MEL Magazine was a men's magazine headquartered in Marina del Rey, California.[1] Originally funded by Dollar Shave Club, Mel has been described by New York Times journalist Amanda Hess as "the rare men's magazine that has taken upon itself to investigate masculinity, not enforce it."[2] The magazine has no advertisements.[3]
 | |
| Editor in Chief | Josh Schollmeyer |
|---|---|
| Categories | Lifestyle and culture |
| Publisher | Michael Dubin |
| Founder | Josh Schollmeyer, Michael Dubin |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Final issue | 2022 |
| Company | Recurrent Ventures |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Marina del Rey, California |
| Language | English |
| Website | melmagazine |
MEL Magazine was started in 2015 as a newsletter with five to seven employees.[3][4][5] It was originally published on the third-party site Medium.[3] In 2018, MEL reworked the site and transitioned from Medium to a stand-alone website.[3] In 2017 MEL had approximately 1.4 million monthly unique visitors, which grew to 2.8 million by July 2018.[3] In 2020, traffic grew 30 percent, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 4 million unique monthly visitors,[1][6] however, on March 24, 2021, MEL ceased publishing[7] and all staff were laid off.[8]
On July 7, 2021, it was announced that MEL had been acquired by Recurrent Ventures[9] and would be relaunching under longtime editor in chief Josh Schollmeyer.[10]
On July 22, 2022, MEL staff were laid off again.[11][12] As of June 2024, past articles are still live on the website.
In December of 2023, digital media group Literally Media, who also owns other brands such as Cracked.com, ICanHazCheezburger, KnowYourMeme, and eBaum's World, purchased MEL for an undisclosed amount.[13]
