Liberal millennial websites are having a rough start to 2016. Ad revenue is collapsing, layoffs are increasing, and let’s face it — there are only so many stories involving cat GIFs or 90s nostalgia that can fit in between all the liberal news stories.
Vanity Fair reported on Tuesday that BuzzFeed, the king of millennial news, trivia, and personal essay websites, slashed its revenue projections in 2016 by 50 percent, from $500 million to $250 million.
The news comes after a devastating 2015, in which the company missed their mark by a surprising 32 percent.
So much of BuzzFeed news caters to 30-second attention spans, pop culture, social justice warriors, victimhood, and political tirades demanding everyone to “Feel the Bern.” That business model propelled it to the third most popular website for Gen Y, according to Millennial Marketing, surpassed only by YouTube and Spotify.
However, BuzzFeed is not the only outlet suffering right now. Websites catering to left-leaning millennials including International Business Times, Mashable, HuffPost Live, Al Jazeera America, and Salon have all been forced to lay off hundreds of staffers.
Vice Media‘s traffic dropped by a shocking 17.4 percent last month, forcing the publication’s head of ad sales out after just ten months on the job.
Nothing was more devastating for the millennial left than the utter collapse of the New Republic, after Facebook founder Chris Hughes bought and drove it into the ground. The New York Times reported that Hughes sold the publication in January.
Perhaps liberal publications, which often refuse to diversify opinion — aside from hiring a token Republican to be horrified by what the party is doing every five seconds — should be more open to dissenting opinions rather than simply serving as an echo chamber.
