A Sense of Doubt blog post #1675 - FROM BITCH MEDIA: Instagram Deleting posts and RAISING MONEY so as not to expire from print
If you have ever followed my blog, you know I am a big fan of
Bitch Media and
Bitch Magazine.
I saved this post a while back when the good people at work on this project discovered some censorship happening, more likely by algorithm than human but who knows?
And then Andi Zeisler comes out retirement to urge people to donate or
BITCH will go out of print.
These things matter.
Donate today. I am going to donate, even though my funds are limited.
Feminist media exists to draw attention to what mainstream media won’t. But as the giants of the tech world become increasingly powerful middlemen between outlet and reader, the politics and positions of those platforms are questions that can’t keep going ignored.
We realized a few months ago that Instagram has been deleting our posts. Not all of them, and not all at once; just here and there, slowly, after they’ve been up for a few weeks so it’s harder to notice. And maybe we wouldn’t have noticed were it not for the fact that the posts they deleted were some of the most popular ones with our community—posts that sparked conversations about body positivity and QPOC representation and trans rights. It's not a coincidence that, among all of the pieces and perspectives we publish, the ones that explicitly uphold the rights and humanity of the most marginalized folks in our communities are the ones that are suddenly being made to disappear.
Listen, we’re called Bitch; a little bit of censorship here and there is something we’re used to. From public libraries having to all but hide the magazine from the shelves to our own social media accounts marking us as spam because they’ve detected “profanity,” we’re used to some pushback (that’s why the emails from us in your inbox have to come from "B*tch" instead of Bitch  ). But the problem with what platforms like Instagram are doing is that it isn’t harmless. In fact, because of the power that social media has on how media gets distributed to you, our readers, what they’re doing is effectively controlling what you see. Which in turn affects what matters, what gets talked about, what even makes it to people’s radars in the first place.
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This is what we’re up against.
And this is why we’ll continue to talk about just how important our financial independence is until we’re blue in the face: Because the only reason we’re able to call them out, the only reason we’re able to still be here while other outlets shutter all around us due to drops in social media engagement, is because zero percent of our finances are tied to Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
And the only reason we’ve managed to uphold that independence for two decades is because of you, Christopher.
As members of The Rage, your energy and your support propels this work even more than you know. It allows us to do what feminist media is supposed to do—shine a light on the causes, communities, and conversations that mainstream media isn’t paying attention to—regardless of whether massive corporations agree or not. (And spoiler: they usually don't.)
We’ve got just under two weeks to go to reach this $45,000 goal by May 31. So if you haven’t yet, I urge you now:
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- Spread the word. No one knows how powerful it is to be a part of a membership program that directly supports independent feminist media better than you do. So if you know someone who could use a nudge to join The Rage themselves, be our advocate today: Forward them this email. Seriously!
- Gift a subscription to Bitch magazine. $29 gets your gift recipient a years worth of the very best, award-winning feminist analysis out there.
- Make a one-time donation. Seriously, every dollar makes a difference. And because we’re independent you know every penny is going straight back into the work—no CEO payouts here. Make a donation of $10 or more and we'll send you a Hot and Unbothered koozie too!
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Your support helps us continue to play by our own rules. And we can't thank you enough for it.
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Soraya Membreno
director of community
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Bitch Media is an award-winning, nonprofit, feminist media outlet. We're community funded because we believe that there's no for-profit way to make truly independent, intersectional feminist media. If our work has to compete with a self-interested advertiser or a major investor, it's never going to be the kind of world-changing, movement-making, uncompromising work that needs to be done. It'll just be another contract negotiated in a patriarchal world. You like our attitude? Us too.
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We might not be able to keep B*tch in print much longer.
I’m sorry to say this isn’t exactly a fun email. But I'm asking you to read all of it because, to be frank, I need your help.
As one of Bitch’s founders, I have lived through at least two deaths of print. The first was shortly after we began as a zine in the late 90s, when the internet was still called the World Wide Web and digital evangelists were insisting it was going to revolutionize the world and make print obsolete. One of those things happened; the other did not.
The second death came a little more than 10 years later, when the United States was plunged into recession, print-advertising revenue cratered, and many of our fellow independent magazines were forced to close. But once again, reports of print’s overall demise were premature.
Looking at the number of print magazines that have shuttered in just this past year, however, suggests that we’re now on the brink of a third print crisis, and this time I’m scared Bitch isn’t going to make it out unscathed.
If we don’t raise $150,000 by September 27, we won’t be able to keep Bitch magazine in print much longer.
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2019 has been a rough year for nonprofits and a nearly catastrophic one for media outlets; Bitch is both. In 2019 alone, 18 outlets (and counting) have either shuttered their print magazines or disappeared entirely. From print publications like Glamour, ESPN magazine, and Mad magazine to fellow independent outlets like The Establishment, Pacific Standard, and Utne Reader, this is an industry-wide collapse at a scale I’ve never seen before. (That’s what it feels like anyway.) To see long-running, award-winning outlets folding one after the other is chilling enough. To watch it happen from the vantage of an independent, explicitly feminist magazine operating without the safety net of any seed funding or venture capital? That’s a weight we haven’t been able to shake off all year.
But Andi, maybe losing the print version of Bitch isn’t such a big deal!
That’s a good point, and it’s one that we’ve debated time and again over the years. In 2009, we strongly and publicly considered going all-digital, but the response from our community spoke loud and clear: Keep Bitch in print.
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Bitch magazine remains the primary reason monthly members just like you join The Rage (remember that survey we sent you back in January?). It’s what readers tell us makes them feel anchored to feminist community and discourse even when they might not have access to feminist community in real life; the first spark of curiosity for folks when they see the cover peeking out of a newsstand; the first print byline for too many writers to count that have all shed light on issues and perspectives that wouldn’t have found a home anywhere else.
We’ve made it 23 years in print and we refuse to give up now.
But the reality is that without a big influx of help from our community in the next two weeks, we will not be able to keep operating Bitch Media as you know it. The good news is that we did the math and if every subscriber and every member of The Rage (that's you!) gave even just $10 right now we'd be at $120,000 of our $150,000 goal instantly!
So I'm asking you to please make a one-time donation of just $10 today to help us keep Bitch in print.
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P.S. This $150,000 goal is bigger than anything we've attempted in years. Which means if we're going to stand any shot in hell of reaching it we need to be as loud and visible as possible. So if you want to help us spotlight this fundraiser, I invite you to download this "Keep Bitch in Print" avatar that you can use for your social media accounts between September 16-27 to help us spread the word and #KeepBitchInPrint.
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Bitch Media is an award-winning, nonprofit, feminist media outlet. We're community funded because we believe that there's no for-profit way to make truly independent, intersectional feminist media. If our work has to compete with a self-interested advertiser or a major investor, it's never going to be the kind of world-changing, movement-making, uncompromising work that needs to be done. It'll just be another contract negotiated in a patriarchal world. You like our attitude? Us too.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1909.19 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1588 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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