Goodbye, and Remember to Fight the Real Enemy

Hello, It’s Me. I’m just dropping you a line to let you know I’m leaving. Friday is technically my last day at Jezebel dot com, but since that’s a holiday, and I am spending the entirety of it eating pot brownies and getting scared at Blue Planet in HD, today’s the day I write my Goodbye Post.

This is the second time I’ve left Jezebel, so I don’t want to get too sentimental about what this place has meant to me, and to the people who work here. It’s been, to put it mildly, a rough year, but we made it (almost!). I’m incredibly fucking proud of The Slot, a goofy absurdist politics diagonal that Anna Merlan, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Ellie Shechet, Joanna Rothkopf and I launched this year with no budget and very little access and turned it into something everybody on staff contributes to, and that I consider a joy to read. But I’m biased.

I can’t help getting sentimental about my current set of coworkers. Singing their praises in short, clipped sentences feels glib or like the introduction to a lame comic book called SUPERBLOGGERS, but here goes: Emma Carmichael, the toughest person born after the Great Depression that I’ve ever met. Jia Tolentino, a certifiable weirdo genius, a fantastic editor, and future Shark Tank host. Kate Dries, a friend and confidant with unmatched work ethic and a supernatural memory. Ellie Shechet, who is so funny that I hesitated to tell her how objectively and freshly funny she was while we were working together because I felt like telling her would ruin it. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, a rare visionary with a big heart and good, positive vibes. Madeleine Davies, part master of demented humor, part empathetic and passionate thinker. Kelly Faircloth, voracious nerd with endless enthusiasm and Southern sass. Hillary Crosley, fearlessly opinionated yet open and kind. Anna Merlan, tough-as-nails, and whose gung-ho, get shit done attitude made every day at work better. Clover Hope, just as chill as she is brilliant (she’s incredibly, enviously chill). Bobby Finger, the nicest guy in the world, is a gif wizard with a unique sensibility that I’ve often seen imitated but never successfully duplicated. Kara Brown, Judge, Jury, and Executioner: honest, brave, thoughtful, and my favorite kind of mean. Joanna Rothkopf, who cold emailed me this spring to ask me to get a coffee, who was such a natural fit on staff that now I cannot picture a Jezebel without her. I’m also grateful to our hard working and funny night, weekend, and contributor crew— Mark, Marie, Stassa, and Rachel— and to all of the contributors who have worked with us, especially in the past year.

Other wonderful and great people in editorial I’ve worked with or confided in directly since I returned in 2013, and to whom I owe thanks for a wide variety of reasons: John Cook, Lacey Donohue, Adam Pash, Alex Pareene, Hamilton Nolan, Annalee Newlitz, Charlie Jane Anders, Matt Hardigee, Tom Scocca, Tim Marchman, Jessica Coen, Jim Cooke, Tara Jacoby, Sam Woolley, Greg Howard, Natasha Vargas-Cooper, Dodai Stewart, Leah Beckmann, Tommy Craggs, and Keenan Trotter.

Since Dove ads and sassy Instagram clapbacks won feminism, there isn’t much left for me to do here but focus on what’s next. For me, that’s a job serving as former Jezebel EIC Jessica Coen’s deputy over at Vocativ. For you, and for people who crave justice and truth, what’s next is focusing your energy on the real enemy: alarms. Here’s a compendium of all the times, in the last year and a half, that workers have had problems with alarms: