Not to be a bitch, but: where’s DeedDa?
Though the name evokes an eco-friendly vibrator startup, it’s actually Jane Pratt’s latest media venture — and it was supposed to launch in April. After the initial buzz…nothing. April came and went. No DeedDa.
Where. Is. DeedDa?!
According to the website, it’s now slated for a 2024 debut. There’s been no explanation for its postponement. Meant to combine e-commerce with first-person confessional essays, it naturally brings to mind Jane’s last project: xoJane. xoJane was an online magazine for women that became best known for publishing It Happened To Me. Satirized by Reductress as I Lived It, IHTM spawned some camp classics thanks to editors’ willingness to farm people’s trauma, lack of introspection and/or shit takes for clicks. Though the site published some good work — which is hard to link to, since what exists is only accessible via the Wayback machine — it’s synonymous in media circles with exploiting young, underpaid writers’ intensely personal narratives (and naïveté) for page views.
But when I wrote an IHTM about my mother’s death in 2016, it wasn’t the result of editorial exploitation. I thought that by shouting it from the rooftops, the event’s impact would lessen; that expression on such a large scale would expiate the sadness, shame and anger I was experiencing. Though my editor handled the subject matter with absolute delicacy and grace, she didn’t subject (heh) the piece to any actual editing. It was published with a glaring factual inaccuracy (timeline-related; dates are hard!) — the kind my mother would’ve pointed out disapprovingly. If DeedDa’s operations are anything like xoJane’s, it isn’t surprising that the site didn’t arrive on time. But if not now…when? Lock down a date, Jane. I’m not getting any younger, less nosy or more hopeful.
*more like Time, Inc., but that doesn’t catch the eye
**I fucked up the paperwork and didn’t want to redo/resubmit it
Recommendations
Amy Sedaris is one of the greatest late night guests ever, obviously.
HUGE shoutout to my friend and paid subscriber Casey Liston, who’s now a published fiction writer! She won WOW Women On Writing’s Spring 2023 Flash Fiction Contest. Read “Omakase” here and peruse some of Casey’s personal essays on Medium. Congratulations!
Erica Rand’s Barbie’s Queer Accessories is the academic yet accessible book you need to supplement your legally mandated “Barbie” viewing.
Shameless Self-Promotion
You can now check out my second installment of Bottle Episodes, wherein Daniel, David and I discuss the most deranged game show I’ve ever set eyes upon. Three’s a Crowd was the product of Chuck Barris’s allegedly dangerous mind and it managed to offend Americans across the political spectrum with its laissez-faire attitude towards marriage’s sanctity. It’s more of a social experiment than a satisfying television program. Recommended if you want to feel insane.
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Ta for now!