Interview With Go Fug Yourself Bloggers
The Fug Girls Take About Blogging, Books and Celebrity Fashion
For five years, the bloggers behind the fashion blog Go Fug Yourself have been humorously critiquing celebrity fashion and style. During that time, Go Fug Yourself has achieved far-reaching acclaim, with everyone from Time Magazine to Cosmopolitan discussing its humor and style. Go Fug Yourself has also led to TV appearances for the bloggers on VH1 and several other networks. The Fug Girls, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, wrote a 2008 book based on the blog and have a new book in the works.
Suite101: Why did you start your blog, Go Fug Yourself?
JESSICA: Heather and I were at the mall one day, and we noticed that most of the billboards and ads were TERRIBLE. No one looked good in them. So we started joking with each other that maybe fugly was the new pretty -- it's what all the kids were into now. We were really punchy that day, I guess, because we found the whole thing highly amusing, and we just started the blog as an inside joke for each other.
Suite101: Did you ever imagine it being as popular as it is?
JESSICA: Not in the least. I literally never thought anyone would read it other than maybe our friends.
Suite101: How many readers do you get in a typical day?
JESSICA: It depends on what's happening -- during awards season, we get more traffic than we do in the middle of summer -- but we get about 3 million visits a month.
Suite101: Did you engage in any marketing for your blog?
JESSICA: We did not. We got very lucky that the blog really grew by word of mouth. Defamer linked to us very early on, which was huge as far as building our traffic went. We were also fortunate in that we had a bit of a built-in readership because we both used to write for Television Without Pity.com, and were able to attract some of the readers we had from there.
Suite101: How long did it take for it to become popular?
JESSICA: We've been writing the blog since 2004. I honestly can't remember when traffic REALLY took off. We did quit our jobs to work on GFY full time in 2006, though.
HEATHER: I do remember very early on when we hit 1,000 readers a day, and I was like, "WOW. This is CRAZY." Little did I know.
In The Fug Girls on Fashion, Blogging and Books, Heather and Jessica discuss their book, The Fug Awards, their upcoming book and the worst celebrity fashion trends.
Calling Out Fashion Wrongs
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