Suck.com was one of the earliest ad-supported content sites on the Internet. It featured daily editorial content on a wide variety of topics, including politics and pop-culture and was targeted at Generation X. Their tagline, and mascots, were "A fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun". The site remains online despite having no new content published since 2001 and several months of downtime in 2015.
Contents
The site
Suck.com was founded in 1995 by writer Joey Anuff and editor Carl Steadman who created daily comically cynical commentary with a self-obsessed and satiric edge. The writing was accentuated by the art of cartoonist Terry Colon. In 1996, they brought on the writing talent of Heather Havrilesky, who provided the whiny, sarcastic voice of her alter ego Polly Esther in their most popular column, titled Filler.
The name of the site was chosen to slip a domain name with possibly offensive connotations past Network Solutions, who controlled the InterNIC system for the distribution of domain names before ICANN took over that authority. The name also described the nature of "news aggregator" sites that "sucked" stories from the web and published them in magazine like formats.
In 1997, Suck published a compilation of their most popular essays in Suck: Worst-Case Scenarios in Media, Culture, Advertising and the Internet (ISBN 1-888869-27-5).
Style
Other than the distinctive artwork of Terry Colon, the site also had many other characteristics that tied their daily articles together. The main text of each article was restricted to a table only 200 pixels wide. Most articles would feature links within the flow of the content rather than as in labeled footnotes or references, foreshadowing the same technique in modern weblogs.
Regular columns
Closure
In July 2000, following a sharp downturn in Internet investment, suck.com merged with Feed Magazine to create Automatic Media. Their concept was to streamline their operations and collaborate on boutique operations with low staffing costs. Their joint project Plastic.com was founded with only 4 staffed employees. Despite the faithful cult following, and a combined reader base of over 1 million, Automatic Media folded in June 2001. On June 8, 2001, Suck.com declared that they were "Gone Fishin'" indefinitely, and the site ceased to publish new content. Regarding the indefinite hiatus, co-founder Joey Anuff said, “It was a shame. On the other hand...it’s shocking how long Suck lasted.”
On its 20th anniversary in September 2015, Suck founders Carl Steadman and Joey Anuff and former editors Ana Marie Cox, Heather Havrilesky, and Tim Cavanaugh appeared at XOXO, their first appearance on stage together. In an interview with Engadget, Anuff said Suck couldn't exist today, citing the reduced value of opinions and shorter attention spans.
In the fall of 2015, software developer Mark MacDonald began serializing the website's archive in an email newsletter, which is sent on a daily basis 20 years-to-the-day after original publication on Suck.com.