“Firework,” wrote Team Gawker’s Ashley Feinberg in Slack, the office group chat program, after being reminded about an Olympic challenge she had forgotten to participate in.
On Monday, August 8, the first day of the Jezebel Olympic games, I sent an email instructing our competitors to begin quietly incorporating Katy Perry (singer of the official Olympic song, “Rise”) lyrics into their blogs, with the note that at the end of the two week period, whoever had the most would be the winner. Every few days I would drop into the Olympic slack to remind the competitors of the long game.
Ultimately, there was a stark division in dedication to the task—teams either completely forgot, or, in Team Celebrity’s case, conscientiously objected to the event (they forgot), or competed capably and aggressively. Here are the results:
Welcome to Jezebel’s Senior Week by Emma Carmichael “The sale shouldn’t affect you much one way or the other as a reader, but we’re still going to take advantage of the situation to rock the boat and make a mess.”
Celebrities Insist They Actually Like Derek Blasberg by Ellie Shechet “As Blasberg’s friend Katy Perry would say, if she weren’t busy fucking Orlando Bloom: ‘So you wanna play with magic? Derek, you should know what you’re falling for!’”
Stranger Things Sparks Demand for Pudding Snack by Clover Hope “…a show that’s supernatural, extra terrestrial.” “Some may think there’s no going back…” “Don’t walk away. It’s in the palm of your hand now, baby!”
