Suck.com

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".

The site

Suck.com was founded in 1995 by writer Joey Anuff and editor Carl Steadman who created daily commentary with a satiric edge. The writing was accentuated by the art 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".

The name of the site 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.

In 1997, Suck published a compilation of their most popular essays in "Suck: Worst-Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising and the Internet" (ISBN 1-888869-27-5).

tyle

Other than the distinctive artwork of Terry Colon, the site also had many other 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 cultural pretension and dating in post-modern times

Automatic Media

, 2001, Suck.com declared that they were "Gone Fishing" indefinitely, and the site ceased to publish new content.

Current location of staff

Staff

* Carl Steadman, co-founder, writer, and editor, is now the owner of plastic.com.
* Joey Anuff, co-founder, writer and editor, is an author and co-wrote the book "Dumb Money". He went on to become a producer at VH-1 and has more recently created the music journalism site [http://criticalmetrics.com criticalmetrics.com] .
* Terry Colon was the site's full-time illustrator from 1997 until 2001. He now contributes illustrations to publications including "Time"
* Heather Havrilesky, writer of "Filler", Suck's most beloved feature, is now a popular featured columnist at "Salon"'s "Arts & Entertainment" section. She also writes and takes letters at the [http://www.rabbitblog.com Rabbit Blog] .
* Tim Cavanaugh ("BarTel D'Arcy") was Suck's editor in chief from 1998 to 2001. He is now the web editor of the Los Angeles Times opinion page and sporadically runs a webzine called [http://www.simpleton.com/ The Simpleton] .
* Ana Marie Cox, executive editor, (who wrote as Ann O'Tate) was later the writer of popular Washington D.C. based blog Wonkette, and is now the Washington editor of time.com.
* Owen Thomas, copy editor, is now managing editor at "Valleywag".

Contributors

* Greg Beato (St. Huck) writes and edits Soundbitten.com. [http://www.soundbitten.com] .
* Chris Bray (who wrote as "Ambrose Beers") joined the Army. As of June 2005, he is stationed in Kuwait.
* Rogers Cadenhead ("CGI Joe") runs a blog, [http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/ Workbench] , and a blog host, [http://www.buzzword.com/ Buzzword.com] ; he has also published programming books. He also administers humor site [http://www.cruel.com/ Cruel.com] .
* Michael Gerber ("Bay B. Food") wrote a parody of Harry Potter called [http://www.barrytrotter.com/bio.htm Barry Trotter] .
* Nick Gillespie (Mr. Mxyzptlk) is editor-in-chief of Reason Magazine's Reason Online and Reason.tv.
* Ben Godar ("Godar") graduated from Chapman University film school.
* Greg Knauss ("An Entirely Other Greg") continues his long-form blog [http://www.eod.com/ An Entirely Other Day] and works in the software industry.
* Tom Spurgeon runs the comic book news site [http://www.comicsreporter.com/ The Comics Reporter] .

References

# [http://waxy.org/archive/2005/12/30/suckcom_.shtml Suck.com, Gone for Good?] . "waxy.org". URL accessed on December 30, 2005.
# [http://www.keepgoing.org/issue20_giant/the_big_fish.html Ten years later, the story of Suck.com, the first great website] . "keepgoing.org". URL accessed on March 30, 2008.

External links

* [http://www.newsucks500.com NewSucks500] The current incarnation of the original suck forum.
* [http://www.suck.com Suck.com] website, whose archives remain accessible
* [http://www.suck.com/daily/2001/06/08/ Suck.com's final article, originally posted on June 8, 2001]
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.11/web_dreams.html A Wired magazine feature by Josh Quittner]
* [http://news.com.com/2100-1023-268152.html?legacy=cnet A News.com article on Suck]
* [http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2001/06/08/feed/index.html A Salon.com article] on the end of Suck and Feed ( [http://archive.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2001/06/09/suck_feed/index.html Editorial] by Scott Rosenberg) ( [http://archive.salon.com/audio/col/tech/2001/06/15/tech/index.html audio interview] )
* [http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-06-11-net-mags-feed-suck-shut-down.htm A USA Today article on Suck]
* [http://www.keepgoing.org/issue20_giant/the_big_fish.html The Big Fish] A history of Suck.com