15 years ago to the day, a secretive site called Suck, launched its first salvo onto the Web. Within a couple of weeks, if not a few days, I discovered the site and was instantly hooked.
While obviously of its time that first post, Live Through This, still reads pretty caustic and pretty funny. A tirade about Courtney Love conspiracy theories, it marked to my mind the beginning of the modern blogosphere. To that point, what resembled blogging was mostly tech oriented, personality driven, or link blogging. Blogging was still all about the Internet and the Web. Suck transcended the form by using the blog format as a mode of serious media criticism, including critique of The Web (tm). Interestingly the only URL in that post that’s survived link rot is Lollapalooza’s. And of course the permalink for Live Through This.
A couple of alums also managed to survive and thrive a bit as well. Ana Marie Cox went on to fame as a Wonkette. Heather Havrilesky does a lot of work for Salon. If you read anything intelligent, you’ve probably run across Terry Colon’s illustrations. I wonder if Jake Tapper ever regrets contributing as James Bong.
Suck’s been gone for over 9 years. I still pour out some chardonnay for ya homie.