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Jessica Cutler roundup, June 2

Article in the Chicago Sun-Times about Jessica Cutler, Wonkette, and blogging in general. It doesn't say anything new.

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Much more interesting feature in The Guardian. It appears to be written by Jessica herself. She has some very interesting comments about Capitol Hill and life in general.

She has a very interesting description of "Fleet Week" in New York City, and says "women love a man in uniform, especially boy-crazy girls like me." Very scary, reminds me of an episode of Sex and the City.

She has some fashion advice: don't shop at Talbot's or Ann Taylor, the outfits from those places "are totally without any kind of sex appeal whatsoever."

And she tells you why you shouldn't write a letter to your Senator:

I opened mail all day (which is why you should never bother to write your representatives in government: somebody like me reads your letters). And then I either threw the letters in the garbage or I would make fun of them with co-workers. In retrospect, that job was perfect for me.

But letter-writing is a huge waste of time, energy and tax dollars, on everybody's part. I realise that I played my part in this waste, so I would like to take this opportunity to put an end to it by telling you to please stop writing letters to politicians. It makes absolutely no difference to anybody.

Also, stop calling their offices. It's so annoying.

It's a must read for people following the scandal.

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The best way to gauge interest in the Jessica Cutler story is the sitemeter at the archive blog. Visits were down during the holiday weekend, but today (Wednesday) and yesterday there are approximately 25,000 visits/day. During the peak day of the scandal last week there were nearly 90,000 visits.

It's a scandal that never really made it into outside the beltway America. When I mention it to regular people I know, they ask "what's a blog?" The hip young women in New York City who would be the target market for Jessica's book have never heard of her.

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Ana Marie Cox supposedly gets paid a salary to maintain her Wonkette blog. I have no clue how the blog makes enough money to pay anyone a salary. Prior to the Jessica Cutler scandal, her blog was getting as many hits per day as my blog has been getting the past few days. I have advertisements here, hoping to cash in on some of the traffic. But I have hardly made any money at all. Enough money to pay for lunch, that's about it. My website eDateReview.com makes more money even though it hardly has any traffic. But it has targeted traffic, people are going there for a purpose. If you have a website that people are visiting for no purpose other than to be entertained by the content, there just isn't any money to be made.

posted Wednesday, June 02, 2004

3 Comments:

By Mark:

I feel sad that no one posts on your site... I quite like it.

posted at 6/03/2004 12:34 PM

By Anonymous:

Why bother writing a book now that she's spilled absolutely everything anyone might want to know about her, her thoughts, her previous job, her ambitions, her taste in clothing stores, her indiscriminant craze for males, her perception of Washington and NY -- all in a few hundred well chosen words in the Guardian?

posted at 6/03/2004 12:58 PM

By Anonymous:

I can only assume that Cox gets paid to maintain wonkette as part of her contract for something else.

What that something else is, well, it's beyond me.

As for ads, her site is choke full of ads, all over the place, not like here.

posted at 6/04/2004 8:27 PM