Digest 10/21/2022

Semafor, a blight upon the internet.

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DAY 4 AND STILL NO SEARCH BAR
Evan Kleekamp

After weeks of polluting our timelines with ads for his forthcoming global hegemony media service, Semafor, former New York Times columnist Ben Smith has launched what may be one of the ugliest, most useless news sites in contemporary media.

Without a working search bar, swathed in drab colors, and presented in a font that I would describe as “international art English,” I am convinced that Smith et al. launched the site solely to collect our email addresses. Rusty Foster and the team at Gawker already clocked the formulaic structure built into the site’s user interface, which makes me wonder if the site was launched half-baked. (The bolded styling at the top of each paragraph has since been removed.) 

And before you cast your stones, let me be the first to say that Study Hall has a hideous, dysfunctional website. Though that could change very quickly with a Semafor-sized infusion of venture capital.

 

WHAT ARE THE CLOCKS FOR
Willy Blackmore

Semafor is a website for the 200 million English speaking college grads across the globe, as cofounder Ben Smith cryptically explained early this year. That intended audience is referenced right at the top of the newly debuted website, with a row of time-zone clocks spanning that anglophone world from DC to Lagos — and BXL and SG? I don’t even know what those acronyms stand for, and I’m not about to Google them. 

Below the clocks, a grid of recent stories puts the reporter’s name — and portrait — above the headline, suggesting a certain authority and familiarity with the authors, much like recurring columns appear in British publications like The Guardian or Financial Times (another publication with a signature “paper” color). There’s a decidedly raised-pinky feeling to the whole thing. Looking at the butter-yellow website over the past few days, I can’t get past the notion that I am the wrong kind of college educated (midwestern land-grant university, arguably useless BFA in printmaking) to be a Semafor reader. 

 

A COLOR FOR MIGRAINES
Jane Drinkard

What is that color? And moreover, why?

According to this UX design color psychology chart I found, the Semafor tone falls somewhere between having the emotional impact of “desire” and “cheerfulness.” Though what I felt on Tuesday morning upon opening up the tab was something more akin to “severe migraine.”  (Also looking at you, Gothamist.)

Even the august Columbia Journalism Review was talking about the “faded yellow background,” which was likened to  “a newspaper left out in the sun” in an AP story. That’s close, but doesn’t quite nail it. I polled my (pretty small group of) Twitter followers to see how they would describe the pallid beige and pulled some spicier names. New York Magazine City Editor Chris Bonanos wrote, “Greek guy’s skin tone during worst-ever hangover.” One producer called it, “agéd manila folder,” while another went with “jaundiced NYT.” But to me, it’s “S(em)afari khaki,” signaling readers that we’re about to embark on a global adventure helmed by a group of white men.

 

I HATE THIS DUMB WEBSITE
Erin Corbett