Satire Editor Turns 39, Knows Not What to Do

Ten years ago Glossy News founder Brian White had the unlikely opportunity to turn 29, and I did it, but once and only once. Today he turns 39, and likewise, promises never to do it again. Just too painful.

Back then Glossy News had a diligent, vigilant editor named Mark Fisher working with me. He’s a very funny guy, and a successful guy too, so it’s no wonder he had the good sense to move on. It’s not like they dated or anything, at least not that either of them will admit.

Right: Brian, in all his ancient glory. Click to enlarge, if you must, but honestly, why?

White’s sisters took him to Vegas and Fisher wrote and published the following three articles before they could even be seen, like the wiley dog Fisher is/was/always will be.

• Satire Editor Sinks into Self Destruction: Part 1
• A Satire Editor’s Sordid Tale: Part 2
• Satire Editor’s Strange Saga Takes Frightening Turn

This was awfully early on in the second-iteration of Glossy News. The previous one had been entirely hand-coded. This was a content management system in the very early days of content management systems. Cost a decent penny, but really streamlined things. Kept that bad girl running until about 4-years ago, which in online terms is like a million years.

Anyhow, it’s his birthday. So… Yay?

What’s changed in ten years? Well he had a kid and then a hundred more (he spawns in warm, shallow rivers, so it’s to be expected.) His life has gotten better, better, worse, worse some more, better and then worse, but negatives always cancel out, so it works.

So let’s talk about Glossy News. This site has been around for about 12-years, and we’ve seen some amazing growth. Google still swears that original content is king, even though they clearly favor spammer sites vastly over content creators like Glossy News.

And the real problem is that Google, being the web traffic direction leader, decides how much traffic we get, and then, based on that traffic, how much money we make, which is consistently less year after year, despite ever-rising traffic. It’s an odd situation to be in.

None of that matters, though. White turns 39 today. Wish him well or ill in the comments if you like, or of course, anything else.