By Charisse Massay
This site was an interesting one especially since I was the target
audience. Nikki Douglas seems to be going for a 17-29 age group. Although
it looked like many other teenage girl empowerment sites that I had
seen before (e.g. Seventeen and YM) but the article content was astonishing.
There was little to no fluff and all the articles were down to earth.
I found myself reading articles in their entirety instead of skimming
as I usually do on websites. Looking through the archived files, many
of the titles jumped out at me and I wanted to read all of them. The
website covered a wide array of subject topics including "Five
Reasons AOL Sucks," "Anatomy of a Jack Off Queen,"
"Secret Trekkie," "A Grrl's Breast Friend, "Media
Masochism" and "Naughty Frat Boys."
The site had no advertising (which I found refreshing) although there
was a link to a certain bath and body website. It was for a small
company that made all natural products and the corresponding article
in riotgrrl seemed like an advertisement. The article was very personal
though, one of the writers had bought a series of products and relayed
her experiences to the reader. In another article, Douglas talks about
how she has never wanted ads on her websites, instead she does most
of the work herself and has three or four people working with her.
She claims that this method has kept her website alive while others
have died.
I'm not certain what makes this site any different from all of the
other strong female role model sites but it was definitely entertaining
and informative. The women and man who work on the site also seemed
like fun people according to the short bios available. I also found
that because there are only five authors and designers involved in
the site, it was easy to get a feel for each of them as individuals
and therefore more interesting to read their articles.
One major problem I had with the site was accessing current material.
One of the articles in this issue was "Sexriot" which is
blocked by a password. I signed up for the password and receive one
but I still could not get access to this part of the site. The security
for those under eighteen years of age was pretty light but since it
was a completely free site, that is to be expected. I was somewhat
upset that I could not access this one because the archived "Sexriot"
articles were engrossing (because of content and style). Although
when reading one of the articles, I clicked on a link called "bitch"
and was forwarded to a porn site. When I tried to close the window,
it opened three more and I found myself in a plethora of pornography.
I didn't mind because I was in my room on my computer but it would
have been a sad thing had I been in an Athena cluster.
A major question that first hit me was, "what is a grrl?"
After reading the articles and probing the content of the site, I
came to an incomplete definition. A grrl is a woman who has a strong
self image; a woman who is ready to tackle everything that life throws
at her with a healthy and youthful attitude and will not be bent by
life's tasks. The play on the word girl simply means that we (as a
gender) don't have to grow up. I plan on visiting the site again but
in the privacy of my own room.