I like to use Tales from the Slack to do things other than rip on David (don’t worry, we’ll still do that). We like to show you our process as well. We were excited to have original Jalopnik founder-editor Mike Spinelli, aka the Postfather, on the site to review the cool Subaru 22B-inspired Prodrive P25. It was a headline challenge.
We aren’t a niche site, but we know that we cater to more hardcore enthusiasts than some other publications in our space. We also have a slightly different mission as membership definitely grounds us in serving our readers while, at the same time, trying to find more people out there who we think would love the site.
If we were going straight for traffic, a car that requires this much context is extremely tough. Even for car people, the 22B is fairly obscure, and this was a lot of work so we want to make it valuable. Thus began the long debate over exactly how to play this:
We all sort of agreed that $500k was important because, even if you didn’t know what it was, the idea of a $500k Subaru is alluring.
Fun fact: I can only remember one story about rally cars that wasn’t about Ken Block ever do traffic. You can probably guess which one. Otherwise, “rally” is one of those words that kills posts.
I liked it, too. But let’s keep going.
Something David likes to do to prove grammatical or syntaxual points is to take a point made in a headline to its full literal conclusion.
One of the popular methods of headline creation, borne from the old Gawker Campfire (a pre-Slack tool similar to Slack), is the socratic challenging of proper nouns. You’d put the name of a company or a person in a headline (Rita Ora) and an editor would ask you: Who? Who Cares? Does Anyone Care About This Person? Today’s Rita Ora is Prodrive. Which… fair? Maybe?
I ran out of time and Patrick is right. These kinds of stories are rarely pageview drivers and that’s ok. We don’t do everything for pageviews. That’s other people.
Eventually, we all decided to not wait anymore and the embargo was almost up:
And just like that it was Thomas, actually, who was on an ill-fated Mustang press launch who swooped in with a better headline.
All that work. I shall get my revenge on Thomas by sharing this exchange. Thomas has been sharing photos from the Mustang launch (coming soon) and he had some impressions (which I can’t share yet, thus they are blurred out here). The trip was interrupted by some transportation/flight issues so he was excited to finally be done and was explaining his good news, followed by…
RIP Grandma Hundal and RIP Tony.
I’m upset to find out from this lead photo that Tony Bennett died 🙁
I read all your posts in drunk-you voices for some reason.. seemed to fit better. Also, David it’s “cachet” you were looking for *smooches*
I probably would have gone with, “Dr. Evil Wanted To Build A $1,000,000 Subaru, But There Was Only $500,000 In The ATM!” if it were me.
Put on Your Gucci Flat Brim Hat. We drive a $500,000 Subaru!
Yeah I can’t articulate my reasoning but I passed on the article the first time by, reading it the next day. Not sure if it was the headline specifically or just that it was a brand I’m mostly neutral on.
Can I just contribute a modest amount of my choosing that reflects how often I am able to participate?
(Psst: it’s not showing up on the “Reviews” tab for me somehow?)
Honestly, I think you could have just gone with, “Hey!! $500,000 Subaru!!!!”, and that would have done it. Personally, the fact that anyone could spend that much on upgrading any Subaru was enough to get me to check the story out.
That’s probably why I’m a chemist and not an online auto journalist type.
My condolences on the loss of your grandma, Thomas.
I’m glad I’m a member now!
I really like the legal discussion in the back dated ones
BTW, This is the first site I’ve paid for. I missed MT’s $1 a month sign up
I’d have gone with inverted Mark (Christopher Nolan reference b/c today) perhaps – “non-shitbox showdown – $500,000 vs a Subaru”?
Maybe people are trying to join. I did and yet everyday i need to request a login sign in. Hell today this is the 3rd fucking time i needed to request sign in. I have joined and paid monthly since it was offered yet i canr get recognized without requesting additional logging in. Perhaps someone should be running this site so people are not run off.
We do sometimes have an issue with people who used the same email for a commenter account with certain browsers. Please email me matt@theautopian.com and we can fix it easily. It’s set so that people who login don’t have to login for a year.
FWIW, this was by far the best suggestion: “This $500,000 Subaru Is Worth It For The Ultimate Impreza Rally Fanatic With A Fat Wallet”
The one you went with made me actually NOT want to read the article and I only read it when I saw the byline. Nice article, btw!
Yeah maybe okay if you can access it. Paying membership fees and having no access is telling me unsubscribe. Its not the 1st time i cant access without 3rd party access on top of needing extra access everyday. I am a member why am i a pariah?
Wait, what’s going on?
Speaking of “what’s going on”, why has my username been changed?
Just for the record, things are back to normal. However, I had to manually change my listed name under “Name and Email” in the profile section to match my previous username.
Some of us have to log on every couple of weeks, go through the whole get an email thing
I had a similar problem way back and Matt was ON IT. Just email him and he’ll take care of you!