Say you wanted to "incite hipsters the world over to revolt against mediocrity." Could your plans conceivably include paeans to serial killers, bogus alien-abduction stories, goth moralizing on the evils of heroin addiction, and disquisitions on the revealed theomachy of Jack Chick? In 1997? If you were faced with a brutal shortfall of time and money, possessed only a barely perceptible chalk-outline of conviction, and your name happened to be R. U. Sirius, the answer would be Yes. And the result would be "good."
Revolting, the newly launched webzine by the megacephalic, drug-abuse-tragedian, Mondo 2000 founder, is a gas. Everything about it is a megacliché, but while it seems a bit late in the game to simultaneously effect intentional lameness and sophistication, Revolting gets away with it. The design is atrocious - enormous JPEGs, scrawled type, bad tables. If only it had blinking text and a gray background, it would be the funniest commentary of the decade on HTML boilerplate circa 1994. The stories: tongue-in-cheek? Sure, in a "that's-not-my-tongue" and "oh-yeah-well-that's-not-my-cheek" kinda way.
In an interview with the publisher of Charles Manson's Web site, for example, serious discussion is generated about whether Manson is more of a "philosopher king" or a mere "messianic figure." Like the staged celebrity car-wreck re-creations in Crash, Sirius and co-editor Joshua Ellis smash together something pretentious, senseless, and much safer than it wishes to appear - but fun to watch, if only because the spectacle is a necessary and thoroughly enjoyable commentary on those who'd notice it in the first place.
Make no mistake, mine isn't an exercise in damning with faint praise. Revolting is clearly created with the express intention of being a hilarious, nonsensical, maddening egesta casserole, maybe even the "worst site on the Web" of sorts. God knows others have vied, albeit unintentionally, for that honor and failed. It's rare, then, to see the Revolting team succeed at this, and do so in a way that makes you want to return often, maybe even contribute. It's billed as "the news you deserve." It all depends on what you enjoy.
