The Toast, a popular blog run by Nicole Cliffe and Mallory Ortberg, officially shut down on Friday, even though the owners say that the website will stay up “basically eternally.” Cliffe and Ortberg announced the decision back in May explaining that revenue has been down and that Cliffe had to use her personal account to pay payroll a period of time.
Cliffe tweeted about the exit, saying “please [sic] remember the real lesson here, which is that new media is an unsupportable business model & you should bail out now and get real jobs.”
“like [sic] you can be very popular and have tribute pieces and clog up everyone’s Twitter w[ith] treacle for your final week but not make enough money.”
The two owners teased a surprise on Friday morning at 10 AM and the surprise was revealed to be a post from Hillary Clinton. Cliffe explained in the editor’s note, “This is not a joke. Hillary’s team had talked to me a few weeks back about doing something, but I didn’t want to do, like, a “If Hillary Were Your President” type thing, and then they got in touch on Wednesday and said she wanted to write something HERSELF (it seems her people show her Two Monks or what-have-you on long campaign days) and I said only if it was funny and they said “she was thinking more heartfelt?” and here we are.”
Clinton wrote about the importance of places for women to gather and talk and brought up her experience in the Senate. Clinton was one of thirteen female Senators in 2001. She discussed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s dinner parties for female Senators and wrote, “Over a glass of wine — okay, maybe three — we’d give each other support, advice, and highly relevant tips to navigate being in such an extreme minority.”
Clinton encouraged the readers to be vocal, “I hope you’ll also look forward and consider how you might make your voice heard in whatever arenas matter most to you.”
“Thank you, and as my friend Barb would say — keep giving them hell. We’re counting on you.”
The comments below expressed shock at Clinton writing for The Toast and messages of support for her presidential campaign.
The final post, written by Ortberg, features a image from 30 Rock and asks, “Are you still here?” Then proceeds to tell the readers to “Get out of here!”
An earlier version of this post incorrectly called the image a GIF. It has been corrected.