Fashion Indie versus The New York Observer

Edited by Saynt

Sinners and Saynt: Torture Coutorture, Round Deux

Edited by Saynt

Let me be the first to admit it, yeah I’m an asshole. I’ve never claimed to be the nicest person in fashion and I’ve never made it seem like I’d ever sugar coat my thoughts or views. I just want to be as honest as possible and give an opinion which is well within my freedom of speech and expression.

So I said some mean things. So I posted unflattering pictures of a rival. Sue me. It isn’t like I said shit that hasn’t been said before, behind peoples backs, without them knowing, said in jest so it’s “okay”. I’m saying the stuff some folks in fashion are afraid to say and now I’m getting flacked for it. Well, fine. I’m okay with being the media’s whipping boy for a few cracks, as long as I get my point across it’s all good.

Now onto part deux of Torture Coutorture in which Julie responds to her company’s idiotic practices, I try to make good with one of the few nice people in fashion, and I apologize (kind-of) for being a royal doucher

The email from Julie came in on Friday, soon after the Coutorture crew realized that the story had gone viral and was on sites like Gawker and Refinery29 (great Civil War pict, seriously).  The email had all the details we were initially looking for as to why we were kicked off their pubescent network.  Basically, Meghan and Sarah had been reading through Fashion Indie, red-flagged a post as offensive (just one?) and made efforts with Julie to kick us off.  When the issue was properly explained, kicking us off the network made perfect sense since they are try to foster a sedated message across their publisher sites. So, playing nice for advertisers (wait, they don’t have any) trumped freedom of speech and we were kicked off. Understandable. We never stated we we’re a PC site. We’ve been pushing envelopes since day one and we get it if certain folks don’t want to associate themselves with us. That’s okay. What’s is not okay is how the issue was originally handled with anonymous comments and criptic emails from the Coutorture crew.

Next Julie explained why they didn’t do the right thing from the beginning…

We are concerned with the culture of fear in blogging and indeed we had been concerned to address these issues with you and the Fashion Indie team for sometime precisely because we were afraid of your reaction given your preferred methods of engagement. Sadly we let that fear color our short email towards you ending our relationship because we did not wish to go into detail lest it be used against us. For this we apologize sincerely.

Hold up. Numero uno, I’m not a scary dude. Ask anyone who knows me or has met me in person and they’ll tell you that I’m a pretty easy going, rational individual.  I’ve never engaged in such “methods of engagement” before so it made no sense for Coutorture to assume (make an ass out of you and me) that this is they way we would respond if they had initially treated us with some respect and explained themselves properly.

Two, Julie, Sarah and Meghan all know me personally. I’ve known Julie for nearly three years and while she has remained the same cold fish she’s always been, I’ve been nothing but personable and friendly with the girl.  Personally, I think she’s suffering from an Anna Wintour complex, but that’s just from observing her sitting at runway shows, with her sunglasses on, not speaking to anyone, not even me when I go up to her and say hello.  Sorry, I just believe that people like that don’t belong in fashion.  Sarah is also another Coutorture chick I’ve known for sometime. Our editor IM’s her on the daily and we’ve maintained a friendly relationship. We’re always ready to blast anything she requested out to our email list and we’ve been more than kind to her. So her responding this way was also idiotic and childish.

And three, GROW SOME FUCKING COJONES. YOU’RE IN BUSINESS JULIE AND YOUR NETWORK MAKES MAJOR CLAIMS. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO LEARN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AT SOME POINT OR AT LEAST LEARN TO CRAFT A PROPER EMAIL.

So basically, Julie admitted to not handling the situation well, apologized and all is once again good in the world of online fashion blogging. Congrats on being the bigger person, it’s not always the easy thing to do.

Next Up, I apolize to Fat Folks.

I know it’s not easy being fat. I tipped the scale at 270 when I was 17 and that was the worst time in my life. I’m still not the thinnest dude on the block (there hasnt been a pair of skinny jeans that have met the crease of my crack) but honestly folks, is it so wrong to call someone fat? They make it seem like I’m a monster for stating something that everyone else is aware of. You’re fat, it’s okay, it’s not the best thing in the world to be, and you’ll probably die earlier than those of a moderate weight, but it’s okay cause that extra slice of cheesecake is so worth it, right?!?  No one is forcing you to be overweight. No one is telling you to overeat. And in a society of liposuction, gastric bypass, and Alli, there is no reason why you can’t drop a few pounds, unless of course you like being fat, in which you shouldn’t be offended if I say you are.  Yeah, I would love it if this wasn’t the case, if we could all sing around the campfire and gouge our eyes out so we can’t see each others imperfections, but that’s not the way life works and if you’re are in an industry that stresses the need for lack of flaws, it’s a little difficult to get by with such a big one.

I’m all for big is beautiful and I’ve had my share of thick loves in my life, but enough is enough.  It’s okay if you want to be fat, just be ready for the occasional stare, chuckle or thoughtless comment.

I’m sorry for offending anyone with my fat jokes or commentary.  Just don’t be too hard on yourself, it’s not easy being a big girl in a size zero world.

Sarah, I am honestly sorry if any of my comments hurt your feelings. That was never my intent.

Now on to Terrorist.

Terrorists,

I’m sorry for associating Turbans to your practices of mass terror and destruction. You see, over here in America we have magazines like The New Yorker and a station called Fox News which is run by super racist-bigot billionaire Rupert Murdock.  On it, all the men who attack and attempt to destroy our country wear turbans, have beards, and weird names I don’t understand like Akemed Ikahina bin Laden.

Really? Who decided this was a good idea?

These images of turban wearing terrorist fester in my weak mind and I begin to associate all terrorist as turban wearing middle easterners.  I realize that not all terrorist wear turbans, so it was wrong to associate all of you together and adhere to such a stereotype. I now understand that some of you may enjoy wearing fitted New Era caps or knit hats, some of you out there may wear Sunday Derby sunhats or may choose to rock a nice suede kippot when you’re feeling fiesty.  It was wrong to think all of you wear turbans and I’m sorry if I offended you with my comments.

Hugs and Disses,

Daniel Saynt

To other Turban wearers.

I’m not an idiot. I know you’re not all terrorists. Homeland Security doesn’t, but I do.  It was a joke. Hell, you can’t really consider it a religion if you don’t suffer a little persecution, right?

So that’s about it indies. I know it’s been a harrowing ordeal for some of you, but the whole thing was pretty easy for us. This week we plan to launch an initiative to prevent such things from happening to bloggers in networks and to provide a means to identify sites that aren’t censored by their networks. We’ll be wearing our badge proud and will continue to give you the type of stories and posts you’ve come to expect from the sons of bitches at FashionIndie.com.

P.S. In one day Fashion Indie was compared to Fox News and the Bush Administration for stating the facts and reporting on our experience.  Damn, there must be something really wrong in the world when battling a larger power, defending your freedom of speech, and speaking up against censorship is considered Republican.

Sinners and Saynt: Torture Coutorture

Edited by Saynt

There has been a lot of concern from our readers lately regarding our “indieness”. Some of you have stated that we’ve sold out and given in to the Net-a-porter machine. Some feel that we’ve become a bit too mean lately and are now alienating some of you. And other ass wipes feel that we’re no longer politically correct enough to be in their shitty blogger networks (Torture Coutorture)!!! To all our haters we have one thing to say, “THANK YOU!!!”

Your discontent for us fuels our fires and let’s us know that we’re doing something right. Because of our new direction we have shot up in traffic, now reaching nearly 25,000 eyes per day. In addition, we’ve gotten some more inquiries on our site and our business. We’ve leveraged our hate mail to get us an article in an upcoming magazine and it’s let me know that we’re affecting a shit load of people on the web.

We haven’t sold out (yet). We’re still looking to provide our readers with the newest trends, designers and fashion news. We’ve kept our opinions sharp and our views are clearer than ever. We have gotten a bit meaner lately but that’s only cause more and more idiots are trying to become fashion designers when they know they shouldn’t. We like to keep it real and not sugar coat what we have to say. If you don’t like it, don’t come to our site. There are over a billion people on the web and we’re not gonna cry over losing one person who doesn’t agree with us.

NOW TO TORTURE COUTORTURE

First, let’s backtrack. We enjoy writing back to our haters in blog comments. When someone tells me I know dick about fashion, I kindly remind them that the only reason anyone cares about them is cause they decided to comment on my blog, not the other way around, and that if they had an opinion of their own, they should get to writing something and leave us the fuck alone. Well in a recent post on Andre Leon Tally‘s douchiest qualities Sarah Conley, a Coutorture worker, became offended that I used too many fat jokes in my post. I let her know that I was an asshole for saying the jokes, but hell, it was funny. Keep in mind that Sarah herself is not a svelte fashionista, so I could see why saying Andre Leon Tally was “too fat for fashion” might offend someone like herself. Basically, because Sarah commented on the post she was now subscribed to our further comments.

The post stood on the web for a few days and then I received this comment.

so i don’t normally respond to bigoted,nasty uninformed comments but thought this actually warranted a sane response…
just a few little questions
1. what do you actually do ?
2.what movies magazines or any other form of media have you being on recently
3.does anyone actually give a shit who you are?

so i think the answer to all of the above questions will be a big old no no no and nothing…

so before we slag off anyone lets take a look around at ones own life to see if its worthy

Now of course, this was fuel to my fire cause this was obviously a doucher who didn’t realize my glory (talking as Daniel Saynt right now so don’t freak out). I quickly answered back…

Let me bestow on you some knowledge of how shit works around here in Fashion Indie Land. Numero uno, this is what I actually do. We are one of the most successful fashion blogs on the planet. More people read us than all the international Vogue’s combined. Number two, I’ve recently been on the Tyra Banks Show, MTV, and The Travel Chanel bestowing on others my genius. Also, Time Out New York listed us as one of the top blogs of New York City, just under the Satorialist. I’ve been asked to judge numerous design competitions and my company (the one I started four years ago) has developed events for Maurices, Polartec, H&M and a slew of other designers and brands. We’ve worked with over 100 fashion labels and produced some of the most frequented events in NYC.

Does anyone give a shit about me? Try over 500,000 readers per month and an industry that has already marked me as one of the top upcoming influencers in fashion.

So am I worthy. Fuck yeah. Don’t be jealous, just accept.

Hugs and Disses,

Daniel Saynt

Yeah, I’m full of myself, but hell I’ve been working this game for over 4 years and I deserve some credit for the work I’ve done. Within minutes of posting I received this comment from someone posing as help@googleanalytics.com

Daniel,

No offense but I think you may not have a very good grasp on webanalytics. You can’t actually determine that you have 500,000 readers using any proper analytics program. Maybe you have 500,00 impressions a month (though your Alexa ranking doesn’t really suggest that you do) but that isn’t unique views. And unique views isn’t necessarily readers but simply unique IP addresses.

Before getting all high and mighty, realize that these readers may not even give a shit about you, they may be simply random SEO traffic wandering in off the proverbial internet street because you strung together something nicely that some Joe in Kansas had an interest in. Determining influence is a much more nuanced beast.

I would suggest having less of an attitude and simply working harder when a critic comes up. Blowing hot air may seem like a great way to get attention but in the end you have to have something to say that makes people think. This just makes people cringe.

Web Analytics? Alexa Ranking? This must be the work of some angry little blogger. Possibly someone who is a little worried that our site, which launched over a year ago is creeping in on her traffic base. Maybe it was from a blogger who recently held a conference on web analytics which was listened to by five people in her apparent network of 250. Maybe it’s a blogger that everyone openly hates and wishes would just disappear cause seriously, nobody cares about you. Bitch please. I think some people were forgetting where I came from, so I kindly answered…

We use Google Analytics to track our readership levels and our page impressions are much higher than mentioned. In addition, we have built a fairly influential network of bloggers which carry our content and have distribution through partner networks. Plus our reach through social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and our own Indies United is substantial with a reach well above a daily 20,000 mark. (We don’t count that when speaking to advertisers and sponsors, it’s just a bonus).

Alexa is a fairly inaccurate way to track unique views since it only tracks the views of those with an Alexa tool bar on their browser. Most young women (the bulk of our audience) don’t give a rats ass about Alexa and probably don’t know what the hell it is.

We do get a good amount of pop-ups from SEO which only shows that we are producing content that is of interest to readers. Terms like “Summer Hair Trends” and “New York Fashion” are fairly targeted search terms which get readers to our site. Our bounce rate has decreased by about 25% since February and many of our current marketing outreach plans should help us generate a more dedicated direct visitor (someone who types in fashionindie.com rather than reaches us through Google). Still an SEO generated reader is still a reader, so we’re very happy we have laid out such a successful campaign.

Basically, my background is e-commerce. I graduated Berkeley with a degree in Business and a minor in Information Technologies. Before Fashion Indie I was in online marketing and ran campaigns for Action Against Hunger and the United Nations. I’ve worked in my share of dot.com’s and have built the infrastructure for sites like Trendible.com.

I’m not trying to be all high and mighty, but occasionally we get dicks on our site who like to believe they know what the fuck their talking about. They don’t. We enjoy correcting them.

Plus, I’m a total asshole online. It’s fun to play a role a bit and make your opinion known. If people disagree that’s okay. We encourage people to write their opinions and regularly feature our favorite “Hate Mail”. Will we answer back? Hell to the yes. It’s fun to fight.

Please don’t think I’m trying to make people cringe. I love the bulk of our readers and regularly feature their lines and comments.

On a side note, who are you and why do you care so much about what we’re doing?

Within a few minutes of writing this response it became blatantly clear who wrote the comment when we received this email from Coutorture.

Daniel,

Fashion Indie has been removed from the Coutorture Network. Please remove any Coutorture badge currently running on your site.

We wish you continued success in all your endeavors.

Best,

Sarah

–
–
Sarah Conley

Holy shit!!! I tracked the IP address of the person who was claiming to be help@googleanalytics.com and the address was from some computer in Brooklyn, in an area that certain Coutorture girls like to call home

My theory is that Julie Fredrickson, the most loathed blogger in fashion, decided to answer back on my claims of online greatness and when I trumped her “Alexa” claims she became angry and decided to kick us off the network. Great way to do business. Get rid of one of your top bloggers.

Now it’s time to Torture Coutorture.

So here are some great Julie Fredrickson links for your viewing pleasure…

Julie Fredrickson Knows Where to Find the Best Lesbian Porn

Julie Fredrickson Tells Coutorture Bloggers to Fuck Off

And some pictures of her looking really shitty in everything she wears.

FAIL

FAIL

FAIL OVER A CLIFF

Seriously girlie, you’re in fashion, dress the part.

Also, here’s a quote in which she threatens to bash me over the head.

“Sometimes we want to smack Daniel Saynt upside the head….”

Okay the last one was probably said in jest, but I can’t be too sure these days.