Banterist was my weblog of original humor that I launched in 2004 on a lark.
I had originally posted a few comedy pieces to Craigslist Rants & Raves — a common outlet for folks at the time. A couple of the pieces got around and were picked up by Gawker.
I contacted Gawker’s then-editor Choire Sicha and told him the pieces were mine. He told me to “write more.”
So, I started Banterist. I had no idea what I was doing, other than regularly writing things that I thought were funny.
It became an eclectic mix of satire and social commentary. Written pieces were most common, but in order to maintain steady production of comedic material, I turned to other sources. Grammar Cop was a popular feature. All I needed to do was spot spelling errors.
Pop culture provided plenty of material as well.
Another popular feature was my Playmobil recreations of news articles, which landed me in the New York Times.
Over time, and thanks to repeated exposure by Gawker, I developed a following. That led to me writing humor pieces for Glamour, Cracked, and UK newspaper The Independent.
The Guardian called it a “must-see” humor weblog.
The quest to constantly generate comedic material made me look for inspirational outlets — one of which was eBay. I penned an ad titled “DKNY Men’s Leather Pants I Unfortunately Own.”
Incredibly (especially pre-social media) it went viral. 3.4 million people eventually saw the listing.
I was contacted by news outlets from all over the world, approached by producers, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,invited to job interviews, offered marriage and eventually landed an agent and a book deal.
Ultimately, Banterist helped introduce me to the folks who would wind up putting me on TV.
All started on a lark — because some guy I didn’t know told me to “write more.”
As parenthood and work took center stage, I let the blog trail off. I migrated a large portion of it to Banterist on Medium, to which I still occasionally contribute material, including the hit How to Talk to Your Child About Elon Musk.
