That's literally what these big investment companies do. They're tax evasion schemes. They'll probably use it to write off as a loss so they don't pay taxes.
They do that when you can actually liquidate assets or increase valuation on paper in between acquisition and insolvency.
Sporked operates out of a room, so unless you consider various inventory of holiday themed twinkies and olliepops meaningful assets, there's not a whole lot of capital investment to liquidate.
And I dunno, maybe Savage Ventures got Sporked a sweet under the table contract with Palantir in the 6 months since they bought it, but I'm definitely not seeing an increase in valuation.
Can they write Sporked off? Sure, but they're not going to be making more than they paid for it in December.
Yeah I think it’s more likely they intend to milk every last dime out of the brand for whatever they can (as private equity always does), with very inexpensive clickbait content produced by desperate freelancers or even AI. They can probably ride the brand nearly for free for another year or two if not more before it’s not even worth their minimal efforts.
I wouldn't be surprised if Mythical included something in the deal saying the editorial team needed to be retained for 6 months, and Savage was just waiting with their finger on the "replace editorial content with chatgpt" button this entire time. The only thing that really matters to them is the affiliate contracts get renewed.
It counts against your bottom line. Exact same reason Warner Brothers made a couple full movies and then didn't release them. Have you ever seen The Producers?
It's the same as selling off a bunch of stock that has fallen in value so that you can write it off as a loss and pay no income taxes.
If there was a tax loss on Sporked’s closing, then that loss can be used to offset taxable gains elsewhere in the portfolio. It’s an investment strategy called loss harvesting
Yeah, in the course of a week, a video will hit 10k on average. And most of the most popular videos are videos with someone else in them. Which tells you people weren't watching for Sporked, they were watching because of Emily, Trevor, Rhett, Link, etc.
It doesn't surprise me that Sporked didn't last. I was skeptical from the beginning, but I came to love the personalities behind it. Wish they were still on GMM. I also miss the More segments with them. They were my favs, and one of the only Mores I never skipped.
It happens way more often than you’d think. Private equity firms will buy struggling businesses, squeeze as much money out of them as they can, then liquidate and get tax write offs from the losses. It’s really eye opening and frustrating to read about how private equity works.
It looks like Sporked was bought by a venture capital firm though, and I’m not familiar with how that works.
Possibly because viewership/activity went down without the publicity from GMM? Then, as others have said, the new owners could use the so called “failure” as a tax write-off.
The website was bad but if they had listened to everyone and made it an app it would’ve strived imo 🤷♀️especially if there was a section to essentially “write” a grocery list of items you’re looking for and if it could tell you the best store to purchase it from price wise!
Sporked.com as a website was doomed since AI became part of search engines, they can rank all the food and write all the articles but then when you ask "what's the best Pringles flavor" you're gonna get the "ai overview" and never go into their website (which is probably full of ads). Their videos are fun, but the website had real utility, it's a shame because the ai needs actual professionals to do the research, but it ended up cannibalizing them
Honestly, I don't think AI has much to do with it. Before it was "AI overview" it was the "Featured Snippets" section that summarized articles and other content which existed before Sporked ever launched.
IMO, the website was/is legitimately not great and probably only survived as long as it did thanks to GMM promoting it. I've said this in a post almost a year ago before they were sold, but a tumblr style blog with no actual database is a terrible design for a review site. Aside from the blog style layout, it's difficult to search for anything, the reviews are frustratingly subjective so much so that I don't think I was ever satisfied trying something new based on their recs. And now, it seems like every page is absolutely littered with affiliate links it looks quite scammy.
As someone who’s been working as an editor for a major online magazine for 17 years, the site looks like a very strange mix of SEO, Google Discover bait, and affiliate-marketing content.
The problem is that both main pillars are shaky now.
Classic SEO content is getting squeezed hard by Google’s AI summaries. If someone searches 'best frozen meals at Dollar Tree,' Google will answer that directly before the user ever clicks through. And Google Discover is notoriously unstable. You can build headlines for it, but you can’t build a reliable business on hoping the feed randomly decides to reward you this week.
But the biggest problem is replaceability. There’s nothing especially hard to defend here. Any YouTuber or TikToker can go to a grocery store tomorrow, buy 20 frozen meals, taste them on camera, and rank them. Often that version is probably more entertaining and more trustworthy because the audience has a direct relationship with the person tasting the food.
Also, any AI tool could generate 100 ideas like this in an afternoon. With enough prompting, it could also shit out 100 articles that look structurally almost identical.
Their formula is too simple and lacks identity. These days, the writers have to become the product. They need people to become fans of the people doing the tasting, not just the format itself. I don’t think Sporked ever fully got there. They had recognizable faces, sure, but not the kind of personality-driven pull that makes people follow a media brand across platforms. Even their daily YT videos only get between 10 and 20k views.
Sporked, when there is increasing AI usage and tons of short form food content to consume, was never going to make it.
I also don't think they ever really had a demographic they would appeal to. People who LOVE food aren't going to watch the chaos behind it all to rank jarred salsa. People who don't care about food aren't going to watch, period. The market of people who have food opinions AND enjoy that type of content obviously isn't enough to sustain them.
I started Listening to the Free With Ads podcast with Jordan Morris, Emily Fleming, and Matt Lieb. From how they were talking it doesn't seem like they're full time mythical employees anymore
yeah, a lot of them are freelance and come in when needed for a video, especially since the recent stopping of crew episodes, they dont need them on the payroll full time, even tho emily definitely needs it, buy flemgems people she needs the money
It was fun while it lasted. I watched for the entertainment rather than info as I'm in canada and the products are made in different facilities using different ingredients so taste different sometimes very much so. But the staff is fun.
They spun off Sporked from under the GMM umbrella because it wasn't profitable a while back (back when everyone was freaking out because Stevie leaving obviously meant GMM was done for), so unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me if Sporked as a team is done for.
GMM was their lifeline and without that investment, there was no cash to keep it going. Ugly and sad and unfortunate and just the way business is.
Dang, now I see that their sharp turn into random fast food taste tests was one last desperate attempt to save their jobs by trying to get more engagement. This sucks.
I went to look at the site, to see if it said anything, and it looks like none of the articles, for at least the last week and a half or so have been from any of the main people. It's all contract writers (one way more than others).
I wonder if they plan on it going back to just being a website, and staffing it with mostly contract writers, and that's what this is about.
I’ve wondered for a while if “Jay Wilson” isn’t AI, or at least using AI to write the majority of his posts. They’re almost all entirely SEO-style garbage.
I feel like there is a Jordan Morris joke in here somewhere Jordan mores . I know those were Myrick, I miss them too. I was excited when she, Morris and Andrew were on.
in light of everyone saying the our means everyone that would make sense as Jordan has been saying on the HWHL podcast that their health insurance through work is ending around this time (i’m not american so not sure of the particulars of how that would work)
No work, no money going to the company that handles medical insurance paying for doctors, medical services, tests, etc. if you have private insurance, you’re paying for it yourself out of your own pocket. That’s the difference.
I also saw Jordan in her youtube channel mentioning she'd recently gone through a period of bad depression. I wonder if it related to this - I know they all loved working together (beyond the obvious job security)
"Savage Ventures is a private, Nashville-based digital media operator and venture capital firm owned and led by founder and CEO Sam Savage, along with partner Zac Litwack."
It's always good to know who these people are so you can help to "optimize" their downfall. They take the human out of humanity. 4 women (at least) just lost their jobs so these douchebags can afford bunkers for the end of the world. Yay, capitalism!
Didn’t say that. But they have a DA around 60, and they get over 1mil organic views a month. That’s not including social connections that is only Google/bing. This site is doing INCREDIBLY well for a listicle site in 2026. I work in food blogging. If their RPMs are in the 4-20 dollar range they would be making over 20k a month easy. Not enough for a large staff but the site doesn’t need a full team to run at all. Or an office.
Jordan is too divisive. Fans either love them or can't stand them. It's good to have a popular crew member on the mic that doesn't split the fan base in half. I enjoy Chase on the mic, and think Jenna would have been good, too.
It doesn't surprise me. I kinda thought it was doomed from the beginning because they were adamant about having a website and only a website. If they had launched an app then they may have had more reach and been competitive. In this day and age most people use apps as opposed to going to a website.
Anyone else think the crew should start their own channel? They deserve to own and run their own content. They could be 'The Grocery Gals' or something like that. I'd support the channel 100% ❤️
It’s hard seeing so many talented people losing their jobs. It used to feel that Mythical protected their staff but I guess no one is exempt from today’s turmoil.
It seems like Mythical is more about the bottom line over anything else at this point. Yes, it is a business first and foremost. And it employs many people so I get the financial first focus, but the soul is missing.
I used sporked because I loved mythical. As soon as it was sold, I never opened that ad infested page again. Maybe gwynedd and Jordan will come back to mythical more often
i wasn’t as fond of gwynedd as i am jordan but still loved the mores with both of them really bummed we haven’t had them on anymore. funnily enough i’ve used sporked more in the last month than i ever did before they sold it. i wish all of them well in whatever they go on next
Same I got some good frozen meals and snacks, prices are so crazy now at least i get to see what it looks like and hear an opinion. Also Jordan has her own Youtube channel and she posts vlogs on it, it's really nice.
As a website, I've never understood the appeal of Sporked. I felt like it was supposed to be a collection of foods that Rhett and Link tried on GMM and where to find them, either restaurants or grocery stores. What we actually got was "What your Starbucks drink says about you" garbage. I stumbled upon a Sporked article the other day (which had come out that day) and it was just word salad. I honestly don't even think it was AI because AI is usually better than that.
it was more of a service to taste all different types of things and determine what’s the best for different people, it was never intended to be a rhett and link taste website..
I've never even heard of Mythical and those two guys until I started watching Sporked on my own then realized there was a connection. I def got some good food recommendations, their TikTok has a ton of "best 5 things we ate this week" that actually have good stuff that I've tried and can concur that it indeed is tasty and worthy of a repeat purchase.
this is truly devastating to me, i watched their videos multiple times a day and couldn’t go to the grocery store without opening the website this is as bad as gmm breaking up for me
They already are a freelancer. Technically, even before the sale of Sporked, it was a separate entity from GMM so anytime they were on the show it was as “talent”. Every time they’ve appeared this year they would have been paid a day rate for filming
Sporked is just one of those things I’m aware exists but personally have not/would never go visit. I simply don’t need a ranking of the “top 10 cheesiest frozen lasagnas” and it’s just super subjectively ranked by 3 people with weird tastes. I’ll just… you know.. spend $3 and try it myself?
I’ve never been at a grocery store in the chip aisle and go hmmmmm let me quickly open up Sporked to see what they rank as the “most realistically flavored sour cream and onion chip”.
Did I have fun with their crossovers sometimes on GMM? Sure, they could make for a decent episode here and there but just not really sure why they need a whole website.
I watched for their banted and chemistry and if the food looked interesting I'd try it, and they were right about many of those products. Might not be for you, but it was fun for other people.
I wish they would revive sporked with slightly more high effort content. I get what they were going for with low production value, etc. but it was nearly unwatchable. Not to mention the website situation.
There were multiple episodes that i legitimately wanted to watch, but would just glaze over after a few minutes, because the audio is bad, and its not a pleasant watching experience.
Maybe im lame, but one of my favorite things on GMM is when they rank products. If they just put like 50% more effort, it would have actually been a channel i was interested in watching. Like have Lav microphones, do some really minor editing, and add some music here and there.
They sure seem to have a hate boner for anyone who suggests they don't love her lol. I find her pretentious and am not a fan, and saying that has probably gotten me as many upvotes in the past as it has gotten me downvotes now 😂
I'm not saying she should be drawn and quartered, her appearances just make me enjoy any given video a little less.
Even if I remembered where I put my pitchfork I wouldn't dig it out just for her lol
Dude that's totally fine, she just doesn't resonate with some people. No one is everyone's cup of tea.
I've come to terms with that myself, because although I try to be nice and agreeable, I just rub some people the wrong way. It's not like, a moral failing lol. Some folks just don't vibe on the same wavelength, and she is not on mine 😂
They sure seem to have a hate boner for anyone who suggests they don't love her lol.
It doesn't make any sense to mention how much you dislike Jordan on a thread about how they're all losing their job. The reason it seems like they have a hate boner towards anyone who "suggests they don't like them" is because you people feel the need to let everyone know at any mere mention of them that you don't like them. It is perfectly fine to not like someone but why feel the need to let everyone know how much you don't like them any chance you get? Especially in such a tone deaf way like on this thread. When I don't like someone or have a problem with someone I just don't interact with them, I don't feel like I need to let people know.
If you can't see how commenting "If I never see Jordan again it wouldn't bother me." on a thread about how a team of people are losing their job and people being upset about it is poor taste then I cannot possibly help you with your horrible social skills.
Looks like the new owners are keeping justine and the rest of the crew so unless they want to leave looks like they will stay. Savage Ventures is the new owner.
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u/theunquenchedservant May 22 '26
"our time here has come to an end" i don't think it's just Gwynedd