you paid for this: dishing on hellogiggles III, a response to sophia rossi's substack

When I set out to write my new “column” about HelloGiggles in my bookletter (book blog?), I felt like one of the last people on the internet who even knew what HelloGiggles was. Even when HelloGiggles was a pretty big deal, it was hard to talk about. Not emotionally, but say “HelloGiggles” out loud. No one knows what you’re trying to say, and even if someone was familiar with the website, it took saying, “Zooey Deschanel started it?” complete with millennial vocal uptick, to get them to understand what I was talking about.

But I’m not the only person who knows what HelloGiggles is, and I guess I’m not the only person still thinking about it. Imagine me saying, “Well, hello, giggles!” when a former HelloGiggles writer (and one of my irl besties) sent the link to Sophia Rivka Rossi’s latest Substack, which I didn’t know she had.

My initial reaction to seeing Rossi’s Substack post titled, “Happy Anniversary Hellogiggles!” was distress. I felt immediately annoyed and knew I couldn’t handle reading whatever the hell she had to say about HelloGiggles. I had never really said it out loud, but I largely blame Rossi for HelloGiggles’s downfall, even if that feels unfair. I know the good corners of the internet never last, and obviously that isn’t Rossi’s fault. But some things certainly are.