April 6, 2000

1:01 PM

Latest on the mcsweeneys.net takeover.If this is a prank, it's already getting old. I keep hoping for some big humor payoff, but I'm the MTV generation--speed things up! Darnit!
posted by mrmorgan (12 comments total)

I was fairly sure this was a prank from the getgo, if not only because of Egger's past history as a prankster. Looking at McSweeneys.com page (it has not updated itself to include any info on the "merger") has convinced me that the April 1 timing of this stunt is not a co-inky-dink. I remain detachedly amused by all this, and I think we all need more pranks in our lives.
posted by mantid at 2:00 PM on April 6, 2000

I dunno...I remember reading in mcsweeneys.net a few weeks ago that they were low on funds to host the site and they were going to have to cease and desist. But then the (rich) McSweeneys family called them and offered to fund the site and host all the content (in addition to their own home page, too). Maybe I'm just a dolt, but it seems legit. *shrug*
posted by veruca at 2:10 PM on April 6, 2000

This 'merger' is stupid bullpoop. Mrmorgan's site, on the other hand, is the opposite of stupid bullpoop.
posted by EngineBeak at 2:29 PM on April 6, 2000

Ah, this stunt has been going on longer than April 1. This article in Salon was posted on March 28. I can't tell whether Salon is in on it or whether they were duped too. I'm tired of it now though. (A strange detail is that the counters on both sites seem to be hooked up.)
posted by sylloge at 3:11 PM on April 6, 2000

Today's Suck has a bit on this whole deal. Their stance seems to be "we don't care".
posted by jkottke at 3:24 PM on April 6, 2000

would I be out of line by asking what mcsweeneys.net was before this whole ordeal?
posted by howa2396 at 7:32 PM on April 6, 2000

Mcsweeneys.net: website containing articles* which amuse Mr David Eggers, yet do not threaten to surpass his staggering cleverness.

* We would call them 'texts', but that would be pretentious, and we aren't pretentious now are we? Well if we are you can't blame us because we have commented on it already. This means that we are more clever than you, and less pretentious, but what's more pretentious than repeating the word pretentious over and over again, like so: pretentious, pretentious, pretentious, pretentious, until we even forget what the word is supposed to mean. Mcsweeneys.net articles often contain self-reflexive commentary such as this. Amd Im damnead if I'm a gona put thris through liek thatcause without erros, like the thing "mcswy'. That last sentence would not be acceptable, and I included it as proof that I am not as pretentious as a mcsweeneys.net contributor. And I hope that McSweeney's, the periodical printed in Iceland, is not as shitty as mcsweeneys.net. And who the hell is "Tim McSweeney", any?
posted by EngineBeak at 8:21 PM on April 6, 2000

Well they're sure as hell getting a lot of hits with this. I assume that both Mrmorgan and Suck (which was right on as usual) are joking about the possibility of the jokes going over their heads. Mocking mockery? This is nothing. I should stop.

And how's this for smoking fish: "[Gerry:] It's hard to bring everything up on one site at once."
posted by EngineBeak at 9:00 PM on April 6, 2000

I think all issues of McSweeney's and the website should have a little warning sticker "This is what happens when you go to Grad school."

Then again, I love the site.
posted by jbeaumont at 7:12 AM on April 7, 2000

howa2396: it was mostly filled with these kinds of things. The front page was just today's piece, with some links at the bottom to other places on the site.
posted by mrmorgan at 8:15 AM on April 7, 2000

I hate to do something humorous to a dead horse, but when I saw the email address of the author of
this credulous article on the big change, I smirked.
posted by EngineBeak at 8:36 PM on April 7, 2000