Big news: Next month (date forthcoming), we’ll be launching paid subscriptions to Discourse Blog. It’s all possible thanks to the support of our readers. Hearing from you, reading your tweets, and seeing so many of you opening the newsletter every day has been inspiring and heartening. Words fail to describe our gratitude. Thank you!
In preparation for turning on the paywall, we’re opening up the floor for your feedback. What do you want to see more of? Less of? Are there types of posts we haven’t done yet that you’d want to see us do? We want to hear your thoughts so we can take them into account as we build out our next phase. Leave your thoughts below and we’ll see you soon.
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Katherine Krueger, Jack Mirkinson, Aleks Chan
One of my favorite parts of Gawker, and later Splinter, was that it nailed the mix of serious and snark. I'd love for you guys to strike that balance again. That is, long serious posts about important topics, short dumb blogs or stunts about things both important and inconsequential, etc. I'm here for both, and all points in between.
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Paul Blest, Jack Mirkinson, Jack Crosbie, Rafi Schwartz
When Splinter died, I always said I would pay to support a rebirth in a different location, so I'm happy you are all taking this step. I'm also happy you are looking at the response to your emails of each post, because I probably read 3/4 of your content in my inbox. It's incredibly convenient to basically have the posts pre-saved, so I'm glad you guys are looking at that as well as traffic directly to the site. I don't have specific suggestions on topics, but the mix has seemed pretty good so far. Splinter as a whole quickly became my favorite site for both quick reactions to breaking news, with a healthy dose of snark (e.g. "GET HIS ASS LIZ" during the Democratic debates etc.) and longer, more in depth articles. So anything that continues that tradition is fine by me.
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Katherine Krueger, Jack Mirkinson, Jack Crosbie, Aleks Chan, Rafi Schwartz
awww hell yeah! I loved Splinter's takedown of politics as normal from both sides (it's part of why I no longer call myself a democrat...fuck those guys/gals). Your coverage of how the media sucks at covering politics was second to none, and I will read those till my eyes glaze over. I love both of those things.
Keep punching up, now and forever. Can't wait to see what comes next!
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Katherine Krueger, Jack Mirkinson, Jack Crosbie, Aleks Chan, Rafi Schwartz
Yall are great, especially Samantha G. I read a higher proportion of Discourse pieces than any other publication.
You're gonna laugh but I'd like to see more memes in news. Also explicit updates to prior stories when things develop (so like serieses, e.g. CHAZ, Minneapolis's city council decision, etc) would be helpful. Lastly I'm glad yall generally stay out of online drama.
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Jack Mirkinson, Rafi Schwartz
I'm not much of a commenter in general, so just popping in to say you'll have my support, by which I mean sweet, sweet subscriber $$. I miss Gawker/Splinter so much, and this has been great. Keep it up!
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Paul Blest, Jack Mirkinson, Jack Crosbie, Aleks Chan, Rafi Schwartz
I love you all so much. You have taken me from someone who thought politics was boring and had no bearing on my life and made me an engaged participant. So thank you for that. But I got to you all from clicking cross-posted links out of curiosity while I was on Gizmodo/Kotaku/Deadspin/io9. So I would want to see culture/entertainment/humor/underexplained rankings make a comeback. Those are what pulled me in in the first place, but all the long form important work you've been doing the past few months is what kept me here and what made me a believer.
You could do a reading group / discussion series on Twitch! At some point (hypothetically) there are going to be presidential debates, I can't imagine how bad the coverage of them is going to be on all the dogshit media sites we know and love. Would love to see a Discourse live blog just like Splinter would have done.
To be totally honest i am not in love w/Discourse Blog to this point. Its been stridently devoid of anything resembling even a whiff of sardonic humor. However, i will pony up some money when paid subscriptions go live because ppl should be paid for their work and i will keep reading and seeing where this all goes.
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Jack Mirkinson, Rafi Schwartz
I just wanted to share that I really love what you're all doing and can't wait to support financially. I'd add that one thing I really valued about the old-Gawker/Splinter/Deadspin days was that I felt like I was consistently discovering the next generation of great writers. Certainly this group, but also in guest essays (e.g. the Kiese Laymon pieces).
I feel like a little bit of an outlier in that I didn't read a ton of Splinter articles. I just saw a couple articles on Twitter from Samantha and thought they were way more interesting than most of the other shit I read online. I've been really happy with the thoughtful pieces y'all have put out so far. I wouldn't mind more recurring series or an exploration of the language of protest or organizing; there's been so many terms coming out of the past few weeks that it would be cool to explore their origin stories. Looking forward to supporting your work soon!
The dissolution of my GMG regulars (save for Jezebel) has forced me to rely more and more on Twitter for news. I will pay good money for help getting off of that site.
I can't wait to contribute. The idea of getting the band back together, on the same morning as the biggest civil rights case of my lifetime, at the same time the anti-cop movement continues to stand strong - it makes me feel like maybe we aren't completely fucked.
Jun 15, 2020Liked by Katherine Krueger, Jack Crosbie
I'm really happy with the current mix of short and long posts, personal essays and news opinions. Like another commenter posted, updates or new posts with updates would be good to see how the stories / news evolve.
Splinter was a great site and I miss it and Deadspin so much. Keep up the great work, can't wait to subscribe.
Big fan since the Splinter days, will happily pay for the work here. Would like to see a bit more concerning labor and unionization. Blest's article "Labor Needs to Kick the Cops Out Now" was solid, and I understand that it's not like there's always going to be daily news coming from the labor movement. Instead maybe you all could have a weekly interview or something with a renowned or up and coming union president, organizer, etc.
Hey! I love the content and getting the writers I want to follow delivered to my inbox. I really like the digest format and hope you can continue to add more content. I'm actually glad you're diverging from the Gawker/Splinter "Voice" while keeping what made reading those blogs fun and informative.
Something that I’ve been looking for and haven’t quite found is a takedown of Matt Walsh and his virulent strain of “Christianity.” If that’s something ya’ll have already covered and I somehow missed it then I apologize. Otherwise looking forward to the next phase.
AW MAN. My whole comment got deleted. In short: sports. I don't care about sports. But I read Deadspin. Bring back intelligent sports writing. It's super important in a world that emulates ancient Rome in so much – but in our timeline, the gladiators have social media platforms and influence. Also, sports = CLICKS
Fuck cars though. And *please* never affiliate to Amazon. I know you wouldn't. But it killed me, seeing amazon affiliate links on the ol' sites. xxxx
HI, i really just miss the Gawker house style content that is missing since Deadspin and Splinter were shuttered. Definitely miss the stupid and unimportant blogs (fat animals, etc.) but more so the unique viewpoint on today's news that are almost unique to Splinter/DB. So happy to sign up to support all of you.
If you want to write about land use politics or anything nimby related that keeps our cost of housing so damn high I’d like that. There is so much content to mock there, and more serious issues to discuss as well.
I will never forgive GMG for making me get a twitter account so I could continue to follow all of your writing. Happy to support now that you all are back under the same roof, although I'm afraid my brain has been hopelessly poisoned in the meantime.
Here's a minor one. It always bugged me. Almost no news outlets, when discussing laws or Supreme Court decisions go into the voting records of people. RBG is *far* less liberal than her stans would imagine, because all they know about her is the hype. Likewise, I'm sick of hearing Democrats in 2020 attack Republicans for defunding the post office in 2006 when literally every democrat in the house and senate at that time (Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, for example) voted 'yea' (one dem House member was not present) while ten or so Republicans voted 'no'. Probably because they wanted it to be worse and crazier (Ron Paul was one of them) but still.
See also Biden shitting his pants on the Breakfast Club. He tried to act like his Crime Bill didn't raise incarceration but rather the laws around mandatory minimums and discriminatory sentencing for different amounts of crack and coke. Not one outlet reported on how he voted on THAT, and sure as shit, he voted yea. Not only is he ducking his responsibility for the crime bill, he's literally baldfaced lying about his publicly available record that no one is bothering to check him on! BTW, in that same Drug Abuse Act, he also made drug tests (and the failure thereof) necessary for welfare benefits, housing, jobs, etc. So it was designed to capture black people, throw them in jail while also tossing their children on the street and locking them out of ever climbing out of poverty, and he was on that bill (and every racist bill like it for his entire career) like stink on shit.
One more thing. For the most part the comments are awesome here, but stuff like the article about Looting are attracting mouth-breathing CHUDS and well meaning but futile arguments with them.
Does Substack support any kind of comment moderation? Keeping the signal-noise level below a threshold is really important to a vibrant community and the comments were a big part of why I liked the Gawker blogs.
Basically I don't need to know that some cop-kisser thinks thugs are invalidating their protest by stealing from Target. Those assholes are why the protests are happening in the first place, and if I need to know what they think, I'll just read literally any published media from National Review all the way left to Vox or Slate.
The absence of Splinter has led to me having about 100% more rage strokes when I try to consume news on current events. I will pay whatever I need to in order to not scream at my screen when I try to get an accounting of current events.
To echo a thing I've seen in other people's comments, I'd love to see some of the more "short-form" articles that would add some levity to an otherwise bleak hellscape of awfulness. I realize it's tough to do right now, but would love to see some good old fashioned snark down the line.
Really liked the recent bits from Samantha and Jack talking to local people doing things. Please keep doing that! I can only think so much about the stinking garbage that is our National Discourse. Work showing the improvements in your respective Local Discourses is much appreciated.
One of my favorite parts of Gawker, and later Splinter, was that it nailed the mix of serious and snark. I'd love for you guys to strike that balance again. That is, long serious posts about important topics, short dumb blogs or stunts about things both important and inconsequential, etc. I'm here for both, and all points in between.
When Splinter died, I always said I would pay to support a rebirth in a different location, so I'm happy you are all taking this step. I'm also happy you are looking at the response to your emails of each post, because I probably read 3/4 of your content in my inbox. It's incredibly convenient to basically have the posts pre-saved, so I'm glad you guys are looking at that as well as traffic directly to the site. I don't have specific suggestions on topics, but the mix has seemed pretty good so far. Splinter as a whole quickly became my favorite site for both quick reactions to breaking news, with a healthy dose of snark (e.g. "GET HIS ASS LIZ" during the Democratic debates etc.) and longer, more in depth articles. So anything that continues that tradition is fine by me.
awww hell yeah! I loved Splinter's takedown of politics as normal from both sides (it's part of why I no longer call myself a democrat...fuck those guys/gals). Your coverage of how the media sucks at covering politics was second to none, and I will read those till my eyes glaze over. I love both of those things.
Keep punching up, now and forever. Can't wait to see what comes next!
Yall are great, especially Samantha G. I read a higher proportion of Discourse pieces than any other publication.
You're gonna laugh but I'd like to see more memes in news. Also explicit updates to prior stories when things develop (so like serieses, e.g. CHAZ, Minneapolis's city council decision, etc) would be helpful. Lastly I'm glad yall generally stay out of online drama.
I'm not much of a commenter in general, so just popping in to say you'll have my support, by which I mean sweet, sweet subscriber $$. I miss Gawker/Splinter so much, and this has been great. Keep it up!
Take my money.
Also, “what the hell” posts are great summaries to end a day. Keep it up
I love you all so much. You have taken me from someone who thought politics was boring and had no bearing on my life and made me an engaged participant. So thank you for that. But I got to you all from clicking cross-posted links out of curiosity while I was on Gizmodo/Kotaku/Deadspin/io9. So I would want to see culture/entertainment/humor/underexplained rankings make a comeback. Those are what pulled me in in the first place, but all the long form important work you've been doing the past few months is what kept me here and what made me a believer.
You could do a reading group / discussion series on Twitch! At some point (hypothetically) there are going to be presidential debates, I can't imagine how bad the coverage of them is going to be on all the dogshit media sites we know and love. Would love to see a Discourse live blog just like Splinter would have done.
To be totally honest i am not in love w/Discourse Blog to this point. Its been stridently devoid of anything resembling even a whiff of sardonic humor. However, i will pony up some money when paid subscriptions go live because ppl should be paid for their work and i will keep reading and seeing where this all goes.
Good luck!
I just wanted to share that I really love what you're all doing and can't wait to support financially. I'd add that one thing I really valued about the old-Gawker/Splinter/Deadspin days was that I felt like I was consistently discovering the next generation of great writers. Certainly this group, but also in guest essays (e.g. the Kiese Laymon pieces).
Splinter interviews were always a must-read for me. Hope you guys can continue that tradition and talk to BIPOC thought leaders.
Sounds great. Will be happy to contribute.
My one suggestion: please add an RSS feed so I can read it in feedbin.
I feel like a little bit of an outlier in that I didn't read a ton of Splinter articles. I just saw a couple articles on Twitter from Samantha and thought they were way more interesting than most of the other shit I read online. I've been really happy with the thoughtful pieces y'all have put out so far. I wouldn't mind more recurring series or an exploration of the language of protest or organizing; there's been so many terms coming out of the past few weeks that it would be cool to explore their origin stories. Looking forward to supporting your work soon!
The dissolution of my GMG regulars (save for Jezebel) has forced me to rely more and more on Twitter for news. I will pay good money for help getting off of that site.
I can't wait to contribute. The idea of getting the band back together, on the same morning as the biggest civil rights case of my lifetime, at the same time the anti-cop movement continues to stand strong - it makes me feel like maybe we aren't completely fucked.
Thanks.
be left, like you are, but like moreso. left-er. Maybe even go for the most left. leftist, if you will
Legit though everything seems cool right now
Take all the money you get from subscriptions, give it to Nick Martin, and let them write tens of thousands of words about marvel movies.
I'm really happy with the current mix of short and long posts, personal essays and news opinions. Like another commenter posted, updates or new posts with updates would be good to see how the stories / news evolve.
Splinter was a great site and I miss it and Deadspin so much. Keep up the great work, can't wait to subscribe.
Big fan since the Splinter days, will happily pay for the work here. Would like to see a bit more concerning labor and unionization. Blest's article "Labor Needs to Kick the Cops Out Now" was solid, and I understand that it's not like there's always going to be daily news coming from the labor movement. Instead maybe you all could have a weekly interview or something with a renowned or up and coming union president, organizer, etc.
please go back to monitoring the feral hogs - i fear for my life and they could be anywhere
In all seriousness, I’m really looking forward to giving y’all money. We need more hard hitting, sarcastic leftist news sources.
Hey! I love the content and getting the writers I want to follow delivered to my inbox. I really like the digest format and hope you can continue to add more content. I'm actually glad you're diverging from the Gawker/Splinter "Voice" while keeping what made reading those blogs fun and informative.
Also, merge with UTSB
Something that I’ve been looking for and haven’t quite found is a takedown of Matt Walsh and his virulent strain of “Christianity.” If that’s something ya’ll have already covered and I somehow missed it then I apologize. Otherwise looking forward to the next phase.
Hire Roth and Barry to write Roth and Barry posts.
AW MAN. My whole comment got deleted. In short: sports. I don't care about sports. But I read Deadspin. Bring back intelligent sports writing. It's super important in a world that emulates ancient Rome in so much – but in our timeline, the gladiators have social media platforms and influence. Also, sports = CLICKS
Fuck cars though. And *please* never affiliate to Amazon. I know you wouldn't. But it killed me, seeing amazon affiliate links on the ol' sites. xxxx
HI, i really just miss the Gawker house style content that is missing since Deadspin and Splinter were shuttered. Definitely miss the stupid and unimportant blogs (fat animals, etc.) but more so the unique viewpoint on today's news that are almost unique to Splinter/DB. So happy to sign up to support all of you.
If you want to write about land use politics or anything nimby related that keeps our cost of housing so damn high I’d like that. There is so much content to mock there, and more serious issues to discuss as well.
I will never forgive GMG for making me get a twitter account so I could continue to follow all of your writing. Happy to support now that you all are back under the same roof, although I'm afraid my brain has been hopelessly poisoned in the meantime.
Here's a minor one. It always bugged me. Almost no news outlets, when discussing laws or Supreme Court decisions go into the voting records of people. RBG is *far* less liberal than her stans would imagine, because all they know about her is the hype. Likewise, I'm sick of hearing Democrats in 2020 attack Republicans for defunding the post office in 2006 when literally every democrat in the house and senate at that time (Feinstein, Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, for example) voted 'yea' (one dem House member was not present) while ten or so Republicans voted 'no'. Probably because they wanted it to be worse and crazier (Ron Paul was one of them) but still.
See also Biden shitting his pants on the Breakfast Club. He tried to act like his Crime Bill didn't raise incarceration but rather the laws around mandatory minimums and discriminatory sentencing for different amounts of crack and coke. Not one outlet reported on how he voted on THAT, and sure as shit, he voted yea. Not only is he ducking his responsibility for the crime bill, he's literally baldfaced lying about his publicly available record that no one is bothering to check him on! BTW, in that same Drug Abuse Act, he also made drug tests (and the failure thereof) necessary for welfare benefits, housing, jobs, etc. So it was designed to capture black people, throw them in jail while also tossing their children on the street and locking them out of ever climbing out of poverty, and he was on that bill (and every racist bill like it for his entire career) like stink on shit.
One more thing. For the most part the comments are awesome here, but stuff like the article about Looting are attracting mouth-breathing CHUDS and well meaning but futile arguments with them.
Does Substack support any kind of comment moderation? Keeping the signal-noise level below a threshold is really important to a vibrant community and the comments were a big part of why I liked the Gawker blogs.
Basically I don't need to know that some cop-kisser thinks thugs are invalidating their protest by stealing from Target. Those assholes are why the protests are happening in the first place, and if I need to know what they think, I'll just read literally any published media from National Review all the way left to Vox or Slate.
The absence of Splinter has led to me having about 100% more rage strokes when I try to consume news on current events. I will pay whatever I need to in order to not scream at my screen when I try to get an accounting of current events.
To echo a thing I've seen in other people's comments, I'd love to see some of the more "short-form" articles that would add some levity to an otherwise bleak hellscape of awfulness. I realize it's tough to do right now, but would love to see some good old fashioned snark down the line.
Really liked the recent bits from Samantha and Jack talking to local people doing things. Please keep doing that! I can only think so much about the stinking garbage that is our National Discourse. Work showing the improvements in your respective Local Discourses is much appreciated.
Get some of the old Deadspin people and lets make this a combo Discourse Blog/Unnamed Temporary Sports Blog
Can you write about... sports? As others have said, we could use some levity.
yes but can i pay in bitcoin (the currency of the future)