Part 2 of Equal Time for Critics of Lookonline.com

Lookonline.com is known for editorials criticizing others for their actions, contents or deeds. But if you dish it out, then you have to be willing to take it! So in that spirit we want to share with you, our gentle readers, part 2 of our all time classic “put downs” of us sent in to us or to others about us. We believe by sharing these “gems” with you, we will give you a good laugh and it may tell you as much about the sender as it does about us. We will continue to post additional items as they come in.

New Item: Lucire.com Publisher Jack Yan Goes “Bonkers” Over Lookonline.com Publisher’s Criticisms:

Background: We are indeed guilty of not thinking much of Jack Yan’s Lucire.com “global” fashion site and telling him so. In fact, after we read some of the sorry things he said about our site in an article he wrote ( unsigned for a another site that he was both a contributor to and sponsor of)) last year about fashion sites on the web, we went back and took an even harder look at his site. Sorry Jack, but we think your site stinks! Let’s just say we have serious questions about, among other things, your continuing obsession with running so many press releases about women’s underwear as editorial. Alas, you can’t be loved by everybody. We suggest viewers take a look at the site and make up their own minds. We e-mailed our critique of some of his “articles” to his editors and to him on a regular basis via his personal e-mail address and to his site’s public feedback link (which he claims respects privacy) and we have set up a major link to his site from our main page with the description tag “so awful it is not to be missed”.

He did not like what we said. But not satisfied with responding to us personally – a simple “fuck you” would have made the point – he has filed several complaints with our web hosting company accusing us of sending spam – among other crimes – and imploring them to remove our site from the Net. But not satisfied with that Jack has just taken an even more dramatic step. Below is a letter (slightly edited – we changed the name of the organization to “XXX” – and reduced the length) he sent to the Executive Director of America’s largest fashion organization with a series of complaints about us so severe that, if true, he could even count on lookonline.com for support. Indeed, if Jack Yan wanted to circulate a petition to have Ernest Schmatolla run out of town (virtually), based upon what he claims the publisher is guilty of, we would sign the petition and he could put us down for a $100 donation to help prevent such a scoundrel from ever being near our women and children!!!

Well Jack, let this be a lesson to you. The fax was sent to us and we are under no obligation not to make it public. We have no way of knowing how many of these letters you has sent so we want everyone to read what you have said about us in your own words. But we can say for a fact that at least one person of note who got your fax takes none of this too seriously. Here is Jack Yan’s letter; the complete fax is available, with his signature, if anybody really wants to read it:

“A FEW MONTHS AGO, we were informed, through illegal unsolicted commercial email or “spam” that XXX has an association with a web site called The Look On-Line. Concerned about XXX goodwill, we wish to alert you to the fact that The Look On-line Inc is guilty of harassment and highly unethical marketing practices, in case there is an outside chance that its email is true.

We are additionally concerned as we have staff who are XXX members. (One of our magazines has consistently supported XXX with coverage whenever we can, including last year’s ‘Night of Stars’, which was Lucire’s cover story.) We fear emotional harm to XXX members who are claimed to have access to the Look On-line site … His stalking-like behavior is highly suspect. We have a 83 pp. file of his email actions since March 2001 which we know of. Detectives at the NYPD’s Computer Investigation and Technology Unit have a copy…The file contains mostly his messages, unedited, supporting our allegations. It contains one incident involving a member of the public who was spammed and then abused by Mr Schmatolla.

His fixation is unnatural, bordering on stalking through the internet. The only reason we have not issued suit is that other publishers and editors advise us to ignore him. However, when respectable organizations are duped into an association with a company whose methods are akin to those of multi-level-marketing schemes and internet pornographers, we become concerned. This letter is confidential, so we insist that our name not be mentioned. I may be contacted via email at my work address, jack.yan@jyanet@com, and will be pleased to discuss this sensitive matter with you.

Yours very truly,

Jack Yan, LLB, BCA (Hons.), MCA

Chief Executive”

She has a point. But we did make the corrections!

Please, please. please allocate some of your budget

for a proper copy editor — at the very LEAST, the

designers’ names should be spelled correctly, don’t

you think? Pat Field, not Fields. Ghesquiere, not

Guesquiere. Narciso Rodriguez, not Narcisso.

I don’t think you realize just how much these kinds of

mistakes detract from the overall presentation, and

how incredibly unprofessional and third-rate they make

your web site look.

Regards,

(name withheld on request)

Ernest

Publisher

Ernest Schmatolla is publisher of Lookonline since 1994. It is the longest running fashion site on the Internet.

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