The making of a modern tabloid.
On The Rag calls itself “libertine and bohemian”.
For the month of December, Feed Me will be featuring a daily holiday gift — usually suggested by Emily, sometimes suggested by someone else — some might generate affiliate revenue. In addition to this advent calendar-style gift guide, there will also be the occasional Christmas surprise.
Kind of.
I’m a good tipper for room service at hotels because I think their jobs are hard, but I also leave leave small piles of white powder, flavored with citric acid wherever I go — electrolyte powder, Vitamin C tablets, and most importantly, Moon Juice Sleepy Magnesi-Om. I’ve used Moon Juice products for years, and last month they came out with a cherry flavored Sleepy Magnesi-Om (my most essential product from them).
For the holidays, they also have a set that comes with the powder, plus a special glass and cherry-topped glass stirrer. The accessories turn the whole drink experience (I’m not saying mocktail) into a nighttime ritual. I’m in London with my best friend right now — she brought a plastic bag of the Blue Lemon flavor. Great minds.
On The Rag is a new “libertine and bohemian” media site.
On Election Night, I got a drink with
at Le Dive. One of the many media ventures we discussed was On The Rag, a modern tabloid-meets-forum that The New York Times’ Joe Bernstein dubbed, “My pick for new website most likely to cause a problem.” I’d never seen it before, but Delia’s introduction got me to read the through some of the entries. Someone in one of the threads said I was hot, so I gave them a follow on Instagram.A few days later they asked to interview me, but I flipped the script and decided that in the midst of New York’s rapidly shifting state of media, I need to interview them. This is a conversation I had with Sammy Loren, On The Rag’s founding editor.
First of all, what’s On The Rag and why did you start it? How many people do you think read it a day?
Imagine if the New Yorker drunkenly knocked up the National Enquirer and the Enquirer refused to have an abortion…their kid would be On The Rag. OTR is a monthly print tabloid featuring literary and art world luminaries alongside gossip, sexcapades and sleaze. It's a literary/art review, tabloid and conceptual art project all in one. The project grows out of my reading series Casual Encountersz, which is unique for curating major novelists with beatniks, bohemians and total Insta-scammersz.
OTR is also spiritually indebted to Mexico’s highly Freudian tabloids, which often publish pics of corpses beside porn stars. While working in Mexico City I read them constantly and serialized a short story in La Prensa, Mexico’s largest and most loathed tabloid. In a sense I started On The Rag to recreate the electricity and thrill of publishing literature alongside louche mass market trash.
“OTR is also spiritually indebted to Mexico’s highly Freudian tabloids, which often publish pics of corpses beside porn stars.”
I have no clue how many users read On The Rag per day, but I hear that David Zwirner Gallery insiders and the London Review of Books editors were gossiping about it.