Wong leaves cracked

Discussion about Cracked.com, but not for comments on stories posted to front page.

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Wong leaves cracked

Postby SandTea » Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:50 pm

An Announcement From Jason 'David Wong' Pargin (He Does Not Die At The End)

I mean, don't we all die at the end, title guy

I do feel the need to point out something in the very first sentence...

Hi, I'm Jason "David Wong" Pargin, writer of somewhat beloved Cracked columns like 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person and How Half Of American Lost Its Fucking Mind.


...but that's just for a little fun.

There's not much else to this news. Some padded self deprecation, soosh meeds plugs and assurance that cracked will still have "a voice that's smart but not jaded, irreverent but not bitter."

I'll end this with a wonderful quote from the article.

My brain feels like a car engine that burst into flame and then was driven another thousand miles at full throttle because I kept thinking the wind would put the fire out. Then, when that didn't work, I tried pulling over and pissing on it.
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby Pedgerow » Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:08 pm

Something very, very bad is happening at Cracked. These truly feel like the end times. Obviously, various stages have felt like the end of Cracked to other people, and those people were all wrong, so maybe I'm wrong too, but this is not the only upheaval they've had in the past couple of weeks.

Robert Brockway, formerly popular writer and now one of the leading editors, has been unceremoniously shitcanned because the site no longer wants long-form content. It's those shitty five-sentence Facebook-comment articles from now on, and nothing else. Fuck your quality. Fuck your effort. It's time to burn this admittedly frequently insufferable titan of online publishing to the ground for the insurance money. Like and subscribe!

But at least we have the image contests, right? They're the most financially lucrative type of article; they always have been. They wouldn't wipe those out, would they? I don't know if you need to be registered to view the forums, but shit, never mind. Even Kalli, the absolute goddess, nicest moderator and leading light of the image contests, is no longer required and has been shown the door. If the rest of you can read forum threads, they discuss it here.

I really, really can't avoid being afraid of these changes. Cracked's business model, as I perceive it, has always been to post lots of articles, some good and some awful, spread out randomly because that is the best way to make sure people keep clicking. But now they've got rid of all the good, and just kept the bad. I didn't read the bad articles because I love being sarcastically lectured or because I enjoy half-assed garbage; I read them because you never know which ones will be good and which ones will be bad unless you read all of them. But now, it seems like a pretty safe bet that Cracked is moving to a novel new Shit-Only model. Who would keep reading?

I used to buy a PC gaming magazine every month from 1999 to 2010, long after I stopped actually playing new games. So I have a track record of compulsively following things I have lost interest in, and I will probably keep reading Cracked for the same reason. Also, I watched that magazine go out of business, and I saw frantic staff changes in the months leading up to it, as people either bailed on the sinking ship or were fired from it. It looked exactly like what Cracked is doing now. So maybe I won't have the option to keep reading.

Last of all, SandTea, did you point out the spelling error by the Editor-in-Chief in that article's comments as well, under a different username? If so, I am very sorry for my extremely low-hanging-fruit reply about Americans being fat. I thought it would be fun and anarchic to do some very mild trolling and not have to answer for it. If it was you, then I have to answer for it and suddenly the fun has gone out of saying something I didn't mean.
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby cmsellers » Sat Feb 22, 2020 3:25 am

I stopped reading Cracked regularly quite awhile ago, and stopped reading at all when they fired all their staff. It's sad, but this is what happens when short-term thinking dominates a media company.

"Huh, angry rants with clickbait titles get more clicks, we should publish more of those."

"Uh-oh, we're losing long-term readership, but the angry rants with clickbait titles still get more clicks, let's make those our dominant form of content."

"Weird, our readership is plummeting. Let's lay off most of our staff; we can fill the gaps with clickbait."

"Well, we have almost no one left, let's just go full clickbait, at least it's cheap."

Wong's management certainly didn't help, though. I know you come from PWOT, Pedegrow, but I went on there twice under two accounts. First time, I got instantly into negative karma posting only pitches in the writers' room, and I not only noped the fuck out but changed my password and email to random gibberish so I could never use that account again. Second time, I was debating trying again when I stopped in to ask about the avatar policy, and was personally mocked by Wong and several of his flunkies.

I resolved that, while getting feedback on my writing and the chance of getting two hundred bucks for it seemed great, it wasn't worth dealing with the culture of Wong and his forums to do so. I did, however, point out my experience with the PWOT forums in the comments every time Cracked posted a "write for Cracked" article.
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby NathanLoiselle » Sat Feb 22, 2020 11:24 pm

Yeah, I pissed on Wong once too. Unfortunately the pee didn't put him out. Probably because it was pure alcohol.
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby SandTea » Sun Feb 23, 2020 3:54 am

Pedgerow wrote:Last of all, SandTea,...


No, That was not me. I haven't commented there in a long time. I did search for whatever you're referencing in the comments just out of curiosity but didn't find it so it might be gone.

I had no idea about the shutting down of plastys and long form. That's a shame but it's probably best that they shut everything down after they couldn't do videos anymore to let all the talent go free into the world. Every now and then I hear a joke from somewhere and think "Did Swaim write that?". {even though he's at ign now I think}.
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby NathanLoiselle » Mon Feb 24, 2020 1:33 am

Swaim's at IGN? That must be torture
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby iMURDAu » Fri Feb 28, 2020 9:04 pm

Tfw you find out cracked still exists.
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Re: Wong leaves cracked

Postby jbobsully11 » Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:49 pm

iMURDAu wrote:Tfw you find out cracked still exists.

This. I kinda thought it self-destructed shortly after most (all?) of the good writers went to Bunny Ears or The Modern Rogue. Which reminds me: I haven't been to those sites in a while, either.
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