So You Think I'm Classy, Eh?

Evidently a certain cross-section of the blogosphere has found my reaction to the demise of Pajamas Media's blogging network to be less than completely classy.

Well, tough shit. What the fuck were you expecting?

Anyway, I swore I wasn't going to say anything else about Pajamas Media, but then I actually read Da Raj's post on the matter (and, no, I ain't linking to that asshole):

I wrote a letter to the Pajamas Media network bloggers yesterday, some of whom took it a bit more personally than intended. We disbanded the ad network part of our business for a simple reason: it was losing money and we couldn’t see how in the reasonable future that would change.

Actually that part of our business has been losing money from the beginning, so the people getting their quarterly checks from PJM were getting a form of stipend from us in the hopes that advertisers would start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn’t happen. No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are off the dole. I might too. [What's their beef? I thought most of them were free marketeer libertarians or something.-ed. Go figure.]

The Pajamas Media portal and the XpressBlogs will remain exactly as they are, but as many of you have noticed we are putting considerable effort into Pajamas TV. The theory behind this is that television is on the cusp of change and the Internet and the TV set will soon fuse. Apple TV already exists and several of the electronic companies have flat screen TVs in the pipeline with the Internet accessible at the click of a remote. Pajamas TV is trying to position itself for this in the long run. Will it work? Beats me. But if it doesn’t, we can always ask for a bailout. [I hope you're kidding.-ed. My lips are sealed.]

Did you catch that?

No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are off the dole.

Off the "dole"?

Off the fucking "dole"?

That's Roger L. Simon's (public!) view of those who were, in effect, his employees? 

Question: If Pajamas Media "has been losing money from the beginning", who the fuck would be more on "the dole" than Roger L. Simon, C.E.O.?

Now you tell me about my lack of class. OK?

Comments

[richard mcenroe]

Well, Elizabeth _was_ complaining the hat blocked her view...

[markg8]

"several of the electronic companies have flat screen TVs in the pipeline with the Internet accessible at the click of a remote."

Um, Gateway did that years ago and it hasn't exactly taken off. Why he thinks anyone would want to watch these aging clowns gab for half an hour on a teevee screen when their writing, such as it is, would be more concise, edited and coherent is beyond me.

Judging by the serenity of his post, I guess Raj has paid himself quite handsomely and is set up for life unless of course he invests with his own personal Madoff. Which of course (wink, wink) shouldn't be taken as an invitation to any con artists out there. They say you can't bullshit a bullshitter but they are wrong.

[M. Simon]

I have watched a few PJTV episodes and I have to say that Ed Driscoll (Silicon Graffiti) does it much better. Bad production values (downscale YouTube) and badly scripted (tight? What is tight?) and what do you have? Boring.

And they expect people to subscribe? I don't think so.

[markg8]

M. Simon sometimes amateur stuff has it's appeal. There's a guy here in Chicago who does a cable public access show called Motorsports Unlimited. It's all lowtech handheld video camera interviews with car nuts geeking about their hotrods. The geezer who hosts the show is passionate about cars and there's babes in retro one piece bathing suits sitting on ground showing off their legs at the end promoting upcoming episodes. For some reason as a change of pace I guess there was a cooking segment with some guy making chili. It has it's charms, like finding a 7 year old blowing out Christmas carols on the harmonica on the radio in rural PA when you're driving home for Xmas and sick of listening to talk radio to keep you awake.

[markg8]

But paying for it? No fucking way.

[beb]

Yeah, I was a regular reader of several blogs that ended up a part of PJM and never saw the value of it for me, the consumer. I stumbled across it a couple of times and I think they required a subscription to enter, as if anybody is paying for those anymore.

The whole venture smelled from my perspective and I certainly didn't have the vantage that you did.

Interestingly, I followed a link to Simon's page that was addressing the issue, and laid out my thoughts in what I thought was a civil manner and Mr. Simon evidently chose to not approve my comments. I'm sure people are kind of sensitive right now but that doesn't reflect well on him.

[Phoenix Woman]

Over at FDL, TBogg's been on this like crazy. When one FDL regular commenter linked to Pam Geller Oshry's rant on what she could have done with a mere 20% of PJM's assets, FDL's Julia had this to say:

Oh, good lord. Pam, honey, your inlaws bought you the freaking New York Observer to play with and you parlayed it into… er… no longer running the New York Observer. Somebody else’s large money + major New York publication + you = vlogging.

No, really. There are a lot of things astonishingly stupid about this experiment in wingnut welfare through venture capital, but just don’t.

Though, really, this is unfair to Word Salad Pam. She did score two interviews with John Bolton -- or at least her breasts did, to judge by where his gaze rested most of the time.

[radamisto]

Roger "The Hat" Simon is another intolerant hack who can't make it on the Net.

[Akestor]

Good post, would read again.

[The Passionate Conservative]

Charles Johnson, an attention wh*re as there never has been before, is too busy rooting out creationists and European Nationalists to work at PJM. Simon's just a putz.

No one is really surprised that PJM is failing. What's surprising is it's taking so long.

[Steve H. Graham]

RAJ'S WORLD! RAJ'S WORLD! PARTY TIME! EXCELLENT!

I see you beat me to the "dole" question.

[Guesst]

D, do you remember Aubrey somebody, who invested all the $ in the first place? I think he came forth with another large investment later down the line---sort of a bailout. So they've already been at the trough.

ps: I also recall that Ms. Gellar left PJM to compete with them head-on. I wonder how that worked out for her.