One year after its Chorus relaunch, Vox Media’s ‘Racked’ blog pivots

Vox Media is all about relaunches. The company refreshed The Verge a couple of weeks ago with a cool, light new look and now, just a little bit later, it’s launching a similar new look on Racked. Only Racked already relaunched just last year in February. 🤔

Just like every Vox Media shift that means removing some of Racked’s unique charm in the hopes of finding a broader, boring, more Facebook-friendly audience. As Nieman Lab says, Racked is now searching for an audience “beyond young women”.

A big part of that shift is a new not-so-subtle focus on “shopping” as opposed to fashion

Compare the pair. Racked’s former description was “The smart source for fashion, shopping, beauty, and wellness.” Now the site describes itself as “Shopping, for real life.” Eh.

From the announcement post:

This gets to the simpler, more personal reason I am so dedicated to creating a brand that talks about shopping realistically: Working in fashion often made me feel bad about myself, and I am determined to change the norm.

In Vox Media’s trademark fashion too that means growing the brand to meet the needs of men and other people who like the very broad ‘shopping’ category.

To make our new focus a reality, we’ve hired our first dedicated menswear and beauty reporters, as well as a director of visuals and a robust video team. We’ve recruited new voices, including the inimitable Aminatou Sow (our new editor at large, whose new video series you must watch).

This kind of shift isn’t new for Vox Media. This is the same company that turned Polygon, a gaming website, into a gaming, comic book and culture website. It’s the company that turned The Verge, a tech site, into a technology culture, gaming, tech, gadget, tech and animal-review tech site. Vox.com also covers culture, while Curbed and Eater still cover just real estate and food. I’m sure Vox will figure out a way to integrate culture into both some day soon. Maybe an Eater series on the best food product placement in Netflix series?

Racked is also making a big deal about their new video link, which goes straight to Facebook, while the blog has also removed dedicated region-specific categories, such as ny.racked.com. You can still access that sub-site via the hidden URL. The site is also reverse-chron and a lot faster, just like the new Verge look, with a less feminine logo (I guess, I like the old one better but I also liked that content more too).

Rest in peace fashion.