Mollygood, Stereohyped Shutting Down
We heard from a pretty good source that two Jossip-owned blogs—celebrity-focused Mollygood and black person-focused Stereohyped—are shutting down, probably due to the bad economy. And it's at least half confirmed, because Mollygood has just written a post confirming that she's gone [UPDATE: Now it's totally confirmed; additional goodbye post here]. They're both pretty decent blogs in their fields, so the appropriate response here is sadness. If you have more details we should know, feel free to email us; below, a small excerpt of Mollygood's goodbye [UPDATE 2: And a statement from Jossip boss David Hauslaib]:
The economy sucks right now — blame George Bush, blame Xenu, blame Tom Cruise — and that is the reason things have played out this way. If it makes any difference, I am just as shocked and heartbroken as the rest of you. For what it's worth, covering the lives of celebrities will continue over at Jossip in some capacity.
A statement from Jossip boss David Hauslaib:
I can give you some bullshit speak to feed your "art of a layoff memo" meme (which I quite enjoyed), but basically, we looked at what 2009 is going to be like, and it isn't pretty. Your own boss will tell you online media isn't immune to the ad downturn. We've been very successful with all four sites — in terms of both economics and readership levels — and much consideration went into the decision, both personally and fiscally, but it's a call that's in the best interest of the company to move forward. It's just shitty that the decision means we say goodbye to very creative and talented people. That said, we've got a few significant new things we're working on with Jossip and Queerty, which, though Gawker might like to argue, are category leaders.