The Bro Whisperer
August 22, 2014 5:47 PM Subscribe
Bryan Goldberg's site for women was doomed from the start. One year later (previously), [bustle.com is] hugely successful. What’s his secret?" (Amanda Hess for Slate)
I found this website in my hedgerow this spring. I was a little alarmed.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:24 PM on August 22, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by clvrmnky at 6:24 PM on August 22, 2014 [8 favorites]
"NEW POLISH COULD HELP PREVENT DATE RAPE" from the current Hot Topics is a pure reductress.com headline.
posted by comealongpole at 6:39 PM on August 22, 2014
posted by comealongpole at 6:39 PM on August 22, 2014
More than a few women I work with like the site even after getting pelted (by me) with a handful of these longform-ish teardowns of the model and founder.
posted by ejoey at 6:44 PM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ejoey at 6:44 PM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Spoiler: the secret is clickbait
Still, worth a read for: "I wondered if I had an opinion, but on second thought, maybe I don’t."
posted by oinopaponton at 7:06 PM on August 22, 2014 [5 favorites]
Still, worth a read for: "I wondered if I had an opinion, but on second thought, maybe I don’t."
posted by oinopaponton at 7:06 PM on August 22, 2014 [5 favorites]
It bugs me that the part about Bustle's "borderline criminal"" low pay gets so little attention.
posted by mediareport at 7:18 PM on August 22, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by mediareport at 7:18 PM on August 22, 2014 [10 favorites]
They probably spent their investment capital on promotion instead of content/labor. Isn't that the startup standard?
posted by destro at 7:39 PM on August 22, 2014
posted by destro at 7:39 PM on August 22, 2014
Standard pay for a machine learning specialist in Palo Alto is topping $125000 per year, and that is for the startups. So content isn't paid for, but technical labor is, or they run away.
posted by curuinor at 8:21 PM on August 22, 2014
posted by curuinor at 8:21 PM on August 22, 2014
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over Mallory Ortberg's derisive laughter.
posted by maryr at 9:19 PM on August 22, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by maryr at 9:19 PM on August 22, 2014 [13 favorites]
TURNS OUT being successful in business has less to do with your ethics and more to do with your connections and ruthlessness. Who knew? Laugh at motivated hustlers at your peril. Unfortunately, the quote from Spaceballs about 'good' is true too often.
posted by thedaniel at 11:40 PM on August 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by thedaniel at 11:40 PM on August 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Argh this Bustle article about a woman trying out lava balling is pretty great I have to admit it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:51 AM on August 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:51 AM on August 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
"NEW POLISH COULD HELP PREVENT DATE RAPE" from the current Hot Topics is a pure reductress.com headline.
So... that's polish, not Polish, right?
posted by krinklyfig at 2:13 AM on August 23, 2014
So... that's polish, not Polish, right?
posted by krinklyfig at 2:13 AM on August 23, 2014
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over Mallory Ortberg's derisive laughter.
So much this.
I wish the Slate story would have mentioned the fact that Bryan Goldberg donated $50 to The Toast -- $50, like the amount that a Bustle writer makes for a 6- or 7-hour work day? $50, like 1/130,000th of $6.5 million? yes, $50 -- presumably in hopes of sponsoring a post there, and they returned his money.
Goldberg's 'secret' is the fact that he's a multimillionaire, and multimillionaires tend to continue on whatever path is going to rake in increasingly large sums of capital. Multimillionaires are never doomed. They have a ton of money in the bank and they know who to ask and what to say so people will give them even more, and if they make a bad business bet, well, at least there are still all those stored-up millions to draw from! So yes, surprise, being an exceedingly wealthy white dude does tend to beget an ongoing measure of success.
Preach:
So much this.
I wish the Slate story would have mentioned the fact that Bryan Goldberg donated $50 to The Toast -- $50, like the amount that a Bustle writer makes for a 6- or 7-hour work day? $50, like 1/130,000th of $6.5 million? yes, $50 -- presumably in hopes of sponsoring a post there, and they returned his money.
Goldberg's 'secret' is the fact that he's a multimillionaire, and multimillionaires tend to continue on whatever path is going to rake in increasingly large sums of capital. Multimillionaires are never doomed. They have a ton of money in the bank and they know who to ask and what to say so people will give them even more, and if they make a bad business bet, well, at least there are still all those stored-up millions to draw from! So yes, surprise, being an exceedingly wealthy white dude does tend to beget an ongoing measure of success.
[A former contributor] had assumed that her low pay rate was the product of a fledgling female-run startup that had struggled to secure funding from venture capitalists. When I sent her Goldberg’s now infamous PandoDaily announcement, she looked at the headline and said, "There's $6.5 million behind it, and this is what they're paying me?" I told her that Goldberg had since raised an additional $5 million. "Jesus," she said.Paying regular contributors minimum wage and refusing to provide them with benefits, demanding overtime and a non-stop stream of clickbait in exchange for those meager wages, denying your writers the salary advances you pointedly told them to chase after: those are indeed recipes for ensuring your own financial success at your employees' expense. Goldberg doesn't get a cookie for pulling this shit on writers who happen to be women instead of writers who happen to be men.
Preach:
a brief, zen reminder that @TheToast has a donate button (http://the-toast.net/donate/), pays its writers, and is owned by womenposted by divined by radio at 7:09 AM on August 23, 2014 [12 favorites]
> I wish the Slate story would have mentioned the fact that Bryan Goldberg donated $50 to The Toast -- $50, like the amount that a Bustle writer makes for a 6- or 7-hour work day? $50, like 1/130,000th of $6.5 million? yes, $50 -- presumably in hopes of sponsoring a post there, and they returned his money.
It did, actually.
posted by languagehat at 8:16 AM on August 23, 2014
It did, actually.
posted by languagehat at 8:16 AM on August 23, 2014
Mea culpa, then. I was blinded by misandry.
posted by divined by radio at 9:21 AM on August 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by divined by radio at 9:21 AM on August 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
I just sent the Toast money because they are awesome and the anti-Bustle and yes.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:50 PM on August 23, 2014
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:50 PM on August 23, 2014
Yeah, the site seems kinda like Buzzfeed, but For Teh Ladiez. I dunno, the apparent business model of all these things is just depressing me. All those 'content producers'- and I'd be curious to see a breakdown of how many of them in general are women- are apparently expected to work for 'pin money.' (I've never actually understood that term btw, are pins expensive or something?)
It's sort of a bastard combination of industrialism and feudalism. You can't have a Buzzfeed, or a Bustle, without a bunch of capital- for promotion, (rented) IT infrastructure, ad sales staff- but the actual 'product'/'content' is assumed to be practically free, hell, people won't stop writing about stuff, why bother paying them?
It ends up looking more like resource extraction than any kind of productive industry, and while Ford wanted his workers to be able to buy his cars, who expects a diamond miner to be able to afford a diamond?
(I don't claim that's a watertight analogy there, but then again nobody's paying me $50 BUCKS A DAY to create these things.)
It's hard to think how it's sustainable though, if everybody ends up doing piecework for the content/service aggregators, how can we afford to buy any of the crap that's so lucratively advertised?
posted by hap_hazard at 4:28 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's sort of a bastard combination of industrialism and feudalism. You can't have a Buzzfeed, or a Bustle, without a bunch of capital- for promotion, (rented) IT infrastructure, ad sales staff- but the actual 'product'/'content' is assumed to be practically free, hell, people won't stop writing about stuff, why bother paying them?
It ends up looking more like resource extraction than any kind of productive industry, and while Ford wanted his workers to be able to buy his cars, who expects a diamond miner to be able to afford a diamond?
(I don't claim that's a watertight analogy there, but then again nobody's paying me $50 BUCKS A DAY to create these things.)
It's hard to think how it's sustainable though, if everybody ends up doing piecework for the content/service aggregators, how can we afford to buy any of the crap that's so lucratively advertised?
posted by hap_hazard at 4:28 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
« Older Please, mom, when can I use the iPad? | Three little letters, and it was time to fight. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by box at 5:49 PM on August 22, 2014 [5 favorites]