Our humble and esteemed beginnings.

Stirling and I began Pinko as the distillation of an idea we had in 2005, to start a not-doomed, not-preachy, mainstream lifestyle magazine focusing on conscientious hedonism and green living. We sensed  a coming “green wave” of economic prosperity, and we thought people would need a road map.

Then the election happened, and we got caught up in all that, and thought it would usher in a new era of political engagement. Obama, we argued, at PinkoMag.com and in four iterations of a book proposal, had made politics fun. Activism is in! Hipsters will vote in local elections! We are all socialists now!

That was the world we thought was coming, and that was a world we thought needed Pinko. And it did: The 2-3 months of Pinko leading up to the 2008 election was one of the most exciting times in both of our lives, and we built with you a real community of commenters, bloggers, readers and fans.

But after 3 redesigns, 1,320 posts, 3,159 comments and 39,422 corralled pieces of comment spam about herbal viagra and lesbian latina pussy pussy pussy xxx u click now, Stirling and I have decided to put Pinko on hold. Creatively, the world  has turned out differently than we thought it would, and we’ve struggled to find Pinko’s reason for being. And practically, we can’t keep up. I have my day job (at The Nation) and Stirling has his (we’ll never tell!). As anyone who blogs can tell you, if you want to keep traffic you have to feed the beast, and we’ve created a design and a structure that demands regular and constant updates.

Stirling and I also have some new goals for ourselves. He is doing  amazing improv comedy work with the Upright Citizens Brigade, and he also reproduced, again! Just this weekend Stirling had baby #2. And as the times have changed, so has my writing. I’ll admit it: As a sometimes-serious political writer, having PinkoMag.com as my url is not the most effective branding tool.

So.

We’re taking a break. What that means practically is that the site will stay up, but not be regularly updated. We’ll keep the domain name, and we’ve moved some parts around so that you can see what was exciting and popular three years ago, kind of like going to Friendster. We’ll disable the comments too, but not for a couple of weeks, in case you want to leave your condolences or pay-pal us each $120k to keep blogging.

I will be writing regularly at Huffington Post, and at a couple of other secret landing spots tba. The easiest way to follow my writing and projects is to follow me on Twitter – @wyskida. You can also “friend” me on Facebook (gross) or bookmark my archive page at HuffPo.

Stirling is also on Twitter – @stirling79 – and will post any new developments there and at his website.

You can also email us with any and all offers. I’m wyskida [at] gmail [dot] com.

If this is sad, you should abort disappointment and gay marry optimism. Taking a break from Pinko is a positive step in some new directions for both of us. We are still as devoted as ever to progressive politics: We’re going dark, not going galt. (Cha-ching!) We’ll simply say thank you for reading; that it’s been our pleasure; and that its been really, really fun.

Follow us on Twitter, at HuffPo and everywhere, and we’ll be seeing you soon.

Ben & Stirling.

About The Author
Ben Wyskida is a writer, activist, conscientious hedonist and political communications strategist living in Brooklyn. - Visit Ben's site.