There were two recurring themes some editor at Salon – around say ‘96 when it and Slate kind of were for-internet print media – was fixated on.

One was a child-liberationist one, like “parents can have people abduct their 'problem children’ to offshore reform camps like Tranquility Bay, and also often backwater areas of various states use 'Person In Need of Supervision’ structures to apply the state to control teens on parents’ behalf AND THAT’S FUCKED UP”

The other was “oh yeah remember how there was once a rich subculture of female Star Trek fans writing 'slash’ fanfiction?”

And it was honestly surprising to me it was the second one the culture ended up picking up as a major subplot.

kontextmaschine:

Ran into a paywall on Slate, don’t remember that before. Been seeing talk around over Slate as it tries to figure out what it’s doing in the current media environment.

I remember Slate before it was even known for “slatepitches”, it was just like one of two publications made for the Internet. Salon had the Condé Nast lush, well-paid name writer pieces. Slate, which was actually part of a Microsoft venture into media team-ups (that’s also what the MS in MSNBC was) was thinner, a major feature was “Today’s Papers” where someone just read The NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, USA Today, etc and summarized what was interesting in them. Sometimes this would be where you found links, before the Twitter/Facebook timeline (or even the Reddit/Digg front page). Sometimes the stories weren’t even available online yet.

Salon seemed to run out of money and implode in the early 2000s. They started a subscription program. I did, but unlike the (surely pricey) quality stuff before it was Bush Derangement Syndrome stuff they could get nobodies to turn out by the bucketload, I think some of the remaining original quality decanted to Slate.

If I could pass a message back to my ‘90s Salon/Slate-reading self… well, it would probably have to do with Mickey Kaus or Camille Paglia. But if I could send multiple, among them would be “You know how writers keep randomly invoking female Star Trek fans writing and mimeographing 'slash fiction’ in the 70s and 80s? That sounds kinda random but it actually turns out to be super important later, kinda crossed with– you know how they’re always doing pieces about how academics love analyzing Xena?”

people don’t remember that in the late ‘90s Salon still had a hardon for child liberation and occasionally ran series on how PINS – “person in need of supervision”, the idiom by which judges were still putting slutty girl-teens under formal control – was bullshit

Or about how there was still a network of on- and offshore schools you could have your kids professionally kidnapped and sent to to treat them being incorrigible or queer – this was kinda what But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) was about

I just realized what Salon headlines were reminding me of

I was reading Salon back since the ‘90s, when they were actually paying for name writers (tho honestly I can only remember Paglia off the top of my head). Got a letter to the editor run once, which I regret - less a matter of having anything useful or interesting to contribute than knowing the right clever words to get published. Even got a subscription when they went paywall, and occasionally looked in even during the silly times of the Bush years. Haven’t really checked in ages, though.

I see Slate’s following the same road now - ads mixed in (or taking over) above the fold, adding subscriber-exclusive content, more liberal sass and outrage clickbait (Mark Joseph Stern, alas, is probably a pretty good pickup for this strategy, writing his stories to polarize the readership into being either outraged at “them” or outraged at him). Kind of a shame, as ridiculous as the #slatepitchy Kaus/Shafer/Kinsley years could get there was regularly good, worthwhile stuff in there.

I guess decent webmag journalistishism as a way to make money is over on the internet (I mean, it never really got going in the first place, but there was a dream, and startup funding), and it’s only going to survive as a way to spend money. The New Republic’s occasionally worthwhile since Hughes picked it up from Peretz, even if you have to keep opening private browsing windows to get around the monthly free article limit (and no, I don’t feel remotely guilty for this, any more than I did doing my childhood magazine reading at the library). PandoDaily’s still running off VC, and thank god someone’s still commissioning The War Nerd and the other Exiled guys, hopefully when it never pays off Andreessen will just fund them out of pocket.

Salon 2012::Newsweek 1997

(Salon 1998::Newsweek 1962?)

I dreamed a whole Family Guy episode once, a plot and b plot and visual gags. The A plot was a Close Encounters of the Third Kind/Day The Earth Stood Still alien contact parody, there was a spinning magazine gag where there were three headlines about contact then a Newsweek cover with “Did Jesus…” [white Jesus holding his hands demurely over some great knockers] “…have tits?”

The B Plot was about Meg jerking off goats.