A big problem with Vox has always been that it is one of the ugliest websites ever. I don’t know whose idea it was to go with yellow and white. And then there is the big image layout that screams to the reader, “Space is cheap; graphic designers are expensive!” But to top off everything else, Vox apparently thinks that its content is so valuable that the vast majority of its front page should be dedicated to an advertisement.
Doubtless Ezra Klein and company are correct. And there is something to be said for one really big ad on the front page rather than than literally dozens of ads using a megabyte of bandwidth on every page of Washington Monthly. Although we will have to wait and see. I’m sure advertisement clutter will be a growing phenomenon on Vox. Still, the “British Petroleum Owns This Site” opening is a bit much.
You see, it is set up to look like Vox itself — except, of course, BP has enough money to afford graphic designers and so the ad doesn’t look as awful as the rest of Vox — they were constrained by having once decided on a nice corporate color. It provides the typical Vox four-column layout. And each explains great things that BP is doing for Alaska, Louisiana, Texas, and the whole United States of America. I feel all warm inside knowing that BP — formerly British Petroleum, formerly Iraq Petroleum Company, formerly Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, formerly the British Empire™, nowa multinational corporation — is out there looking after the interests of ordinary Americans like myself.
It’s sad though. Vox is part of Vox Media, the brainchild of liberal icons Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas. It doesn’t matter who you are, it seems, we all shill for our corporate overlords. You want to read about how foreign corporations are subverting American Democracy? Sure thing! But first, let’s take up your entire screen to explain to you that BP is just looking out for the land of the free and the home of the brave! Oil spill?! You say there was an oil spill?!
That’s the kind of ad I’d like to see on Vox. But I guess when it comes right down to it, we liberals are a bunch of whores. Speaking of which, I’d really appreciate it if you bought your Amazon stuff through this Frankly Curious link. And yes, I do expect a little credit for not taking up your whole screen for that bit of whoring.
