Take This Pink Ribbon Off My Eyes
Props to Nate for alerting me to the existence of Kirtsy, a Digg-esque social site with a female perspective. I was interested to check it out and see what’s popular in the world of female web users.
This is what I don’t understand: Any woman will tell you there is a lot more to us than what you’d read in Cosmo. But for some reason anything female-centric seems to skew in the lady-mag direction: Lose weight! Shop for cute clothes! Gossip about celebs! Have babies!
Kirtsy seems to follow along these lines, from what I observed today. It’s not automatically a bad thing, just disappointing.
I’m not bashing the site; the ladies behind Kirtsy have done a great job. It’s slick-looking and obviously well-run. The stories that are the listed as most popular are there because they get the most votes. If this is what the Kirtsy audience is into, then so be it.
This site is a terrific resource for women who are interested in these things, even while viewing it from a cranky feminist perspective, I was able to find some value (I am going to Nashville for vacation soon, so I will need to know how to rock cowboy boots). And yes, there are plenty of sites out there for women that have little to do with fashion. But I just get a little bummed when I compare the “most popular stories” from Digg to those of Kirtsy:
Digg’s top stories are mostly about serious topics. The presidential election. Child abuse and human rights. There is a silly story at the top (a link to a humorous photo), and a couple of tech-oriented stories (which seems in line with Digg’s user base). Looks pretty balanced.
Kirtsy’s top stories, on the other hand….Decorating! Celebrities! Closets full of clothes! Hair tips! Designer vaginas? (To its great credit, that blog post actually argues against such things.)
And of course: Washing machines! Okay, okay, the portable washing machine WOULD be useful for college students or for doing a quick load of delicates if you live in a building with no laundry room and procrastinate laundry as much as I do–but I ask you, would that washing machine thing be a top story on a “Digg for Men” style site?
There are some stories highlighted on Kirtsy that focused on more than just “girly stuff.” Take this article about building a website for your business or this story about breast cancer relapse. But they are hard to find amidst all the makeup and hair tips. I like cute home decor or bargain shoe finds too, but a little balance on Kirtsy would be nice.
My final cranky feminist complaint–Kirtsy? Really?
When I think of curtseying I think of debutante balls and all the accompanying hoopla and throwbacks to a time when our society was even more of a patriarchy (take my daughter, please!).
Filed under: media discovery, social media
We’re in the midst of creating a women’s micro site here, for the Providence Journal. Our research has shown that the #1 thing our female audience wants is NEWS. And hey, we already do that, so we went forward to create more than that, which is some of the fun and serious content that will make us well rounded. Our leader linkens it to a banquet table, we’ve got to offer more than broccoli, which we have been feeding to our auidence for years, so that they can make their own choices about what to gorge themselves on. If you want to eat cupcakes, have at it. We’re offering it all.
Definitely, I think a wide variety of content from serious to silly is valuable for a site directed at such a diverse group. I am a big fan of Jezebel–they discuss political and social issues right alongside fun things and fashion and gossip. It’s balance that’s important!
Kirtsy has been on my radar for a while, but I’ve dragged my feet checking it out for much the same reasons. My “chic” indulgences online lean to occasional Sugar (started for contests, haven’t visited in a while) and regular ShinyShiny doses. I call the latter my “guilty pleasure”, but it’s primarily tech and toys, so I don’t feel as guilty, really.
A quick glance of Kirtsy, after reading your review, and I have to agree. The material is dominated by Sugar-esque topics and frankly one reason I don’t get back to Sugar any more is that I have to dig through tons of info for anything of interest.
Sarah — thanks so much for your exploration of kirtsy! I’m one of the co-founders and let me tell you — it’s posts like yours that have made us stronger every step of the way. You should see screen shots of our initial launch — we’ve definitely come a long way. And users and their feedback is the core of our existence. Literally. Without users, we’d have no content, and without users we wouldn’t know what content you liked to read.
On that note, I’d love to point out that unlike, for example, Jezebel and Sugar and Shiny Shiny (all of whom we lovvve) kirtsy’s content is *all* user-generated. Not editorially generated. In other words, we aren’t steering our site away from more informative newsy posts. Au contraire mes soeurs! We would love more of it.
So please! Help us!
Go to kirtsy and submit the kind of stories *you* want to read. And then ask your friends (like Aprille and Pamela above!) to do the same. Start a kirtsy revolution! Turn us into the site you want us to be.
And if you have other ideas about what would help make kirtsy great, please share them with me anytime at laurie {at} kirtsy {dotte} com.
Either way, thanks again so much for checking out kirtsy AND for writing about us. You’re great. xo
Laurie, thanks so much for responding! I definitely like that Kirtsy is a user-generated site–that’s why I wanted to make sure and compliment you and your team for doing a great job with the site even if I wasn’t blown away by the content. I know that it’s the readers making those calls!
I will sign up and try to push a bigger balance between the fun stuff (which I do like) and the more serious stuff.
Thanks for your thoughts!