch)]