More info on the web site long nightgown

Yeah, I’d take her over today. I hope it gets better, but I have a feeling a lot of people aren’t holding out for it. Until someone starts an ex-Idolator-commenter blog, I guess we’ll all always have the comments to bitch.

So you’re basically agreeing with me.

Did you read the “Livebloggin” post? First of all, it wasn’t funny at all even though the eds were clearly aiming for humour. Secondly, it was the kind of snark I hear from tons of other sites. I come here to indulge in my pop culture leanings, not listen to a couple of kids make fun of them.

The whole vibe of the site has changed with these new eds. And we’ve gone through editorial changes before as people have mentioned but the mantra of the site has remained intact. This is clearly a change in tone and quality.

And while you’re right about GaGa (and that is VERY exciting news in my opinion), my other point was that even if Robbie had made that post today, it would probably be slammed, and even if Maura had made the Britney post yesterday, it probably wouldn’t have been. (It probably would have just had no comments, or at worst, one person asking what was newsworthy about it.)

These people have an editorial tin ear. Nothing they’ve written today has been the least bit engaging. I mean, they didn’t even introduce themselves. They didn’t respond to comments (even this morning, before they grew increasingly nasty). They’re just throwing shit out to see what sticks, I guess. Unfortunately, nothing has.

Here’s my guess: Buzznet set about to drop the last of Idolator’s Gawker baggage and create a more breezy, newsy Stereogum for poptimists. They probably expected to burn off most of their old audience right away, and acquire a new one gradually. That would explain the lack of introductions or commenter engagement, which is so obvious that I wonder if isn’t Buzznet’s idea.

I loved Maura’s writing, but if Buzznet wants to do something different, your beef is with them. Taking it out on the new writers isn’t really fair. It can take a long time to find a confidant voice, particularly in such a hostile setting, writing almost exclusively for people who have recently been redistricted out of your site’s target audience. I enjoy a good e-mobbing, but the extent of this just makes the old Idolator regulars look heartless.

(Full disclosure: I am not a computer program, but I do know one of the new contributors personally, and consider that person a friend and a talented humorist.)

For example, the Britney post was derided for being basically just Britney PR. As opposed to the GaGa post by Maura yesterday complimenting GaGa for releasing her “Fame Monster” as a solo EP instead of a deluxe edition. I imagine that if some of today’s posts (not just topic, but writing content) were made by Maura, we wouldn’t be seeing complaints like those we’re seeing today.* Surely not the sheer volume of angry comments that there are today.

*I know, I know, “Maura would never have made posts as stupid as the ones today.” But I think you should be able to get my point.

@sicksteanein: Really? THAT awful? Let’s see – two posts about American Idol, a post making fun of Alicia Keys’s new dreadful album art, a new GaGa video, chart news…looks exactly how I would have expected idolator to look today, Maura or not. Now, the CONTENT of these posts may be problematic. So far the writing is pretty bunk. But I think those who are basically saying “Maura would have NEVER posted something about Britney!” are going just a wee bit too far.

I’m only saying that the topics have not really changed, or at least that it is way too early to make any claim about the GaGa-ification of idolator after only one day of posting. What if there just wasn’t any worthwhile Bon Jovi news today, like there was yesterday?

I mean, or we could just not give the “new idolator” a chance. We are the internet, after all.

Which, not ironically, will probably make the Buzznet overlords happy. We’re just feeding their evil, beastly plan.

We should all just pull up stakes and get the hell out of here. No amount of slapping the hackbots will reverse this change. And yet! I want to stop leaving comments, I do. But, like [insert cliche here about impulsive actions] I can’t quite pull myself away. Because, obviously, we all need a punching bag today. So here we are.

i know a lot of blog conglomorates will argue that the commenters are the “vocal minority” as a way to lessen the importance of their opinion but in the case of idolator i think that’s bullshit. and this is nothing less than insulting to us. maura may have covered way more pop bullshit than i was interested in (which i would imagine may have also been due to pressure from buzznet) but she always covered it with an earnest and unique perspective. the posts today are nothing short of disasterous. the writers appear to have little or no professional background or training, lack wit or insight, and yet are still smug as fuck with no right to be so. it’s like blog-writing as determined by disaffected teen focus groups, buzznet created a matrix based on god knows what and determined THIS was what the world needed in terms of music blogs? back to the drawing board.

This goes for everyone else, too.

It’s been a few hours since the guard changed – and while I am annoyed at (a) the lack of a warning, (b) the lack of introductions, and (c) the quality of the posts today, I think everyone is getting a little too dramatic over this and is maybe being just a little bit too harsh on the new editors or whatever they are.

(And no, I’m not a third robot sent in to support Robbie and Becky through positive comments…OR AM I? Dun dun dun…)

(Though that may be a good thing. It helps me remember the good times.)