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Nerve.com
What was it like working out of your apartment?
I remember feeling like we were a real family. Rufus and I lived there, but eventually there were people working there at all hours. It was everyone's house, not just our house, so I had to learn to live with, uh, no privacy at all. That was fun, and hard. Those first few years, everything was back-burnered for Nerve. I think that's what happens when you start a business.
Did you have an obligation to make it appealing to women?
That was definitely my first priority. At every turn or new development I would ask, is this for the female audience or not? I think I appealed to women as the face of Nerve, because I seemed to be a regular person. When people would meet me, they would say, "Oh, I thought you were going to be in head-to-toe leather!" or "I thought you were going to have tattoos." Or be, you know, basically, much cooler than I really was. The same thing with Rufus. We were kind of this regular couple.
What were some moments you remember?
Launching the print magazine was a huge moment. I was heavily involved in the photography at the time, so all of a sudden all the photographers wanted to shoot for us. I'd been sort of begging and pleading for people to contribute their photography, but the web was still not considered a legitimate place to show your work. But print magazines were where it was at. So all of a sudden all of the photographers that I'd been hounding for years wanted to publish in a Nerve print magazine. So that was really fun. But more than that, it was great to finally have something to hold in my hand and show my family and shock them. It was a very exciting time.
What about the HBO party?
I think that might have been a turning point. Until then, we had been just this scrappy little company. We would throw great parties that got talked about. HBO heard about the great Nerve parties, and they wanted to help us throw one, so they could film. It was part of a pilot for a show that didn't end up working out. And that was where we went from being just this scrappy little shop to, I felt, something too commercial. The space was lit by 1,000 strobe lights. It was not the intimate, cool, dark atmosphere anymore. There were professional models walking around serving drinks, and professional dancers. It was like someone else's vision of what we were.
We had all been given these outfits to wear, and none of us wore the outfits, so HBO was
"I had so much fun. Every minute." |
really mad at us for not wearing the clothes we were told to wear. I think they were mad at us the whole night because we weren't performing — we weren't acting like the people that they had envisioned for their show. And I was just trying to come to grips with the fact that it was too bright. They took the mike off me at one point. They lost interest, and they told me to go do my own thing. That was an interesting moment.
What were some challenges of being a Nerve editor that you haven't had at any other editorial job?
I find it's the same challenges that I've had as an editor at any job. I'm always trying to get writers to be more honest and be more personal. I think what's made me successful as an editor — I have a really good bullshit detector. So if someone's trying to sort of gloss over a really painful or emotional truth in their life, I'm good at teasing those truths out.I thought I was going to be a book or magazine editor, which I did end up becoming, but I thought I would be at Doubleday or Mademoiselle magazine. And here I was editing this sex site. But I had so much fun. Every minute. I couldn't imagine a job that would be more exciting.
Are there any pieces you're especially proud of publishing?
One piece that I remember loving was by Stacey D'Erasmo, about gay teenagers. We got out of one person's head and looked at how sex was playing into the big picture.
Tell me about the print magazine folding.
It was a bummer. It was probably inevitable. None of us were incredibly shocked by it. It's so hard for print magazines to make a go of it. To compete, you have to have really deep pockets, and we had very tiny pockets, so we couldn't sustain it for more than a year. But I'm so glad we did it. I feel like it's this relic of the time.
The print magazine market is even worse now.
Print magazines are just tough, no matter what. I think it's just so damn cool that Nerve still exists. None of our friends from that era are still out there, they've moved on, their magazines have changed, but Nerve is still there. It's so awesome.
What did you took away from it?
It was great for my career. It was great for my confidence. It helped me meet a lot of the writers I still work with today. I think it's opened a lot of doors for me. I'm proud to have done something that was pretty revolutionary for its time.
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Gwynne Watkins is a consulting editor of Nerve and editor of the urban parenting website Babble. She's also a playwright and lyricist. Her most recently produced plays were about Wonderwoman and space pirates, respectively. |
©2007 Gwynne Watkins and Nerve.com |
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