Man, I really shouldn't gloat about the demise of another Web magazine. I really shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. But FUCK, I'm going to! Goodbye, Suck dot com! Patsy amateurs! Clear the FLOOR, the man is gonna DANCE.

It's been a loooong time coming. I mean, a real long time. Suck.com has been on the World Wide Squirrel for, what, like FIVE YEARS or something? What else has stuck around that long? What other mammals are snuffling on the ground in this late hour? Grapejam.com? TheSpot.com? Not too many of us left. Suck.com has been hanging in there for a while, and they should be commended for their sticktuitiveness.

BUT... today they shut their doors. I mean, you just gotta read their pissed-off, bitter, unapologetically crank-case goodbye letter linked at the end of this article. Suck.com and "The Sucksters" are going "on vacation." Back again soon, I'm sure!

Haw haw haw! Yeah, sing me no GettingIt 2.0, Suckbuddies. You're outta here. Face the facts and move on. Or, move on as much as you can. I mean, there's not a big market for ass-puckered turtlenecks with Elvis Costello glasses in this Bush economy, you may have noticed. Sure, some of you will get jobs freelancing crabapple stories for Salon or Yahoo! Internet, some will salvage the remains of the last paycheck they'll ever earn and go move back in with Mom and Dad in Belmont. Some will begin a long, slow, meandering journey through shit-eating publishing jobs into the crackhouse. But ONE thing I will guarandamnfuckingtee for sure: there's not going to be another suck.com. Ever, never, ever.

And, really, it's no wonder. Since its inception, Suck.com has been a locus of shitty swirling bile masquerading as cosmopolitan hipness. Suck's attitude is leftover meta-cynicism from 80s-era "Late Night with David Letterman," all dressed up in the shiny metallic costumes of early 90s virtual-reality-and-mushrooms cyberculture. Empty, fey wordplay and wide-angle piss-spraying do not a valuable counterculture make, my friends. Always attacking, never defending, neither running with the foxes nor hunting with the hounds but throwing beer bottles from the sidelines at both packs.

Suck is like fat little know-it-all Velma, except maybe a couple of mojitos over her limit, telling everyone how fake and stupid they are, and waggling her finger, and making bad ass jokes, and just getting on your nerves. Daphne, man, you'd just love it if she did that. Beautiful people can get away with being crass. But ugly people get shown the door, and they should count themselves lucky if they don't get smacked backhand real hard before. Suck dot com, you are ugly people.

Of course, I'm sure "The Sucksters" don't see it this way. "Downturn in the economy, whine whine! Bursting of the Internet bubble, simper sigh! Sub-literate Web audiences don't appreciate fine content, sniffle snub! Everyone's always picking on us and we're sad and confused, back-of-hand-to-forehead, bring-me-my-smelling-salts!" Good fucking God.

Let me just lay down the FACTS for any readers of PDJ who may be wondering if perhaps Suck.com is a harbinger of doom for all Web journalistas, and maybe EVERYTHING on the Innurnet is going to Fucktown in a shitbasket. The answer is NO. Despite what they may think, Suck.com was ALWAYS a creature of the sick, blue-button-down-and-Dockers New Media world that they loved to ridicule so badly -- a little corporate loss-leader lapdog that continually bit its owners and shat on the Chippendales. It doesn't matter how much you call yourself a "Web zine" (ha!) or snigger at push technology and Must See TV, because when the market is down, Master is gonna put you in a Hefty bag and throw you out by the side of some country road. At night, when the feral curs come to chew through the plastic, think they're freeing you so you can be their little buddy and join the gang? Think again, Alpo. I mean, FIFI.

Buy the ticket, take the ride. Run with the RATS, get RABIES and DIE. That's the law of the world, and you knew it when you started the game. Might as well make a snarling little feint with your last remaining paw before choking on your own bloody foam, eh? Learn nothing, do nothing, gain nothing.

It's not entirely hopeless for "The Sucksters," of course. Hell, man, there's a big Web out there, plus Freenet, plus who knows what the hell else. Some of the people writing for Suck were actually pretty OK decent writers, if they'd get the fuck over themselves and maybe get outside and get some fresh air. Start from the GROUND UP, instead of getting the casting-couch job in Multimedia Gulch, and maybe some of them could even learn the difference between sullen teenage bird-flipping ("I HATE you, Mom and Dad!") and real gutsy writing. Who knows? Weirder things have happened.

Anyways, I'm always willing to give my stock advice to failed writers and soggy hacks:

"hey, FAT BOYS! Ha ha ha! You need to get HUNGRY again. Lean and cruel, with one ear to the ground at all times, like a Real Pigdog Journalist. Try rubbing down with gasoline and doing 200 pushups and 200 pullups twice a day. Get ANGRY! Drink straight Everclear! Learn a little something about JOURNALISM and maybe someday we'll let you be our COPY BOYS. Muahahahaha!"

Anyways, check the letter, bid Suck.com and fond adieu, and go out and read you some REAL Web zines. It's like the song says: the gangs of LA will never die -- just multiply. OK, that's got nothing to do with Web zines, but shitfire, it sure sounds scary, eh? What I mean to say is: we got your content right here, Bubba. Nobody's taking out THIS Webbertertainment spectacular any time soon.

Check it out yourself

hapsburg@pigdog.org