Unprecedented Times Got You Down?

Subscribe to Jezebel to both ease your brain and fan your rage.

By Lauren Tousignant | February 20, 2025 | 11:31am

Photo: iStockphoto In Depth Latest

What a time to be alive, huh? We’re exactly four weeks into the Trump administration and I’ve gone through five bottles of Mylanta and have screamed at my computer an average of 29 times a day.

That’s not to minimize the real threats facing our country right now: They’re everywhere. And the dismantling of checks and balances has been more jarring than I anticipated. But, I’m also really, really, sick of watching old men and giant bigoted babies throw temper tantrums and stomp all over the Constitution. The only thing that’s helped me maintain some semblance of sanity is that, as the editor of Jezebel, it’s my job to read Jezebel.com every day.

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So ease your brain and fan your rage with a subscription to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you can, as one reader recently commented, continue to read “excellent” articles “that help us laugh through the cesspool of modern reality.” (Thanks DrewskiUSA!) Plus, there’s truly never been a better unprecedented time to support independent journalism. Private equity razed half the internet (briefly including us—more on that below); Jeff Bezos is neutering the Washington Post; and if Donald Trump had a bomb dropped in the middle of Kansas while Elon Musk live-tweeted it, the New York Times headline would probably read “Locals Report Loud Boom, Explosion, Deaths.”

Speaking of, in December 2023, right after G/O Media folded Jezebel, the Times published an oral history of the site. Madeleine Davies, who worked here from 2012 to 2018, spoke about how Jezebel has always been a step (or 10) ahead. “There are a lot of valid criticisms of Jezebel, but one thing you can say for us is that we’ve always been a little bit ahead of the curve,” she said. “So there was a lot of writing about cultural appropriation and things like gaslighting, which now are common parlance but at the time were not at all.”

There’s a lot about Jezebel that looks different today than it did a couple of years ago, but one very crucial piece of our DNA has remained the same: We’re still ahead of the curve.

Jezebel first urged lawmakers to get rid of the Comstock Act of 1873 in April 2023, with the headline: “Congress Needs to Repeal This Zombie 1873 Abortion Ban Before It Blows Up in Our Faces.” This was a full year before the Washington Post published its plea to get rid of it, and a year before Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas suggested the dormant law be revived, effectively bringing our 2023 headline to life. We also reported on how abortion bans would affect IVF two years before the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that “frozen embryos” should be considered children and that their destruction (a routine part of the IVF process) is grounds for wrongful death lawsuits. These aren’t the only examples, just two of the most relevant ones right now.

I don’t know what this country will look like on Tuesday, let alone in one or four years. But I do know that Jezebel will continue delivering our brilliant, beautiful, and deeply devoted audience the news exactly how you’ve come to expect it: with sharp wit. With cathartic headlines. And with teeth. (Plus, we’re never going to stop publishing all the humor, sex, celebrity hot takes, and annual scary story contests you won’t find anywhere else.) And, because we’re no longer beholden to private equity or a giant bag of rotting herbs, we can actually call people like Trump, JD Vance, and Mark Zuckerberg what they really are: a fascist, an (alleged) couch-fucking weirdo who’s obsessed with the birth rate and your sex life, and a whiny little bitch.

Also, whether you decide to subscribe for (again) $5 a month or $50 a year, your subscription means you’ll get to read all our spectacular stories ad free. (Over the summer, we made commenting free and switched to Disqus, a far superior commenting system. But you may still see an ad or two in there because of their setup.) Plus, a Jezebel subscription gets you access to Barf Bag (like Dirt Bag but for politics), the Jezebel Discord, the Jezebel Book Club, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter, early access to upcoming events, and, beginning at the end of the month, access to our official advice column, Ask the Group Chat, which will provide chaotic and fun (but…possibly not helpful) advice.

And if the government shuts Jezebel down, or the internet gets banned, or it becomes illegal for women to write or laugh online, we’ll buy some fucking horses and ride from state to state to scream the news Paul Revere style and throw abortion pills at your house. The point is, with your support, Jezebel can keep staying one (or 10) steps ahead of whatever comes our way over these next four years.