POST UPDATE NOTE: There will be some weirdness with photos temporarily — things need to be resized as we migrate from our old design to this one; we have a LOT of photos, so it will take a little while. Let us know about bugs, please, in the comments, but please know that we’re aware of the weird sizing issues and it will be resolved soon.  If you’re only seeing half a photo in a slideshow, that’s ALSO being fixed and just a temporary glitch. Thank you!

In noodling through our archives, we learned it’s been six years almost to the day since we changed anything about the appearance of Go Fug Yourself.

Back then, we spit-shined the masthead, added slideshows, and just generally gravitated away from looking like something we’d designed using amateur Photoshop and a Blogspot template (which, in fact, we had). Not everyone loved it — don’t we all hate change a little? — but y’all got used to it, and it was the right move. We’d skated by for six years at that point looking kind of crazy and homespun. And now, another six years later, we’re starting to look that way again. Our design is a little old-fashioned, a little yesteryear. So Thursday, sometime in the evening for the East Coast, we’ll pop online with a slightly different face. Don’t be scared: You’ll still recognize the logo, and it’s still the same old us (whether that’s an asset or not).

GFY-through-the-years

GFY though the ages: 2004, 2008, 2010, and today

Why change now, you ask? Honestly, we might have been too lazy to do anything, ever. Design isn’t our strength. We’d rather write. But the company that hosts GFY and handles our ads — and our tech support — asked us to switch to a more modern format that comes with some back-end bells and whistles that HOPEFULLY will help with faster load times and bad ad behavior. As you know, we’ve had a surge in irritating mobile and pop-up ads that are not behaving properly, and even turning off ad blockers wasn’t helping (though we do beg you to consider doing anyway, at least with the small sites you love); we’re told some of the forthcoming behind-the-scenes tweaks will make it easier to troubleshoot that, and ideally even prevent it. Although we’re sure there will be some bugs and weirdness to work out as we get back up and running, this change should help GFY run more smoothly, for a better reading experience.

And some of the changes will result in bigger photos, faster scrolling past stuff you don’t want to read, and hopefully an easier way to find the stuff you do — like, say, if you miss Jessica’s Downton Abbey recaps and want to fall down that wormhole again. We have even — SPOILER — made a way for you to read our WTF posts without any of the ones that focus on Kardashians.

We will miss this masthead, and this format, for sentimental reasons. But there’s no reason for the site to look as ancient as we ourselves do. So please forge ahead into the brink with us, and we hope you understand. Even better, we hope you like it. Spoiler again: We actually do.

The transfer is scheduled to happen today between noon and 3 p.m Pacific (so, about half an hour after this post goes up). GFY will not go offline during that time, but that does mean we can’t post new content until it’s complete — and comments will also be unavailable while the switcheroo is underway. That’s why all our entries went up up a little earlier than usual; we started with Nicole Kidman at 5 a.m. Cali time/8 a.m. East Coast, to offset the length of that pause. And soon we’ll be BACK, baby. As we move forward, please feel free to post any technical hiccups you notice in the comments of this post, so we can troubleshoot the inevitable bumps and bruises.

Hugs and thanks forever,

H and J

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