Long-running webzine Pastepunk has announced that it's to cease publishing after 14 years online. The site, run by founder Jordan Baker, has long been a stalwart of the webzine community and was loved by users who left comments about their memories of growing up with the site as it shaped their music taste. The official news announcement opened with this explanation:
After more than 14 years of existence, it is time to close the doors on Pastepunk. I have long told myself that when the energy and excitement in doing the site was not there, it was time to put it to rest. Truthfully, it’s been time for awhile now, and I am sure that many of you have realized that through the sporadic posting and general pairing down of content.
Scene Point Blank is in the process of compiling a feature on music webzines titled Coalition of the Webzines (due to be published next month). As part of the feature we interviewed Jordan about Pastepunk and he's posted the article on the site. In the interview he hinted at some of his misgivings about continuing to operate the site:
I think webzines themselves are on the downslope as well. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to maintain a daily site and there’s very little advertising money available to support sites anymore. We went entirely ad-free in January 2011 – officially putting ourselves back into the hobby category with no real obligations to anyone else. [...] I know that I have experienced more than a few moments where I felt like I could accomplish whatever I wanted with Pastepunk through our Twitter account and not bother with the rest of the site.
Jordan says that he'll continue to run the official @pastepunk twitter account, so follow it now to keep in touch. On a personal note, we staffers at SPB are sad to hear of the demise of Pastepunk and the closure of another webzine in the same stable as us. We wish the best of luck to Jordan and the team in their future endeavours.
