BitchBuzz: The British Sarah Lacy Weighs In

So I wrote about the launch of BitchBuzz two days ago. Olivia-- who reads Jezebel more regularly than I do-- did her review yesterday. But we still felt something was missing in our comprehensive BitchBuzz coverage. So we reached out to our sister blogger Paul Carr. Carr is -- as loyal readers know-- the British Sarah Lacy, and the site is British so it seemed fitting.

Somehow I didn't realize the Pandora's Box I was opening...

His thoughts are below. To avoid offending sensitive readers who already had to endure the Hitler-Twitter send up yesterday, I've changed his f-bombs to "bloody"-- just makes it sound more British anyway. Any other FCC like censoring will be in [brackets]

He also offered the following disclaimers:
- The site isn't aimed at him
- He's hungover
- They held a launch party on the same night as his book release party (the night before he wrote this, hence the hangover).
- It's just launched and it's not really fair to criticize it yet.

I'll add another one: Paul knows he's funniest when he's being mean so he frequently over-skewers things. So he probably doesn't really mean half of this. Without further ado, I give you Paul Carr:

"Bitchbuzz: because there just aren't enough women blogging about sex and [bloody] knitting." Presumably that's the tagline they rejected in favo(u)r of 'for feisty women with their knickers in a twist." I mean, seriously - is there any women alive on the Internet who doesn't know by now that 'it's ok to enjoy sex' or that sometimes women with big [eyes] struggle to dress in a way that doesn't come across as slutty? Imean, even I *know* that.

From their press release...

"The BitchBuzz women are fed up with being disappointed by other women's blogs. They're not interested in being perfect feminists, or perfect women: they craft, they bake, they have good sex, buy the latest technology and they blog. In short, the women of BitchBuzz do what makes them happy and encourage other women to do the same."

...well, apart from writing 'disappointing' blogs of course. They actively discourage that.

Ok, so it's not aimed at me. And they have some good writers - plus Violet Blue which at least means there should be some good spats/flouncing offs/injunctions to keep them in the press. But I just don't see what the *point* is. Why is this better than the ShinyShiny/ Dollymix sites - which is where Cate Sevilla came from in the first place? That's another reason the 'disappointed by other blogs' angle doesn't ring true - you just want to reply, "well you wrote most of them, love".

NOW - misogyny and misanthropy aside - the content. It's alright. But it's NOTHING NEW. I mean, there are a gazzillion of these [bloody] things out there. It's like the editor has walked into the editorial conference, slammed a pile of women's magazines on the table and said 'summarize these'.

Well, I say 'editor' but...

"Before she wore one to The Dark Knight premiere, I was 100% against pantsuits, but I couldn't help but fall in love with the satin backless look after seeing it on Maggie [Gyllenhaal]. Some have accused her of rocking the retro curls a little too often, but we disagree."

...they haven't even decided on their house style. "I or we? [Bloody] it, let's just decide on a sentence by sentence basis."

Speaking of style...

There's no 'about' link or any means to register (or reason why I should want to), despite there being a login box. And having 'home' as a category in the main menu bar? Jesus, Jakob Nielsen would be spinning in his grave if he saw that. And if he were dead.

[editor's note: Hey! Nothing wrong with "home" as a category!]

Ok, I can't bear to read any more. Please read all of the above through the filter of the fact that I'm hungover after my book launch, the site isn't aimed at me and I'm aware of how unfair it is to judge a site so soon after launch. It's better than a lot of things I've done.

Also, I can't imagine either the editors of readers will give a crap about what I think. After all, I'm just a man. And who needs one of those when you have craft and knitting?

You go, giirrrllls.

No, really, do.