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Sorry about that random little break. But we're good now, and we're back with sex, celebrity, and politics...With Teeth.

By Lauren Tousignant | December 11, 2023 | 9:00am

Photo: Twitter (Other) Latest Jezebel

When Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022, I was on a bus traveling to Massachusetts for a wedding. It’d been almost two months since I was hired at Jezebel and, despite the fact that we’d been preparing for this possibility for weeks, I went on autopilot. I was scared, sad, and (most of all) really fucking angry. And my brain, for one split second, forgot that I worked for Jezebel and instead, it told my nervous system to do what I’d done so many times over the last 10+ years whenever the news got ridiculous, infuriating, or just plain heartbreaking—go to Jezebel.com.

I started reading the site as a sophomore in college in 2010. That summer, Jezebel published “The Daily Show’s Woman Problem,” and as a Jon Stewart fan and aspiring journalist who wanted a career that combined comedy and news, this sexism was not something I’d noticed. And the story put a nice, fat crack in the facade of my unknowingly still-naive worldview. Ever since, my worldview has been shaped by Jezebel and the words of Anna Holmes and Jennifer Gerson and Jessica Coen and Rich Juzwiak and Jia Tolentino and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Joanna Rothkopf and Clover Hope and Laura Bassett and Susan Rinkunas.

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So when I learned Jezebel was being folded, my first thought wasn’t, “Shit, we just lost our jobs,” and it wasn’t, “Where Margarita 10:15 a.m.” It was, “What the hell am I going to read now?” I’d go so far as to say that I feel raised by Jezebel and, as evidenced by the outpouring of tributes in the days after it shuttered, I’m not alone. The site’s DNA—sharp wit, searing takes, a commitment to in-depth reporting, and an overall immunity to bullshit—were formative to my identity as both a journalist and a feminist…as they were to an entire generation of women and non-binary people who’d been made to believe their anger was hysterical, their humor was unbecoming, their experiences of discrimination and assault were their own fault, and their voices only necessary for makeup recommendations or diet tips.

I am not interested in a world without Jezebel. And, as we head into 2024, I am extremely not interested in a presidential election without Jezebel.

But (if you haven’t picked up on it already) Jezebel is back. My goal as the site’s new Editor-in-Chief is simple: Keep Jezebel as weird, hilarious, and rightfully outraged as ever. (Unfortunately, now that I have a job again, I have about $2,000 of unused coding classes I don’t know what to do with.) Expect to see a lot of familiar names and the same standard-setting content as we work to expand Jezebel’s readership and reach, and bring in as many new and disruptive voices as the cosmos will allow. I hope you’ll join us in Jezebel’s new era. It’s going to be a dancing-naked-under-the-full-moon-in-a-supernatural-graveyard-with-all-your-friends kind of blast. I’ve never been more excited in my life.

<3 Lauren Tousignant