(Here’s the YouTube link)
Happy 20th Anniversary, Daily Kos
Twenty years of Daily Kos history, rowdy as it’s been, doesn’t compact easily. I’ve only been here for 14 of them (I’ve got to be kidding. No? Yikes.), and I thought I’d try a couple of diaries about the things that stand out in it for me. So far I’ve got four to publish; that may be all, or a couple more may come and knock on the back of my skull and ask to be written. This is the second.
The first diary — A VERY Short History of GBCW and TTFN diaries — is here
and the third — A Daily Kos watershed moment: Isla Vista, and taming the DK Boyz Klub — is here
History and Context
At one time, (Before Agglomerators) Daily Kos actually made all its own ad decisions. This may have been one of the factors that, eventually, ended that practice. Today, one can complain about a specific ad, but the culprit will usually not be kos, or the DK staff, but rather one of the agglomerators, like Google Ads. Very occasionally, staff has been known to make an exception. I think the last time was full page elephants/polar bears et al for the World Wildlife Fund in 2018. It evidently was a bit overwhelming…
However, getting back to the Pie Fights...
It all began (in writing, at least) in the Afternoon Open Thread on June 3, 2005:
Wha-wha-what?I come to DailyKos and for a moment there I thought I went to the Maxim website. There to the left is a movie of two girls from Gilligan's Island having a pie fight in skimpy outfits, and below it is Paris Hilton. Granted, this is still better than the spyware the Drudge Report infects your system with, but this is a little loony. Come on Kos, I know housing is expensive in the Bay Area and all
If anyone needs meI'll be in my room watching the Pie Fight video from the blogads... my oh my... ;)
Comes with a warningThe Real Gilligan's Island - Pie Fight (60-second Director's Cut) Note: This video is only available between 10pm and 5am/et.
Warning: The video you are about to see is recommended for Mature Audiences.
Too bad the ad isn't "only available between 10 and 5."
I know this site skews male, but...we have great diaries about Andrea Dworkin, and then this?
And continued on from there. Use this Search link to pull up the list of mostly pertinent diaries between 6/4 and 6/10 2005, beginning with:
by boudicca (482 comments, 72 recommends)
Please Note: There are four pages (153 diaries) to that Search list, though I don’t guarantee that all of them are on that particular subject — so don’t forget to check out the later diaries. (If you have a day or two to spare...)
Ten diaries down that list, kos weighed in, and the good times began to roll.
1048 Comments, 13 Recommends
Key quote: (note the strikeout)
And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad. It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff.
If you have a couple of hours, the whole thing is worth reading. If you only have a few minutes, take a look at the diary for one of the more inglorious moments of the last 20 years, so far. ;)
Sometime around June 10th, 2005, MSNBC seems to have run a piece on the hooraw about the ad — I couldn’t find it, and the links that are in the diaries don’t go to valid pages any more. Pity that.
Cthulhu is watching...
In any case, that week and a half added a new Tradition to Daily Kos, and that is why we call our knockdown, drag out arguments “Pie Fights.”