Dearest Gawker Media, Won't You Please Leave Wonkette This Tiny Crust Of Bread?
Hello, Gawker sirs, don't mind us, we're just a couple of country mice over here in the corner eating this tiny crust of bread. You remember us, Wonkette? We are the politics blog that sprang from your loins (gross) and which you then sold almost immediately because you couldn't figure out how to make money from politics. (Have you asked Newsmax for some pointers? I hear they got a real good list.) So this other guy, who was not us, bought it from you, and four years later he realized American politics was rotting his wanderer's soul, so he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back.
Which is how I came to be the owner, publisher and editrix of this teeny-tiny little politics place, which never hurt nobody, nobody at all. And here you are, and under your new editor -- who used to be the editor of us, SMALL PUBLISHING WORLD -- you are retooling into a "politics" site.
Really? Are you sure? Because while we've tripled our revenues and quintupled our staff in the past three years because it turns out I am awesome at capitalism and asking for money from readers like you, that actually means we've gone from "just-me" to "five." I am pretty sure all Politico's money comes from that godawful Newsletter Sponsored By Whatever Blackwater's Called This Week. And Newsmax's cheddar, while YOOOGE, comes from the fleecing of homebound, ill crackers. You do not want to sell cancer cures made of cinnamon do you? DO YOU?
That's what I thought.
Maybe I am wrong to be a-skeered that you will eat our lunch : (
After all, Jane Jacobs, in her lovely little book The Economy of Cities, says that if you sell mops, and another mop store opens up across the street, that is a good thing, as then you are a mop destination, and all of the moppers from all of the places will all come to your neighborhood, for mops. But she didn't address what would happen if you were a store that sells ONE mop, and then Mop-Mart opened up on your head. But maybe your rising tide will lift our champagne-filled yacht! It could happen! The more the merrier! Let us all be friendly and gay! Shoot us some linkies to our wonderful stories! WE ARE YOUR ORPHANED TINY SISTER, HELP A PAL OUT.
We understand from the good gentlemen of The Awl that you have let people go to look good for funders. I am sorry to hear that, and perhaps a little smug at the same time, as I will be scooping up any of them that I can afford. Thank god no one ever wants to Venture Capital a woman-owned anything, or we might have to choose between a hundred million dollars and still being a person. (Guess what, we would probably take the hundred mill!)
In almost conclusion, "politics" seems weird for you guys, it just does. And while I enjoy Hamilton's Eat the Rich stories as much as the next Commie Girl, I don't see how you guys maintain your gigantic HOO FUCKIN' BOY readership. Do you? We get three to four million pageviews per month. You guys get even more than that! What if you crater? WHAT IF YOU ALL DIE? What if, at the end of a year, you are down to Wonkette-size pageviews and you don't even have readers giving you love-gifts? Am I going to have to SHARE my love gifts with you, like some kind of socialist? Hmmm. Maybe BuzzFeed will buy you.
Anyway, if any of our people come to you applying for your new political reporter jobs, know that I wholeheartedly endorse them, and I send them off into the world with a full heart and a mother's love. But if you're looking for someone who already has experience, I hear this guy Adam Weinstein has some time on his hands.