The Quick Decline of Towleroad

In a word: no.

haven't read them in a long time

I erased my bookmark about two weeks after Andy’s departure.

I predict the site will shut down before the year is out.

I haven't looked at it since Andy left, so I just took a quick glance -- and you're right, the headlines are terrible and the formatting sucks.

Their articles have the same gray typeface as so many other pages I find impossible to read. I've given up trying.

It really did flame out - even before Andy left. Such a fickle thing. JoeMyGod seems to be hanging in there - mainly because it has a committed group of eldergays. His comments section creates some attraction/community - like DL. Towleroad always seemed like the old gay rag from the 90s in internet form.

I use to follow Towleroad til about a year or two ago. The articles had for some time taken a different tone - all woke, all the time, hard Left. The comments section also lost its variety and insight.

Joe My God is still doing well, I go to it every day. But yes, Towleroad is now unreadable -- badly formatted, weirdly written, it's pretty much a mess. Too bad, as it was a go-to site for many years.

Nothing lasts forever. Someday they'll one saying that about, you know, this place.

R8: Oh honey, someday appears to be now.

R7: It was always a left blog, you dilettante.

[quote]That's all well and good, except the grammar, formatting, headline structure and writing has gone way downhill.

Oh, the irony.

Towleroad went to shit years ago

I think OP puts it pretty well. Those headlines, although not ungrammatical, need close reading to make out. No one wants to do that.

Why don’t you send them your suggestions instead of complaining about it on here?

You must be new here r13

I didn’t even know it was still around. I used to go to it all the time, but haven’t been there in years.

Like the editor or owner would listen, R13.

This calls for an "Oh my sides!"

Stopped reading it for the very reasons you mentioned. The depth and decent writing is gone.

[quote]Their articles have the same gray typeface as so many other pages I find impossible to read. I've given up trying.

Is that the publishing world's version of gayface?

Slow decline? It went to hell in hand basket several years ago.

This is shocking, I say!

I started reading it in the mid-2000s. Pre-Disqus, it had a black background with the white font and the comments interface was better integrated into the site (same font, colour, etc). Some of the comment threads got very long with interesting debate. The comments were more substantive. It was more about quality over quantity for individual posters. People actually read and considered rather than reacted. The men on there seemed pretty mature and intelligent for the most part and the trolls were few. It was a mix of mostly Gen-X with some Boomers and a few older Millennials.

I miss it from back then. There isn't a site today that mirrors its appearance, content, interactions, etc. I suppose that's because there isn't a demand for it? Perhaps we've changed? I'm not sure. I do wonder where all of its audience went. They have dispersed to other remote areas of the internet, including here, but in smaller numbers. I liked hanging out with those guys. I miss them.

I like it here too, but sifting out all the trolls gets exhausting.

My mind keeps drifting back to this blog back in the mid-to-late 2000s.

Is there no demand for such a type of blog these days? If so, why?

Where did the audience go?

Dropped it around 2013 - it repeated news I read elsewhere.

I still believe Andy is the older, much prettier brother of Aaron Cockgobbler.

Andy was disinherited for coming out and renamed himself after a spoon!

R23, is that true, that he was disinherited and gave himself a new name?

Could a blog like Towleroad circa 2007 succeed?

*succeed today?

[quote]Is there no demand for such a type of blog these days? If so, why?

I was never a regular reader and haven't looked at the site for years but it does have an antiquated feel to it. It even scrolls like an antiquated blog as if suddenly my 2007 dial-up modem has grown strained, It's very generic, all their news pieces, and so focused on stupid celebrities with some sort of gay appeal, maybe, sort of. There is no real point of view or tone to the assembled elements.

I'm surprised it's still around.

R25 R27 I haven’t checked it out recently, but based on your description, it sounds like they’ll only touch on “safe” topics. R25 Go for it.

I think readership started dropping off pretty severely after marriage equality passed. There’s less interest and urgency today to consume a lot of the “gay news” type of content on sites like Towleroad or JoeMyGod.

[quote]Andy was disinherited for coming out and renamed himself after a spoon!

r23, a quick scan of this award he claims on his bio shows he was using this name 1989-1991. His family is well-known in River Forest IL (where he grew up) and Missoula MT (where they own another home).

Evertime I saw that word I always pictured a guy with a towel wrapped up durban style oh his head. Just made me laugh and pass.

R38 here

I didn’t promise this was the truth. I simply decided that Andy is an attractive version of Aaron and I created a connection.

Towleroad is little more than an aggregator site, sprinkled generously with celebrity PR releases verbatim. I too have dropped it.

I think they used to get content/ideas from DL. You'd see a posting on DL and then TR would post the same story or item a few hours later.

A majority of the posts on Towleroad now have zero comments. They also post the same stories multiple times in a day. I can't imagine it's profitable, I would be shocked if it lasts another year.

I still pronounce it in my head like TAO-luh-road, where the first syllable rhymes with ‘cow’. I get that’s supposed to be like “toll road,” but I never would have figured out that pronunciation on my own, and I don’t get why a news website would be called any kind of road.

Datalounge is fairly weird as a name, too, but I get that it has its roots in the early days of the web. ‘Crazy Days and Nights’ is insipid and has irritated me for years whenever I see mention of it here.

Yeah, sadly, I've noticed the same. As R21 said, it used to be a great site. Enjoyed it a lot, and didn't seem to have too many trolls. I miss those days. He actually focused on quality, and covered stuff other sites didn't, except for Joe My God. Now, everything seems to be super safe to just get clicks and sell ads.

As far as gay media goes, I never cared for Towleroad, but it was linked to frequently on DL back in the 00’s. Eventually, Joe My God became the favored gay media source…which I liked better.

JMG is good but the comments have become insanely repetitive and they all sound like each other.

It’s a shit hole.

I only read it cause Andy was hot.