Conspiracy theories, anyone? What's the phantom connection to Splendid? Does it matter? Does anyone care?

Is anyone else just annoyed that this might mean no more Indieshite as we know it?

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

Answers

I read them because they're funny too. I should hope this doesn't mean the end of Indieshite... It was quite a prank, if it is a prank... Hell I fell for hook line and sinker from the beginning, but that was probably just because of their url. I guess it is kinda silly when you think about it, I mean why would someone from the UK be so obsessed with American sites? But I don't think it really matters. Whether Indieshite slags your site or praises your site, it's gonna get hits. If there is a connection to Splendid, or anyone for that matter, so what? It's funny!

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

No, we're not going away. If anything, we're gearing up for more. Keep your eyes open. As for the connection to Splendid, it's been overstated.

Wherever there's a writer who writes sentences as big as his ego, we'll be there. Wherever there's a functionally illiterate punk kid running his mouth, we'll be there. Wherever there's superfluous Flash animation, we'll be there. Wherever there's trouble, wherever there's injustice...well, we can't guarantee we'll be there, but we'll see how the schedule looks.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

The thing I found wierd about this whole item was the sort of war of who could pretend like they cared the least. That Brent guy, in his postings went out of his way to claim that he didn't care about Indieshite's ribbing, but then he decides to "expose" them. Indieshite then took the defensive, but at the same time gave the stance of, "oh, we don't care that he exposed us either." Face it, everyone who frequents these sites cares! We do. If we really didn't care, we'd spend ALL our time downloading porn (instead of just SOME of our time.) So I think Brent was pretty hurt by Indieshite's ribbing, as much as he says he wasn't. As far as some kind of cross-promotional Indieshite/Splendid conspiracy, I'm not buying that. Maybe I'm naive and correct me if I'm wrong, but is anyone who does this making actual money? If Indieshite truly are a bunch of nerds holed up in a Chicago apartment, what do they have to gain by being sneaky? An additional banner ad for Splendid? I can tell you, it isn't cheap to maintain a Chicago apartment! (If anyone wants to inform me of how I could make money on the internet and quit my crappy job, I'd love to hear it!)

Whoever the Indieshiters are, the site is really funny. The sham is part of what makes the joke so funny. What better way to rib a very insular community than to have a bunch of "outsiders," foriegn infidel dogs, come in and shake everything up? Unfortunately, Brent has basically figured out that there is no Santa Claus and told all the neighborhood kids. The real test will be if everyone out there will pay no attention to the men behind the curtain and still get entertainment from Indieshite, which remains to be seen. Me, I check it every day, so I hope it doesn't change too much.

It doesn't bother me that Yakov Smirnov isn't Russian, either.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

alright, we admit it. michael byzewski OWNS indie rock. before it comes out, he's also got stock in most of the major indie labels. nyah.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

i started thinking that splendid was the best ezine bc of indieshite, seriously! i began questioning pitchfork, although they annoyed me somewhat before, i was all convinced they blew chunks bc of indieshite. that'll teach me. i gotta tell you tho- i discovered a lot more ezines bc i read indieshite(and us against them)

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

I'm confused, so what exactly is the connection between Splendid and Indieshite?

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

i can't go so far as to say that i'd ever think a zine is "the best" because some silly blogger site didn't rip on it, however, in all actuality, splendid is a pretty decent zine on a fairly consistant basis. (well aside from their sean na na interview... ahem. wonder where they found their questions...)

more interesting was how silly and angry the writer from stop smiling sounded. the whole "expose" seems to have backfired in the writer's face as there seems to be a good amount of laughter flowing through the indie-rock-online-e-zine-scene.

not to plug ourselves too heavily (right), but phil hunt has a nice little write-up in his current column at yahtzeen.com that's fairly funny as well.

ryan

yahtzeen.com

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2000

I don't think the whole thing's "backfired" on Stop Smiling at all: as a way to launch their site and get the jaded and terminally introspective indiezineblog community to link to them it's worked extremely well.

I think indieshite needs to be a bit more aloof - attacking and moving on rather than getting drawn into silly feuds. But it's their site (or Splendid's, at any rate) and I still read it.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

I don't hear anyone saying much about the other articles in Stop Smiling. They got their traffic because people are interested in Indieshite. The writer of the article looks catty though. Its obvious that he went through all that work because Indieshite ticked him off. Nobody's saying Thank You to Stop Smiling for blowing the lid off Indieshite. They're mostly siding with Indieeshite and the Stop Smiling looks kinda sad. What are they going to write about next time? You barely hear anyone talking about any of the other articles at all. Thats the thing about sensationalism. When you can't deliver anything sensational the attention dries up.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

and damn, stop smiling looks like shit, too. i miss the old english indieshiters. i don't think they're as much fun now that they've teleported to chicago.

oh well. never going to let me forget that first impression, are you nanette?

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2000

Just a simple observation, but I was reading a John Coltrane review at Pitchfork and the reviewer thought it was "cool" (or if I was invoking said writers tactics, I'd offer the phrase hip) to write from the prespective of a fan who had been at the Village Vangaurd the night the album was recorded. Of course, I'm waiting for some churlish indierocker to write an expose explaining that the reviewer wasn't born when the album was recorded and he probably never entered the infamous Village.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

I enjoyed Indieshite as far as it went. I think the expose was entertaining but finickity: something I've noticed since starting my own weblog is how worried some people are about whether you 'mean it' or not in your writing. I get far more people fretting over whether I'm being sincere or not in I Hate Music than ever talk about anything I actually *say*. It's funny. I suppose it goes with the indie rock territory, all these earnest young men crying themselves to sleep at night over whether some piece of aluminium is 'for real' or not....

And no, Indieshite isn't as funny now it's stopped pretending to be British. It could do with some real Brits on board, I think.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

i think we should ask them to continue to pretend to be british. it was so much more fun. yes, virginia, there is an indieshite...

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

blah blah blah blah blah

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000