They Blogged for Four Months—Then They Shrank from Public Eye

By Larissa Slander in National Geographic Kids

When the mononymous John and Maddie published their first post under the Love Rag banner, their aim was not to darn the tattered tapestry of the world wide web. Yet in their four months of impassioned blogging in 2019, that’s exactly what their cult-like following credited them with doing.

Naturally, an artistic work as explosive as The Rag could not be without its detractors, some of whom called the blog “a chirpy cauldron of bad advice.” But for every outspoken critic, there were vastly more silent enjoyers. In fact, historians are generally in agreement that The Love Rag, despite its short lifespan, cultivated one of the most adoring fan bases of any independent gay-guy-normal-girl monogamous-leaning-midsize-city- based/owned love and dating advice blog. Some have even called it a zine.

Why, then, after a dizzying eleven total posts, did they abandon the project?

John answers with trademarked candor: “We went to juvy.”

Maddie, in classic good-blogger / bad-blogger form, is less forthcoming with the details. She responds, “Our joint incarceration is in the past. We want to focus on the future of The Rag. We got staff writers. We got an attorney. We got projectile weapons and our sparkle back.”

These days, the duo refer to blog’s original iteration as “season one.” So, just how many episodes lie ahead? The co-auteurs will tell you, “Depends on a lot of factors.”

And for this devoted reader, that’s more than enough.