The New York Observer
  • Betabeat
  • Politicker
  • GalleristNY
  • Commercial
  • VSL
  • PolitickerNJ
  • Observer
  • Betabeat
  • Politicker
  • GalleristNY
  • Scene

The New York Observer

Follow @NewYorkObserver

The Internet's 9 Best Advice Columns

LAST
/
NEXT
By Kat Stoeffel 1/28/11 11:21pm
Next in Observer

Elsewhere: Pure Mindless Luck

  • 7. Pot Psychology
    Start The Slideshow

  • Back Forward 7. Pot Psychology

    7. Pot Psychology

    On Jezebel's Pot Psychology Tracie Egan-Morrissey and FourFour's Rich Juzwiak get stoned and answer questions on totally SFW video. Well, Juzwiak does. Egan-Morrissey mostly eats and fixes her hair. But she looks really cute doing it!

  • Back Forward 9. Dear Sugar

    9. Dear Sugar

    Dear Sugar is the anonymous agony aunt of The Rumpus. Reading it requires slogging through some overwritten personal anecdotes and a pile of "sweet pea"s, but Sugar's the only female (we think?) advice column willing to deliver the so-specific-you-cringe sex advice that you just know someone needs to hear. She ends posts with beautiful, infinitely reusable aphorisms like, "We are here to build the house."

    The Rumpus

  • Back Forward 8. Since You Asked

    8. Since You Asked

    The Slate advice column by weird hat vehicle Cary Tennis is the opposite of the Times' Ethicist, all prosaic and self-indulgent screeds. He used to be a favorite Gawker target because he writes exclusively in baffling, fragmented sentences. ("The world we live in is right here. The barriers to the ideal are also the water we drink and the air that we breathe.") Don't ask him for advice, but watch gleefully from afar.

     

    SFGate

  • Back Forward 5. Savage Love

    5. Savage Love

    Dan Savage's libertine but practical sex advice is so good MTV is delivering it to teenagers as an antidote to Skins. He's an important gay rights advocate too. He founded "It Gets Better" and is the progenitor of the neologistic Google-bomb  "Santorum."

  • Back Forward 4. Social A's

    4. Social A's

    Rest in peace, defunct Awl column Social A's with Emily Gould. Putting the blog world's most charming oversharer on other people's problems was inspired. Equally important, she had the good taste to answer the etiquette questions that matter, like what to do about embarrassing blog comments from older relatives. And when no one wrote in, she made up even better ones.

  • Back Forward 6. Hey Ron!

    6. Hey Ron!

    Ron is the online advice columnist of Vice. You're hard-pressed to find another advice columnist who specializes in Oedipal problems and signs off with "love."  Vice may be the least qualified moral compass in the history of the press, but someday you might find yourself with Vice-grade problems. And then you'll know where to find someone willing to admit that when your buddy tells the girl you like you have herpes so she'll get with him instead, it's "a straight-up knuckle-up situation."

  • Back Forward 3. Ask A Dude

    3. Ask A Dude

    The Hairpin's Ask A Dude column uses a form is lifted directly from Cosmopolitan, but doesn't feel like it's written by aliens. The dudes are sensitive, anonymous and rotating, and the questions are real-feeling and humiliating. Just another way The Hairpin is making women's mags obsolete. Too often the advice boils down to "move out of Brooklyn."

  • Back Forward 2. Dear Prudence

    2. Dear Prudence

    Emily Yoffe, author of Slate's Dear Prudence, is the Internet's highest moral authority. When you have a problem that you can't tell your mom about because it's too shameful, but you really need motherly advice, write to her. She can handle everything from anal sex to, well, how to talk to your mom.

  • Back 1. Ask Barf

    1. Ask Barf

    Lesley Arfin's Ask Barf is a great girly corner of the otherwise douchey Vice-spinoff site Street Carnage. Her advice combines what you want to hear ("Why aren't you at a bar doing Irish Car Bombs and making out with frat boys?") and what you need to hear ("Fears are wishes.") Arfin wrote a memoir about her wayward youth and addiction recovery, which kind of explains everything. Her native chillness and all the internalized self-help books bubble up in every column.

    The Selby

Comments

  1. M says:
    August 7, 2011 at 9:27 am

    How could you have left out Carolyn Hax? Along with Sugar, she is the absolute best.

  2. ashlee jewel says:
    August 25, 2011 at 6:34 am

    she’s bout to be my new favorite Best Thing Ever.  so touching ^-^

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Google +1
  • Email
  • Print

Home

Send

If you'd like us to follow up in regard to this tip, please remember to leave some form of contact information.

Send

Most Popular

Betabeat

Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Is Putting Out an Album of ‘Blues-Based Guitar Rock Nuggets’Teenager Ruins Perfectly Good Sleepover By Destroying Friend’s Roleplaying AccountAnd Lo, Twitter Has Finally Granted Us Two-Factor Authentication

PolitickerNY

Queens Councilman Tells Anthony Weiner to Drop OutNot Everyone Is Returning Anthony Weiner’s CallsAnthony Weiner Says He Can Win Gracie Mansion

GalleristNY

‘Julie Mehretu: Liminal Squared’ at Marian Goodman Gallery‘Dirty Looks’ Film Series Plans Second July-Spanning ‘On Location’ FestivalShandaken Project Announces 2013 Summer Residents

Media

Get Life Advice From AJ Jacobs And His Facebook 'Friends'Last Night at the Webby Awards, Patton Oswalt Tried to Give David Karp a WedgieCeleb Stunts Turn Williamsburg Into the New Times Square

Real Estate

Building On a Boneyard? Preservationists Beg Steiner Not To Put Luxury Condos On Former Cemetery SiteCity Selects Developer For Affordable Housing Slated To Rise On Architectural Graveyard In Williamsburg Nice Apartment If You Can Get It: Gershwin Heir Sells $5.4 M. Central Park West Pad

Culture

Abercrombie and Fitch Finally Apologizes for CEO's Awful CommentsCannes: Kristin Scott Thomas is Saving Grace in Only God Forgives and Robert Redford Puts the Oscars on Notice Celeb Stunts Turn Williamsburg Into the New Times Square

Opinion

I Like BikeHate Crime in the VillageSilver: Stay and Deliver

Commercial Observer

5WPR Inks Deal for 39,075 Square Feet at Minskoff’s 1166 Avenue of the AmericasMorning linksNYC Retail Heat Map
Specials Home Observer Scooter Video
Subscribe to The Observer

Across the Wire

  • Crowdsourcing

    Get Life Advice From AJ Jacobs And His Facebook 'Friends'

  • Grave Developments

    Building On a Boneyard? Preservationists Beg Steiner Not To Put Luxury Condos On Former Cemetery Site

  • Up & Down the Street

    Permission to Splurge: Whole Foods Isn't Just About Where You Buy Your Food; It's About Who You Think You Are

  • Abercrombie's Public Face

    Abercrombie and Fitch Finally Apologizes for CEO's Awful Comments

  • Petty Politics

    Andrew Cuomo Shares Fred Dicker’s Private Email With All His Competitors

    • Classifieds
    • Job Listings
    • Legal Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service
Powered by WordPress.com VIP
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.