Popbitch

For those in the know, popbitch, Thursday afternoon, between the popbitch of four and five, is the bitching hour.

The Popbitch office was everything I could have hoped for and more: a poky room, cluttered with odd collectibles and mundane office supplies, on the ground floor of a creaky Soho townhouse that had been converted into a shared office space. On one shelf, a pack of Chairman Mao playing cards was propped up by a box of ink cartridges. On another, a Russian doll depicting Dmitry Medvedev was nestled between a bag of Fairtrade coffee and a stapler. A third was occupied by a mysterious silver suitcase and a white Bosch kettle, half filled. After greeting me at the front door with a firm handshake, Popbitch boss Camilla Wright — dressed half smart with a silky black shirt up top and bright green trainers below — showed me to a seat at the far end of a rectangular metal table that took up much of the room. When she disappeared into a communal kitchen to make us some herbal teas, I took the opportunity to absorb my surroundings.

Popbitch

The case study today is a successful plain text newsletter that shuns pictures, graphics and emojis. Yet this year-old weekly has , free subscribers, and advertisers queueing up for the high-performing text slots. Text is either plain or bold, there are no pictures, emojis , and page architecture is created from dashes, chevrons, and black rules. Headlines are tight, short, centred and inside double chevrons. Some stories are as brief as one or two sentences. The longest is words in 4 paragraphs. Overall, this gives the content a sense of urgency , making it look like the words have been bashed out on a typewriter and pasted in just in time for the deadline. Popbitch publishes edgy, irreverent and chancy celebrity gossip , sort of a cross between Private Eye and a disrespectful Hello. Stories are sourced from freelancers, websites and tip-offs from readers. The newsletter has the shorter stuff. Longer articles are on the website. Written in the Popbitch style as a kind of native promotion but obviously an advert. The business model has changed over the years, and the commitment to the easy-read plain text format seems to have played a part in dictating the way revenue is now generated. Advertising appears to be by far the dominant income. Ventures including radio and print have been explored and experimented with over the years but little seems to have come of them commercially.

Some of the contributors to the Popbitch messageboards have also become minor celebrities in their own right, popbitch. The newsletter has the popbitch stuff.

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The nose is tiny; two parallel lines with ovals on the end. Everything else is phenomenally pretty; peachy skin, intoxicating, deep-brown almond eyes, jet-black wig feathering into his jawline. He's wearing a dazzling, red, white and blue jump suit - motifed with cartoon stars - off at one shoulder, white vest underneath, all tattooed, manly shoulder. He looks like a transsexual madman, but he isn't. I don't give a fuck if you have your arsehole enlarged'.

Popbitch

The Popbitch office was everything I could have hoped for and more: a poky room, cluttered with odd collectibles and mundane office supplies, on the ground floor of a creaky Soho townhouse that had been converted into a shared office space. On one shelf, a pack of Chairman Mao playing cards was propped up by a box of ink cartridges. On another, a Russian doll depicting Dmitry Medvedev was nestled between a bag of Fairtrade coffee and a stapler. A third was occupied by a mysterious silver suitcase and a white Bosch kettle, half filled. After greeting me at the front door with a firm handshake, Popbitch boss Camilla Wright — dressed half smart with a silky black shirt up top and bright green trainers below — showed me to a seat at the far end of a rectangular metal table that took up much of the room.

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A year-old minimalist newsletter with , subscribers: Popbitch case study. Skip to main content. Some, like Julie Burchill and Toby Young, sought to intellectualise it, without really succeeding in wiping the sneers off their faces. The messageboard was closed and reopened with board members as editors. Read Edit View history. The demise of Vice and BuzzFeed: what happened to millennial media? The Popbitch office was everything I could have hoped for and more: a poky room, cluttered with odd collectibles and mundane office supplies, on the ground floor of a creaky Soho townhouse that had been converted into a shared office space. Fairly swiftly, the newsletter and accompanying message board morphed from a bit of fun into an occupation for Wright. The uncompromising ethos of cruel humour gave it a feel somewhat similar to usenet gossip newsgroups. Political protests and Covid rules later persuaded the couple to move to Dubai. This removes the need for so many agents and publicists try not to shed a tear , but also democratises the celebrity-making industry. Log in.

For the past 17 years, Popbitch has made its business spilling the secrets of the rich and famous. Now with a subscriber base in the hundreds of thousands, the weekly newsletter prides itself on dishing the very best dirt each and every Thursday. Longtime readers will have heard from Popbitch long before the mainstream media about major scandals from the News International phone hacking controversy in the UK to secrets behind several celebrity super-injunctions and, most recently, the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations.

Popbitch was founded, is owned and run by Neil Stevenson and Camilla Wright , both journalists. They hated them. We only get our stories from sources we know and trust, either online or in-person. Text is either plain or bold, there are no pictures, emojis , and page architecture is created from dashes, chevrons, and black rules. Hide this message. Wright has lived abroad since when her partner transferred to Hong Kong for work. Some sound like crazy. Much of the material for the newsletter comes from the Popbitch message boards, frequented by music industry insiders, gossips and the casually interested. Despite being three hours ahead of UK time in Dubai, Wright is a frequent virtual presence in the Soho office. She estimated that around 25—30, readers have either donated, paid for a subscription or contributed to Popbitch through micropayments in recent years. Timothy Garton Ash: Ukraine, Navalny and the survival of the west. But Popbitch is notable by its cultural influence and by the fact its weekly email — still packed with often lewd celebrity stories, media gossip and geeky jokes — lands in more than , inboxes each Thursday evening.