suck.

The online world has grown crowded with suck-ups attaching their osculatory muscles to everything that's "Cool" on Web. Which is why suck.--a Web site that not so subtly bills itself as "an experiment in provocation, mordant deconstructionism, and buzz-saw journalism" is such a mouthful of, well, fresh air. You see, not only does suck. not suck, it turns the overextended concept of "cool" inside out and pronounces on what does suck on the Web. Each weekday the staff of suck. posts another scathing rant against the shameless hucksters, corporate flacks and bandwagon sycophants who are flooding the Web like flatworms to week-old sushi. suck.'s vitriol is usually one part wit to two parts attitude. That's really not surprising considering that the core staff of suck. hold day jobs at Hotwired, the Web offshoot of the inventor of the "nerd-cool" oxymoron, Wired magazine. More surprising, though, is suck.'s penchant for blugeoning its bread butterer: One edition of suck. featured an illustrated guide on how to rip the ad pages from Wired and re-cement the few remaining editorial pages into a slimmed-down, far more readable vehicle. Of course, there's enough pomposity, banality and overkill on the Web to ensure that Hotwired gets an occasional break. When Time-Warner Pathfinder, in a pathetic attempt to get a leg-up on the competition, posted an ass-backwards O.J. "GUILTY" headline a few nanoseconds after the actual verdict announcement, the sucksters grabbed it and preserved it for posterity. (JW)

[ AlterNodes | CyberScape | MetroActive ]