MEL Magazine

''MEL'' was a men's magazine headquartered in Marina del Rey, California. 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". The magazine has no advertisements.

''MEL'' was started in 2015 as a newsletter with five to seven employees. It was originally published on the third-party site Medium. In 2018, ''MEL'' reworked the site and transitioned from Medium to a stand-alone website. In 2017, ''MEL'' had approximately 1.4 million monthly unique visitors, which grew to 2.8 million by July 2018. In 2020, traffic grew 30 percent, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 4 million unique monthly visitors. On March 24, 2021, ''MEL'' ceased publishing, and all staff were laid off.

On July 7, 2021, it was announced that ''MEL'' had been acquired by Recurrent Ventures, and would be relaunching under longtime editor in chief Josh Schollmeyer. On July 22, 2022, ''MEL'' staff were laid off again. In December 2023, digital media group Literally Media, who also owns other brands such as Cracked.com, I Can Has Cheezburger?, Know Your Meme, and eBaum's World, purchased ''MEL'' for an undisclosed amount. As of , articles up to the 2022 shutdown of operations are still live on the website, though Literally Media has not restarted publication of new articles.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:MEL (magazine)
2015 establishments in the United States
2022 disestablishments in the United States
Men's magazines published in the United States
Monthly magazines published in the United States
Magazines established in 2015
Magazines disestablished in 2022
Magazines published in California
Modern liberal magazines published in the United States
2023 mergers and acquisitions