MEL Magazine Stops Publishing After Owners Dollar Shave Club Lay Off Staff

MEL Magazine, nominally a men's lifestyle website that grew into one of the premier destinations for smart writing about internet culture, has stopped publishing after its owner, Dollar Shave Club, laid off most if not all of its staff.

MEL will stop publishing effective Wednesday, and the complete focus will now be on finding the right new owner.

This has always been a part of the plan for our brand-backed partnership, and we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built together.

— MEL Magazine (@WeAreMel) March 24, 2021

"We look forward to our next phase of opportunities and growth, thank our incredible team and readers for their support, and can now finally create all of the razor content we’ve been dying to explore," said Editor-in-Chief Josh Schollmeyer, in perhaps a jab at the site's former owners.

We look forward to our next phase of opportunities and growth, thank our incredible team and readers for their support, and can now finally create all of the razor content we’ve been dying to explore.

-- Josh Schollmeyer, co-founder / EIC (josh.schollmeyer@melindustries.com)

— MEL Magazine (@WeAreMel) March 24, 2021

Dollar Shave Club launched MEL Magazine on Medium in 2015 before the site launched on its own in 2018. Though it was conceptualized as a Men's lifestyle publication focusing on topics such as male grooming and other "guy issues," it grew popular online with its witty yet surprisingly in-depth analysis of banal internet culture, covering memes and social justice issues such as toxic masculinity with equal zeal. In the past few months, MEL has covered topics such as Goatse, the SpongeBob halftime show, Liberal Avengersposting and Shrek.

It's unclear if the magazine's content contributed to Dollar Shave Club's decision to lay off the majority of its staff, but the site notably did not use advertising and instead generated revenue from merchandise and paid newsletters.

Former staffers of MEL shared the news of their layoffs with their customary s***posting flair.

lol i got laid off. send nudes https://t.co/oOdfjkqaKY

— miles klee 🐠 (@MilesKlee) March 24, 2021

sweetie I’m going to become soooo tacky now that I don’t have a job… ass on the timeline surely forthcoming

— Magdalene J. Taylor (@magdajtaylor) March 25, 2021

It's the end of an era. I'm really proud of what MEL accomplished; how it forever changed the men's media landscape -- and hopefully some men, too -- for the better. https://t.co/tTgenOGV9G

— 𝔄𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔞 ℌ𝔬𝔭𝔢 𝔏𝔢𝔳𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔬𝔫 (@alanalevinson) March 24, 2021

Many online mourned the loss of the site, celebrating it as one of the few fun publications left on the internet.

They did it right and did it good and made the internet a better place to be for 6 years, which is no small feat. Here’s hoping they find a new home & backers who appreciate how valuable that is. https://t.co/sTf9mWoHaK

— Bright Wall/Dark Room (@BWDR) March 25, 2021

Mel felt like a throwback to an older blogging era when people still seemed to get enjoyment out of posting. Hoping they can figure out a way to keep it going. https://t.co/FinGBCAYjb

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) March 24, 2021

rip to the best horniest site on the internet https://t.co/XXnPCYVPyq

— Terry Nguyễn (@terrygtnguyen) March 24, 2021

Technically, MEL isn't dead and is looking for a new buyer, though the loss of some of its most distinctive writers will surely change the site if it ever resumes posting. A similar scenario unfolded for Deadspin several years ago, but much of its staff went to Defector and the revived Deadspin has been widely loathed online.