Chris Mitchell
Suck has long been the sardonic scourge of the internet. Under the slogan “a fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun”, the Suck website serves up a free daily dose of mordant satire, analysis and “buzzsaw journalism” about the most recent media occurrences. It’s a recipe which has made Suck popular across the globe and also ensured that they were snapped up by Wired Ventures within months of launching the site. Two years later, Suck’s editors have showcased thirty two of the site’s best columns in their self-titled book.
It’s perhaps the first example of content originally published on the Web being reversed-engineered into the venerable old media of the book, rather than the other way around. It’s also a gratuitous attempt by Wired to generate more revenue from Suck’s online success, as the advert on Suck’s site proclaims – “You’ve freeloaded for too long. Cough up the cash. Buy Suck now!”
While the idea of dressing up already-published disposable journalism in deluxe packaging may seem a non-starter, there are few essays within the Suck book which can be skipped because they discuss a topic long since exhausted. The main exceptions are those which discuss subjects which don’t make any sort of transatlantic translation, such as the baffling article about the US marketing of OK Soda. That aside, Suck’s continued relevance is due to a combination of the prescience of Suck’s journalists and the editors’ brevity when faced with a choice of over 500 articles from which to make their selection for the book. They’ve wisely opted for a mix of still-topical and timeless subjects.
As such, there’s erudite predictions and condemnations about the future of television, the Internet and advertising, which are all still useful primers. There’s also numerous articles about the impact of new technology on people’s lives, from online dating through to getting e-mail from your grandchildren. Meanwhile, essays such as Dining With Cannibals, which rails against the IT industry’s ridiculously long workhours, will always have an audience.
Perhaps the one thing that is strained about Suck is its attitude. Justifiably keen to distance itself from the worthy but dull likes of Microsoft’s online magazine Slate, Suck namechecks the likes of H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker and MAD magazine as influences. But beyond the humour of Suck’s corporate image, there are few bellylaughs to be had from the actual writing, which seems nearer to Wired than Scallywag.
However, as an experiment in bringing the web page to the printed page, Suck works. Whether the site’s devotees who have already read all of the book’s contents online for free will shell out for the coffee-table posterity edition remains to be seen.
