SuicideGirls > Pin-Up Punk Rock and Goth Girls: Pictures, Journals and Videos.

In looking for military contractors, happened upon this site cmolpetely unrelated to it (from a comment on one of the boards.) Interesting site though. In addition to the regular features of an online community (save the addition of erotic photographs of selected members) they have a touring burlesque show, clothing/merchandise and magazine--along with other celebrity interviews. The members (both men and women--though the women are obviously central) seem to have a diversity of conversations--but most of them seem really tapped into various forms of public life, almost all of which is outside of the mainstream, yet they seem equally involved with pop culture at large. Maybe it is a product of the metropolitan/cosmopolitan location of the site and its photographers (LA, NY) and editors.

Speaking of that, unlike other sites like meta filter or plastic which are basically just community weblogs, this site also has someone pulling some of the strings--an editor or group of editors who arrange some of these outside media events. It is also unique--though I'm not sure how I feel about it--in encouraging women to send them nude/erotic photos--which can then only be viewed by members who have paid a fee to see them. This is simultaneously liberative and exploitative or, more fittingly, it is very commercial, but in a sense quite outside of the mainstream. It also has the effect of creating an air of celebrity to these "ordinary" members so that other members choose their "favorite suicide girls"--presumedly people they've never met but who they might have spoken with over the chat rooms (so it is far more personal than celebrity in the mainstream, but still there is something going on there.) At the same time, one way or another, the women who do this, become more eligible to also take part in offline events--there is a music video on the site which evidently features the "suicide girls" as set dressing. In this sense, becoming a fully invested member is also a sort of alternative resume process (or is presented as such.) To look at this alongside the astronomical explosion of amatuer p-sites--and especially the young ages of these women--I am curious what is going on with sexuality at this time. Then again, to look at the number of hits this site gets (or at least the comments left-- a little under four million) it isn't all that large of a community (though they did get nominated for a webby ward.)