10 years of Heartless Bitching...
Well, in truth, it's been
slightly longer than 10 years, but April was when I walked into the ISP and
requested the domain name. It cracked
them up, and I became good friends with the administrator at that first ISP –
so much so, that I was the only customer to have “root” access on his
server. It's been many years and
several ISPs later, and we have a good hosting company now that I'm quite happy
with.
The Heartless Bitches International web site started late one
night in the fall of 1995, under the influence of alcohol. We were being bombarded by idiocy all around
us, gender stereotypes, and the "Blame someone else 90's", resulted
in an overwhelming number of people refusing to take responsibility for their
actions. My buddy MLR and I were commiserating on the insanity of it all. I had a personal set of Web Pages - the kind
that a handful of ISPs were letting people have for free back then. Under my home page title, I had a banner
stating, "a Division of Heartless Bitches International".
After a couple of beers, and
a serious amount of bitching about stupid, air-headed women, societal
expectations, suffocating "Nice Guys", and work environments that
chastise women for the same behavior that sees a man rewarded, MLR said,
"You know, you should turn that into a REAL website".
So we got a pen and paper
and amidst much laughter and groaning, wrote the first HBI Manifesto. On that night, a phenomenon was born.
I had NO idea it would last
this long. Really, it started as a joke
- a way to make fun of all the idiotic
EXPECTATIONS, and double standards that exist in society today.
Initially, was just one page
- and most of the manifesto you see today was created that fateful night over
10 years ago. But it invited people who
felt the same to "join up" and send me an email telling me why they
felt they belonged to a club that would call themselves "Heartless
Bitches".
It was a case of "if
you build it, and it strikes a chord, they will come."
I was inundated with emails.
I don't even know how they
FOUND the site, but they did.
I had unwittingly struck a
"collective chord", and in many respects, the site took on a life of
its own.
At first, I hand-converted
the "membership" emails to HTML and posted them, but the volume
continued to increase and I soon realized I wouldn't be able to keep
up if I stuck to that approach. But in order to host any kind of form on the
site, I would need my own virtual web server and not some freebie page off my
ISP. So on April 1, 1996 (how
appropriate!), I walked into a new ISP (there weren't all these registrars
available to register domains online), and got them to register
"heartless-bitches.com" for me, and set up a virtual web site on
their server.
On this new server, I was
able to have pretty much free reign, so I created our membership application
form. The "accepted" applications
are saved to one large text file, and processed by a perl script to generate
the "member" pages you see now. As time went on, people
suggested new areas for the site - such as our pop culture pages. The
discussion forum didn't start until 1998, and has gone through several
incarnations and software packages. Over the years, we have had new columnists
join, completely redesigned the site twice, and added thousands of pages of
content.
HBI has over 8000 registered
members - and that's after our stringent filtering process. Less than 50% of
applications are "accepted" for membership. Despite the WEALTH of
information on the site, it is stunning how many people who apply still JUST
DON'T GET IT. Registered members can snail-mail and receive a free membership
card.
Some little known facts:
- There has NEVER been any form of banner or
pop-up advertising on HBI.
- I have never paid to have the site advertised
anywhere
- If you put "Heartless Bitches" into
Google, we come up FIRST on the hit list.
- HBI has a google-rank of 6/10
- HBI is run by me and a bunch of volunteers. None
of us makes any money off of it. Not even me.
- In 1999, another site at
"heartlessbitches.com" tried to copycat HBI. (the domain was
originally a porn site, but the ownership had lapsed and someone else
picked it up). I sicc'ed a
trademark lawyer on them, and in 2000, the acquiesced and I acquired the
domain "heartlessbitches.com".
(I shall write in detail about that escapade at some point. It was
HILARIOUS)
- In 2002, Heartless Bitches International was
nominated for a Webby Award in the humor category, up against the likes of
sites like The ONION
- As far as I can discern, over 3600 other sites
link to HBI in some way.
- "Heartless Bitches International" is a
registered Trademark in the United States for T-shirts, electronic
magazines and plush toys.
- We have the COOLEST entry in Wikipedia, and I
have NO idea who wrote it, but THANK-YOU!
- Men CAN and DO become members, but they have to
pass the same filter as women - they have to show that they have a CLUE.
- I have made some of the most incredible friends
through HBI and traveled to Virginia, New York and San Francisco to see
them.
- One boyfriend I had was utterly jealous of the
time I spent on HBI. He's no
longer in the picture.
I work full-time at a
regular job in the computing industry, and I make my living that way. I never set out to make a living off HBI,
or turn it into a career.
The HBI Store and T-shirts
were an after-thought as a possible way to defray the costs of running the site, and
because so many people were asking for them.
The BeanBitches were just so freakin' cool, I had to have 'em! The site
isn't cheap to run - it's hosted on a server I own at co-location facility -
but I don't smoke, or race expensive cars, and my only vice is Red Wine, so I
treat it like a rather expensive hobby.
The shirts help defray the costs, but they don't pay for the site as
yet.
Volunteers have come and
gone, but some longstanding members (who call themselves SAMOTURE), have been
prominent in helping with the site and participating in the forums for almost
the full 10 years... The Bitchboard is fascinating. I love watching the interactions, and will on VERY RARE
occasions, participate. (Mostly, I just don't have time).
I'll admit, there are times when
the cost and effort felt like it was getting to be too much. But fate, or whatever
gods/goddesses you believe in, seemed to intervene at the very moment when I
would be ready to pack it all in... and without fail, at every one of those low
points, I'd receive an email (some quite poignant) telling me how HBI was their
sanity break in an insane world, or how it had made some fundamental change in
a person's life.
I never started out to do
anything other than make fun of the stupidity of social and gender expectations
around us, the unwillingness of people to take responsibility for their own
behavior, and the fact that "feminist" had somehow become a dirty
word. But somehow, Heartless Bitches International became something more than I
anticipated or ever planned for.
So what is in the future for
HBI?
Well, for starters, our
server is OLD and in dire need of "infrastructure renewal", so later
this summer, I will be porting the site to new hardware. At that time, I'll likely make some minor
changes to the site look and feel and navigation. I'm also in the process of writing a book (with the generous
editorial assistance of Instigatrix), which I hope to have on store shelves next
year. I have several "books"
planned, so hopefully this will be the first in a series. With the help of a
member, Mike, who is also a linguist, I am creating a new
"International" HBI T-Shirt, so look for an announcement SOON. And I plan to get Auntie Dote, Instigatrix
and myself doing some podcasts in the coming months.
What would I LIKE to do in
the long run? Well, in my perfect world, I would:
- Expand the HBI product line to develop and sell
directly the kinds of things we have at the Cafe-Press store, plus many
more ideas that I have for cool stuff
- Find a company to produce and distribute
HBI-branded products to brick-and-mortar stores
- Hold "Heartless Bitchcons” in the US,
Europe, and Australia.
- Write more books
- Stir up more controversy
- Make enough money off of the above to:
- Edit HBI full time, write more columns, and pay
honorariums to contributors
- Start a tween version of the site, for 10-14
year olds, that is edited by a tween staff with oversight from me.
("Gurl" is great for older teens, but has forums and content
not appropriate for those under 16) - I want to get them BEFORE they
start dumbing themselves down "for boys".
- Pay my "editorial staff" something
other than praise and my undying appreciation
I now have a great agent
with respect to the book and products, so opportunities and vistas are opening
like never before.
Stay tuned and see what the
future has in store!
heartlessly,
-Natalie
