“Advertising Age” Doof Impales Himself Trying To Take On Pitchfork

Jess Harvell | January 24, 2008 3:00 am
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Whatever your opinion of the site, we can all agree that the last thing the Internet/humanity needs is another fussbudget print media type “discovering” that (oh noes) Pitchfork is “snobby” or “snarky” or that its writers* occasionally overreach. So it goes with Advertising Age‘s Larry Dobrow, who’s peeved that Pitchfork doesn’t write “about music in a way that makes me want to listen.” Unlike Ultragrrrl. (No, really. He holds up Ultragrrrl’s blog as a positive alternative to Pitchfork. Sure, he also mentions the great Popdose. But c’mon!) It’s hard to say what’s worse, Dobrow’s painfully forced attempts at off-the-cuff snark of his own–“That said, I’d no sooner spend any significant length of time with Pitchfork than with ‘No Jacket Required.’ (Yeah, I just went there.)”…make it stop, mommy!–or his complete failure in this (one paragraph!) examination of the state of Pitchfork’s advertising, a topic you’d think was pretty germane to the readers of the publication that cuts his checks.

Nonetheless, Pitchfork is a lost cause for advertisers. Music labels can’t get anywhere near the site, lest that one of the bands it hypes winds up on the receiving end of one of Pitchfork’s meanie-pants barbs. Gizmo makers aren’t a good fit because the site’s ahead-of-every-curve-ever-always-4-life influentials are already onto the next big thing by the time marketers get around to touting the previous one. Indie-ish movies or books, maybe? I dunno. It’s a little sad, really, that the trickle of Google Ads on Pitchfork’s “Reviews” page is the best the company can do.

Oh really, Lar? You might be right. We’ve certainly noticed lately that a lot of Pitchfork’s ad space seems to be taken up by in-house banners and .gifs. But here’s the thing: there’s a fucking Jagjaguwar ad right in the screencap you’ve used to illustrate your piece. Pretty sure they’re one of those record labels that’s supposed to see Pitchfork as a “lost cause.” And anyone who’s ever opened Pitchfork only to be visually assaulted by a half-naked hipster (whether being sold by Suicide Girls or American Apparel) knows exactly the sort of advertising the site has courted in the past.

But if all those in-house ads are a sign that Pitchfork is suddenly a “lost cause” for advertisers, well, that would have made a somewhat interesting, informative article. (Even if not exactly a newsflash, considering the current bubble-on-the-cusp-of-bursting state of good ol’ Web 2.0.) Unfortunately, it would have required two things: 1.) a little investigative digging and 2.) actually noting a change in the advertising habits of a publication you’re supposed to be covering. Guess the problem is that “the internet allows us to proclaim” opinions so easily and “loudly, taste and common sense be damned,” regardless of how many articles have already proclaimed those opinions into the ground.

Pitchfork Sure Is Cutting Edge, And That’s The Problem [Advertising Age]

* Full disclosure blah blah used to write for Pitchfork blah blah.