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Tired of 'Clickbait'? West Loop Resident Says His Prsuit Website is For You

By Stephanie Lulay | April 13, 2015 5:41am
 West Loop resident Casey Kenny (left) has created new website Prsuit, a publishing platform that aims to speak to
West Loop resident Casey Kenny (left) has created new website Prsuit, a publishing platform that aims to speak to "motivated millennial men."
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DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay

WEST LOOP — West Loop resident Case Kenny has news for the "clickbait" publishing websites of the world — he's not buying what they're selling.

In an effort to speak to the generation of "young but motivated" millennial men, 26-year-old Kenny launched Prsuit.com, a men's lifestyle website.

Kenny, who has a background in marketing, said his generation — which grew up online and plugged in — is increasingly skeptical of the Internet's clickbait copywriters. Online publishers have traded great content for Top 10 Lists and ''How-To's,'' he said.

"There's a lack of substance, " Kenny said, pointing to Buzzfeed and Elite Daily as examples. "'Ten ways to be successful in life'? What does that mean? Tell us a story and then say what you learned from that."

With Prsuit, Kenny hopes to give his generation a platform to share stories to inspire other like-minded men, an outlet that he thinks is sorely missing.

"If you look throughout history, humans, mankind has progressed because of storytelling," he said. "But that's been lost from a publishing standpoint. You're not finding stories that reflect on people's experiences — things that they failed at, things that they succeeded at."

Kenny, who serves as editor-in-chief of the site, launched Prsuit a year ago, attracting more than 100,000 unique visitors to date. The website relies on writers' submissions, which are then vetted by an editorial team mostly based in Chicago. Prsuit does not pay writers for content yet, the founder said, but he hopes to change that as the website grows.

Still, quality content is king with an audience of driven young men, he said.

"I turn down [submitted] stories a lot," Kenny said. "Sometimes it's because the writer is not as good of a writer as they think they are or because they're writing to a mold to what they think content should be."

The site's editors also seek out previously published stories from the "millions and millions of blogs out there" that aren't well read, but are housing great content, Kenny said.

The website has received more than 500 submissions from writers across the country and world, and more than 200 writers have been featured on the site so far, including best-selling authors, startup CEOs, young professionals and artists.

Millennials come to the website to look for experience-based content, Kenny said, like new submission "My Startup Failed," a collection of lessons by Jason Huertas, a University of California Berkeley alum whose first start-up failed. Other trending stories include, "Why I started a passion project and you should too," "Raw Lessons From a Male Model" and "Why I Don't Drink Coffee."

While Prsuit has had some success partnering with large brands to gain traction from advertisers, rejecting the clickbait model means the website is attracting fewer advertisers, and ultimately fewer advertising dollars than competitors, Kenny said. Because the website is focused on fostering quality content during its start-up phase, Kenny is OK with that for now.

"We're not trying to be a viral site," he said. "But monetization will come."

 

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