I’m actually kind of bummed right now. Television Without Pity is going to be shutting down as of April 4th.
If you’ve never heard of TWoP, well, it’s a site that does — or did — long recaps of TV shows. (Primarily, anyway. They also wrote movie reviews and covered award season and the like.) A reviewer would be assigned to a show and would write recaps of every episode, long, detailed, extremely snarky recaps. I’ve been reading TWoP since I was in junior college, so . . . about ten years now, and it’s no big shock to say that it’s been an influence on my own writing and certainly on this blog. I totally dreamed of getting a part-time gig working there someday, and I kind of can’t believe I won’t be able to read it any more. Seriously, ten years I’ve gone to this website pretty much daily. It feels totally strange that it just won’t be a thing in about a week.
Dammit. This is depressing. I think I might have to bust into my ice cream for breakfast.
My Geek Blasphemy 
Even if I did enjoy a number of the new recappers, I do think the main site has been slowly going downhill since Bravo bought it and most of the old staff trickled out – but not the one I really hated, Jacob. Still, the site was heavily involved in my pop culture education and my egalantarian politics. I found this site when I was about 13, and I think it was the first place I saw people having serious discussions (in the TV Potluck section, and later the Movies General Gabbery section) about racism, homophobia, or sexism in modern culture. My parents are kinda conservative, and they just never mentioned stuff like that – or homosexuality at all – when I was growing up.
Due to their strict moderation, I also found it one of the easiest places on the net to have an intelligent conversation about film and TV.
It’s funny. I know the forums were a big part of TWOP, but they were the one part of the site I never really touched. I’ve always felt kind of awkward on forums, though. Mostly I just read recaps, reviews, and news. Oh, and always spoiled myself for shows I hadn’t watched yet by participating in the big summer polls. I think TWOP spoiled me for at least half a dozen shows, though I’m sure I’ll manage to do that on my own without it.