So yesterday news broke that major publications Brooklyn Vegan, Alternative Press, Revolver, and Goldmine suffered a widespread mass firing of almost all employees except for their founder. The companies owned by Veeps (founded by Good Charlotte‘s Benji and Joel Madden) were taken over by them between 2024 and 2025 before being sold 51% stake to Live Nation.
This follows this past April when Sony had mass layoffs that hit Metal Injection, Metal Sucks, and The Blast Beat Network.
We wanted to sit down and do a serious and open talk though about how this affects the industry as a whole. From the top level outlets as those listed above to the lower independently ran ones such as us.
With the loss of these outlets, aside from what is now hundreds of people in the industry being out of work, press is at a loss as whole. For all those that will troll or cry that these outlets deserved it, throughout their decades of work they’ve helped bands of all shapes, sizes, genres, and more get known to both new fans and old fans.
Metal Sucks and Metal Injection commonly gave a platform to new and rising acts. Musicians would do column pieces shouting out bands of all sizes down to new unsigned acts they had stumbled upon. Brooklyn Vegan has very openly for years praised the punk and hardcore scene giving smaller bands shoutouts to a world wide audience.
Now with these outlets being bought out and sold to the likes of Veeps and now Live Nation, you’ll lose it all. The chances of such major companies shining a light on smaller acts who aren’t already bringing them in a profit through tours isn’t happening. You won’t be getting open and honest pieces on art of any medium as it’ll be pushed more to support those in their own pockets. Love them or hate them these outlets were instrumental in the upbringing of so many giving them a place to check out for new music.
Its equally as disgusting post firing to watch these corporations keep these social media channels open actively liking posts from acts directly involved in this happening ie Brooklyn Vegans page liking recent posts of Good Charlotte performing alongside Hillary Duff.
I’ve seen the discussion online that this will bring back the likes of zines and independent outlets so I want to take the time to openly discuss how running one works and the costs of it. I’ve been doing this for 16 years now and can state that running one is a full time unpaid job almost. Social media is a blessing and a curse because of it also. So I’ll do what most won’t and peak the curtain back on things.
For those that follow us on Facebook we have just over 150,000+ likes. Now a common post will get shown to less than 1% of those who like the page. Instead it’ll get pushed to people who don’t like it and in the event that a piece starts to gain traction will get shown to maybe 3-5% of those people. Instead Facebook, before even posting said post, will ask what budget I am willing to spend to get more of a push shown to my followers. The answer remains the same as always, zero. Instagram, X, Threads, etc are all worse than that even.
Now those that followed us previously as New Fury Media know we had to rebrand. Since that issue we can’t gain our money from Facebook even so that puts us at an immediate loss. Ad revenue comes so infrequently and pays so little that every 6 months or so when it does hit, it doesn’t cover 1/4th of the costs of ONE month for the site.
So lets breakdown social media payments. We’ll use our post about our coverage of Evanescence that, as of this writing, was posted 2 days. 10,911 views, 171 likes, 20 comments, and 1,095 engagement for a grand total of $2.11. For reference posts from that same time period are gaining anywhere from $0.03 to $0.21. Our Evanescence post was shown to 7% of the pages followers giving it instead to 93% of people who have no interest or knowledge of the band.
Websites cost money too. So it comes out of pocket. While costs may not be breaking the bank expensive, in our case it comes to around $65 a month currently. As the site grows costs grow as well. So as independent outlets continue to pop up just as many shutter down. Post Covid I’ve watched numerous friends, fellow industry members, and more close their sites due to just out of pocket expenses mixed with social media hiding their content unless they paid for it be shown.
This doesn’t even factor in sites that don’t have major financial backing doing it for the love of the game. As we openly discussed, if the site isn’t profitable (which no independently owned one is), there is no margin for a staff to be paid. Our writers and photographers do this simply because of their love for the art. Being able to promote both the stadium tours and festivals down to hot new bands releasing their first EP or album, being able to put out what we love or don’t love in not just music but sports, gaming, film, and everything in between is a treat.
With the closing of these major publications though, we lose the ability more and more to do so. Major artists block press, especially the ones that aren’t on a national news type level such as those listed above, and while its amazing to support newer bands you also need a mix to bring in a crowd. Its great to have someone find a new act, or film, or game, because they stumbled upon it by another article.
What this will lead to though is major corporations gutting these industry known names and instead keeping their shell to push only their narrative or even worse, running it as AI clickbait instead. While clickbait is commonly coined as a bad phrase, the chances of these places now just pushing out slop to fit who they are backing only stands as a possibility to happen.
Will zines and more sites pop up from the ashes of these. Possibly. However with a social media craze that hides those without a huge wallet and the costs of monthly upkeep it stands to reason that this may just hurt everyone as a whole.
While we remain true to keep ours open and showcasing music of all genres, film, gaming, sports, and more. Its sad to see colleagues both known and unknown be taken down instead of vice versa.
