Oh, Jezebel.

Let’s talk. You recently went through a transition of Editor in Chief, moving from Anna Holmes to Jessica Coen. Why yes, that is the Jessica who destarred me for calling out ableist language–and, yes, it’s reflective of the tone of the whole site, now.

A number of blogs have sprung up to deal with your shit, and that’s not really what I’m trying to do here. I took a whole day off yesterday–the first Day Without Jez I’ve had on purpose in about two years. And it was…great. There was less stress, less frustration over a formerly well-written website that can no longer be bothered to turn on the spelling and grammar check features in Word before posting. I didn’t see the dozens of comments using “lame” and “retarded” as insults, or an editor call anyone assholes. Again.

It’s not me, Jez, it’s you. And I think we might be done.

A lot of people are dissatisfied with the turn of the site, and leaving, and it’s led to some of the best wikipedia editing I’ve ever seen.

A full compendium of the edits are available here.

There have been mass destarrings (usually for pointing out explicitly racist language), and more than a few bannings for the same.

In conclusion, this was the best thing to come of it:

(Credit for that goes to the lovely Haugenite.)