Shakesville

Lissamine Green said:
Dox on him?

I remember this all like it was yesterday. I always found her demands for money and obedience shockingly forward.
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I don't think Iain McEwan is VP of anything but the Golden Corral Fan Club. He and Melissa live(d) in Shitbox, Indiana, in a normal suburban house (that's now listed and looks cleared out and staged, so I guess they recently moved). The cost of living in Indiana is extremely low, so it's easy enough for Iain to take care of everything while holding a middling job, plus Melissa used to earn nominal amounts from her writing for sites like The Guardian, HuffPo, etc. (though of course those days are long gone).

Edit: I have to eat my words and say my bad to the person who brought up Iain's VP position. It's true: Drink the Shaker Kool-Aid once posted a screenshot of his LinkedIn. He's some sort of VP for an investment company.
 
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Melissa is taking a break until September 1st to deal with pain from cluster headaches.

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Melissa has announced that Shakesville has reached the end of the road.
When I left on hiatus a few weeks ago, I had every intention of coming back after an extended break. I thought there might be a possibility the break would need to extend longer than I had anticipated, but I expected it would end at some point. That I would feel better and be able to get back to the work I love.

But it's become clear during my time away that I have reached the end of this road, and I don't want to delay having to tell you the inevitable. After nearly 15 years, exactly one-third of my life, I am moving on from Shakesville.

The thing is, I am feeling somewhat better. I have days without cluster headaches now. The incidents of vertigo have diminished a bit. My hair has stopped falling out in clumps. My infamous garbage gut is noticeably less garbagey. I'm not constantly on the verge of a panic attack. These are all great things! I am so happy about them! But I am also painfully aware that these improvements have only happened because I stepped away from this work.

That's a message I can't ignore. And although I'm not one for signs, my laptop died yesterday as I sat down to open the blog dashboard for the first time in weeks. Welp.

I love this community. I love writing for you. I love the research and the silly photoshops and crafting nerdy political jokes. I love talking about our individual lived experiences and learning from you. I love helping people find and access resources, or figure out a tough problem, in private communications. I love seeing pictures of your faces, your kids, your pets. I love making you laugh, and I love how often you make me laugh.

I don't love the nature of the content about which I've been writing, especially these last couple of years. But even that would be tolerable, if it weren't for everything else that I am obliged to navigate as part of being a fat feminist woman writing in public. I don't need to recount it. You've seen enough to know that it is a steep cost, and it turns out that even I have limits. I have reached them.

The truth is that I reached them a long time ago, and I stayed far longer than I should have, and now I'm paying the price with both my psychological and physical health.

So I'm going to go take care of myself. I don't know what's next after that. I'm frankly pretty scared, because I've been doing this for a long time and it's a huge part of who I am. It is very difficult to let go.

I am endlessly grateful to all the people who have been kind and generous to me over the years. I have made so many amazing friends. I can't put into words how much the moderators and contributors mean to me. There aren't words big enough. They are extraordinary people, and I am lucky to know them.

I am abundantly thankful for Iain, who encouraged me to start this blog and is now encouraging me to take the time I need to get well. He has been my champion and has had my back. He has taken every risk with me. This community owes him a lot. I owe him a lot. I love him like whoa.

I feel like there is so much more to say, and that I could never say everything I want to.

This is so hard.

So I will just get to the practical stuff.

I disabled my Twitter account when I went on leave, and I'm not going to reactivate it. It's not a healthy place for me, and I feel much better for not looking at it.

I will be disabling my Patreon — which, yes, I just started, lolsob; I really wasn't planning on quitting! You will need to cancel your PayPal subscriptions. (I can't cancel them for you.) If anyone who made a donation since July 16 while I've been on break would like a refund, please email me and I will make sure to return your donation promptly.

Also email me if you just want to keep in touch!

Naturally, please feel welcome to organize in comments if someone wants to set up a new community space.

Shakesville will stand as an archive. And because I don't want this sad post to sit at the top of the page forever, I will, in a week or so, republish one of my favorite all-time posts, which will greet you anytime you stop by for a visit in future.

(I'll leave as a surprise which one it is.)

I don't know how to end this post. Y'all mean so much to me. I hope this place and I have meant something to you. I did my best.
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Whoa, her goodbye message is probably the softest, kindest, and seemingly most self-aware I've ever seen her. Old Melissa wouldn't have even offered a Paypal refund after providing no content, lol.

I still strongly dislike her and think she's a creepy narcissist, but she's too thin-skinned to be an online political presence. The blog is fucking pointless if it's causing nothing but stress and not bringing in any money anyway.
 
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Oh, look. It's the liveliest Shakesfail has been in ages. And it's Melissa's final flounce from her blog. Good fucking riddance you narcissistic POS.Screenshot_20190824-205056_Facebook.jpg

ETA: Timing fail. I hate when life gets in the way.

So this post by a former Shakesville contributor has been circulating recently. It's pretty good, though it glosses over a few of the more infamous blowups, like the Mary Daly debacle: https://theoutline.com/post/7887/shakesville-golden-age-blogging?zd=2&zi=hyw2kuad

In light of this, academic and renowned Shakesville footlocker Aphra_Ben had something to say to keep her pathetic self relevant. The article she references was Melissa's whiny screed against the original Shakesville Kool Aid site.
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I wish I could add the Inactive tag to this thread.
 
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Man, old school SJW forums were gold mines back in the day. But you can go on any college campus or niche subreddit nowadays and find the same batshit insanity and its enablers.

Also that name made me think of a knockoff Shake Shack for some, reason.
 
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