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I Hired a Content Farm to Write About How Content Farms are Ruining Journalism

By COREY LEVITAN

Short of ideas for articles, I turned for help, as so many businesses do, to outsourcing. In 2004, the U.S. outsourced $104.6 billion in services. And thanks to the rise of online job marketplaces, hiring cheap labor for one-time projects is now possible even for a sole business proprietor like me.

iWriter is one of several content farms offering original web content on the jarringly cheap. Instead of professional writers, they employ amateurs — the premise being that the distinction is no longer relevant since no one reads discriminately enough anymore to perceive it.

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When Your Date Would Rather Kill Herself Than Finish the Date

By COREY LEVITAN

It hasn’t been a full life if somebody hasn’t hated you enough to sprint 1,000 feet down a 30-degree embankment, filled with loose rocks and cactus and ending at the shoulder of a major freeway, rather than remain inside a car with you.

This was how my first date with Caryn ended. She was an adorable, 22-year-old redhead I had met at some music-industry function. I was 30 at the time. We hit it off and I asked her to the opening of B.B. King’s Blues Club Universal Studios Hollywood.

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