The internet feminists built

The criminally underrated impact & relevance of women’s media is a fave topic here at Deez Links, so today I’m particularly living for The Guardian’s retrospective, Ten years of Jezebel: the website that changed women’s media forever. Like many of you, I can’t pinpoint when I first became aware of the gift that Jezebel is unto our digital generation, so this piece gives a great grounding into just how the internet’s shit-talkin’, funny as fuck, obsessively assertive older sis came into being.

Best part/ a short summary of the history of women trying to do cool things, in general):

“Though Holmes had long identified as a feminist, she didn’t tell Denton or his team that the site would have a feminist sensibility. She once used the word “feminism” in a memo, and a member of the Gawker editorial team advised against it. This was a site that was eventually meant to make money, and Holmes was virtually alone in thinking that there was a sizable audience for feminist issues if they were discussed in a certain way. Two of Holmes’s friends – both men – told her the site wouldn’t work, because nothing else like it existed.”

While you're marinating in some nostalgia for the ol' Gawker era, I also recommend former Jezebel legend Jia Tolentino’s piece, The Personal Essay Boom Is Over, if you haven’t managed to read yet. Short but so smart, and offering another window into the how young women in particular have shaped whole new genres of writing online.

Like Deez Links? Forward to your jezebelle — and have a nice long weekend!