A Q&A with “the first and only satirical women’s magazine”:
Founded in 2013 by Beth Newell and Sarah Pappalardo, Reductress was poking fun at online publishing before Clickhole. The departments are boilerplate for any online magazine — News, Living, Entertainment, Style, Love & Sex — you get the idea. But the headlines, and subsequent “articles” take on slight variations of what you find in traditional women’s magazines digital platforms: “Kate Middleton Roller-Skates Out Just Days After Giving Birth” and “New Movie Has Women In It.” Both deadpan and timely, the magazine shows with “telling” the frivolity of what women’s media has been reduced to in the interest of collecting clicks.
So many women “literally can’t.” How do you successfully target content to the informed and discerning woman who’s “just dead?”
Large images are great for our readers who “just can’t” when it comes to reading words. We also try to keep headlines as short as possible, like “Katy Perry Dead?” so you don’t have to think too much about whether you want to click on it.
What do you consider the top five categories that will always be relevant to the basic bitch lifestyle?
Chardonnay, Reality Television, ‘Girl’s Night,’ Group Photos, and Name Brand Fanaticism.
What percentage of your audience do you consider “basic bitches?”
95% (but we wouldn’t say that to their faces). 5% are the bad bitches who will never openly admit to reading us.
Do you think men read Reductress? Why would they?
Sadly, they never seem to open up to us in a genuine way. We’re still trying to understand what men mean when they say they “like the site,” because it might be a sarcastic neg. I mean, what do you think they mean by that?
Toilet humor….will it ever get old?
There’s still a lot to be said about toilets. Lots of funny stuff. Just look at what other countries are doing with them.
A lot of Reductress’ content is directed toward “you.” Who am I? What are my other bookmarked sites?
Well, just look at yourself for a second. See your smudged eyeliner and cracked iPhone screen? You’ve bookmarked Vogue and Gilt, but we know you’re really spending most of your time on TMZ and Seamless.
Reductress has a presence on every social media platform. What do you consider the next technological frontier for online magazines?
App & ad integration — basically an app that has access to all the personal info on your phone, sort of like Facebook messenger, but you’d pay us for the service of “selling you” to advertisers, who will then give you access to customized ads. Also, the government would be involved somehow.
Reductress adds a feminist spin to The Onion’s tone…And we can’t believe the results. Do you think women are gifted with extra snark genes?
The snark genes are pretty much only found on the X chromosome, often accompanied by recessive gay genes, so you do the math.
Reductress is amazing because it embraces the “that girl” attitude, a small voice in the back of every woman’s brain. How difficult is it to effectively toe the line between reducing women to stereotypes and celebrating their collective crazy?
It’s pretty easy actually because the stereotypes are a distilled representation of our collective crazy. The line is totes toe-able.
What are three things that we’ll never see on Reductress?
Sincerity, scholarship, and investigative journalism.
