Hi! I’m Jack Loftus. I work with content at the Boston-based ad agency Hill Holliday. I’ve written for Gizmodo. In the not-so-distant past I managed social media campaigns and SEO copy/programs for a large European online gaming company. Sometimes I blog about video games and interactive entertainment. Other times I write humor articles for McSweeney’s or Thought Catalog. A collection of my writing from the past nine years is below. Contact me at jackloftus @ gmail . com
Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is the online wing of McSweeney’s, founded by publisher David Eggers. The writing is based in humor and satire, with contributions from writers at The Onion, SNL and comedians like Steve Martin (who wrote one of the first columns). Oh, and me. Here are my most recent articles, with more coming soon:
Denny’s Research and Development Team Leader Doesn’t Have Time for Your Shit.
Gizmodo is a wildly popular gadget, technology and design blog within the Gawker Media network (published by Nick Denton and headquartered in Soho, NYC). All posts, features, headline writing and splash pages/art (basic examples below) from my stint as a Contributing Editor at Gizmodo are found here. Some of my favorite features, commentary and original reporting from nearly four years at Gizmodo are listed below:
- Self-Checkout Luddites Are Starting to Damage My Calm (Opinion)
- Today’s Texting Teenagers Are Getting Ridiculous (Opinion)
- Memory Lane (Gizmodo’s Memory Theme Week)
- The True Story of the Hurricane Katrina Lightning-Laser Memorial and the Peg-Leg Biologist (MIT Interview with Joe Davis)
- Get Ready Humanity, Because Space Is a Freak Show (Space Week)
- Experiment in Cord Cutting Shows Good Enough Is Perfect for Most (Hill Holliday’s TVNext)
- MIT Media Lab: The New Home for Face-Melting Research (Media Lab Grand Opening)
- The Geeky Serial Killer (Contextualized Short Post)
- Battle Power Love Babies (General News)
- In the Event of an Emergency, Place the Nearest Brassiere Over Your Nose and Mouth (Harvard’s IgNobel Awards, Paul Krugman)
- Experts Worry Toddlers Are Becoming iPhone Addicts (Opinion)
Thought Catalog is a number of things. Based in Manhattan, it is illuminating, informative, controversial, funny and most of all current. Writers hail from the Paris Review and Maxim, just to name a few. I’ve read it daily for a while now, but never contributed. Recently that changed when they accepted one of my humor pieces about the tiny birds that populate an iPhone game called Tiny Wings. I’ve also tackled the Bieber phenomenon with a tongue-in-cheek look at his religious beliefs and potential fatherhood.
Justin Bieber’s First Sermon On the Mount
Why We Must Embrace The Night: An Existentialist Moment With A Bird From The iPhone Game Tiny Wings
GamePro is an established, well-known video game and interactive entertainment magazine that has been in publication since 1988. All of my articles and short news posts from my days as an Associate Editor are available here in a simple-yet-completely overwhelming Google search index of more than 500 pieces of content. While at GamePro my focus was primarily on the big three gaming companies: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, although I also covered PC gaming, MMORPGs and industry news.
During my 4-year run at TechTarget, I wrote and edited daily as a News Writer covering Linux and open source software (registration wall). I also created and cultivated a successful blog called the Enterprise Linux Log, which is still active today. While at TechTarget in 2006-2007 I started to work on SEO headline writing, keyword research and editorial optimization for the first time. Here’s a handful of articles from the hundreds I filed during those four years:
- Firefox’s ‘Peter Parker’ Complex – 11 November 2004
- Red Hat: We Will Be Here In One Year, Novell Will Not – 3 November 2006
- LinuxWorld 2007 Package – 15 February 2007 (New York City)
Seacoast Online and the Portmouth Herald put their archived articles behind a paywall, but I swear I worked there right after graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in English/Journalism. While at the Herald, I was a beat reporter/stringer working the Portsmouth small business and technology scene. I also had a fun time covering the Democrats as they battled during the 2004 New Hampshire Primary:
- Covering the 2004 Presidential Primary
- Reporting on candidate John Edwards at South Church, Portsmouth, 2004
Working at GamePro helped get my work cross-published at a number of IDG sites, including PC World.
Other writing experience includes writing and editing as a Senior Editor at Infendo, a Nintendo fan site and weekly podcast published by Blake Snow since 2005. Content includes opinion, reporting, general news and product reviews.
Quoted
G4: Video Game Sequels: Does The Gaming Industry Have A Problem?
Punishing the Balloon Boy Hoax (The Week, 2009)