With 262 million social media followers, 69 million unique monthly website visitors, and a collective global audience of almost a billion, the LADbible Group is one of Britain’s largest digital publishers. The content conglomerate has come a long way since its not-so-humble beginnings when single jpeg images of scantily-clad women constituted uploads. Now masses of original (and not so original) content is released through their platforms everyday, collected and curated by 350 employees across six international offices.
And yet, despite their size, the prominence of their content, the Orwellian inescapability of their brand, their unimaginable influence on public opinion and wellbeing, nobody really seems to know anything about them. But there's at least one women working on informing the masses.
In an exclusive to UglyGolfSweaters, investigative journalist Joan Roansoan shares an extract from her upcoming book.
It’s 10:26am. I’m in the lobby of a Brittania hotel waiting for my LADbible insider to arrive. He’s late. I look around and catch a member of staff throwing up into a rucksack. I check my watch.
The informant finally arrives at 10:45. My first thought is that he looks like a rower: white, late twenties, chiselled jaw, tall, built, wet, carrying an oar. He’s also wearing a baseball cap low on his forehead, under which I can just make out a pair of novelty Groucho Marx nose-and-moustache-glasses. Who was he afraid of? Was he being followed?
By 10:50 we are in the hotel room. The informant has placed down his oar and removed his cap, which he attempts to stuff into his pocket. The Groucho glasses have stayed on. I’m pretty sure he’s forgotten he’s wearing them but I don’t want to embarrass him by pointing it out. He shuffles in his chair.
I hand him a tea hoping it will put him at ease. There are no cups so I’ve made it in my shoe. He doesn’t seem to mind or even notice, he only glances at my dictaphone.
'This isn’t going anywhere, is it?'
I reassure him of his anonymity and explain the terms of the interview; that he can leave at any time and I won’t publish a thing. He finally appears to settle. I hit record as he takes a sip from my loafer.
'Firstly, can you tell me a little bit about what you do at LADbible?'
'I’m in the content farming department. We find viral content, mostly videos, and try to find and contact the owners of the content to see if we can repost it as our own. It’s pretty easy really. Sometimes we’ll have to pay for content but usually people just feel honoured to have it shared.'
'How much do you pay for reposting someone’s content?'
'Well, like I say, we usually don’t have to pay anything - or we’ll try not to. Sometimes if they are being stubborn and it’s a good piece of content we can pay £50, £100. Sometimes we’ll upload content without the owner’s permission and they’ll be difficult about it, so we’ll chuck them some money to keep them quiet. Most of the time people just want a shoutout though.'
I double check the equipment. He throws me a look that says, how am I doing?
'What is considered a good piece of content?'
'Whatever people are going to engage with. You know, shares, comments, likes. It’s sometimes hard to know how well something is going to do, but we have people scattered throughout the office who can predict that sort of thing.'
He goes to scratch his eyebrow but hits the rim of the novelty glasses. I watch embarrassment wash over him as he realises what he's done. He tightens up before removing them. I give him a reassuring chuckle, and he returns it. Suddenly we are chuckling together. He relaxes again, and I deliver the next question more casually as if I don’t really care how he responds.
'What about the office then, what’s the work environment like?'
'This is my first proper office job so I don’t have much to compare it to. It’s okay, pretty chilled. I think people think I’m more laddy than I am so I can fit in. There’s definitely a masculine vibe going on. Some do better in it than others.'
'Are there any women in your team?'
'No. The church forbids it.'
We stare at each other for a second. I break the silence.
'What?'
'The church forbids women in occupational positions.'
Yet another pause, this one especially quiet; so much to unpack.
'What church?'
I’m leaning forward now. He looks at me like I’ve just asked a very stupid question.
'The LADchurch.'
'There’s a LADchurch?'
He suddenly realises the type of person he’s dealing with - somebody who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.
'Sorry, yes, the LADchurch. It encompasses everything across the business: management, day-to-day life-.'
I interrupt.
'What sort of a church is it?'
'I'm not sure I understand the question.'
'What does it teach? What religion does it pertain to?'
I’m so eager for him to explain that I've failed to notice how aggressive I’ve become. He does his best to continue.
'The LADreligion. The teachings of the LADbible.'
'Hang on,' I take a moment and can’t help crack a smile, although I'm not really sure why, 'you mean to say the LADbible is an actual bible?'
'yes, of course.'
'It’s a real, physical text?'
'Well, there aren’t many physical copies but yes, it is a text.'
'What’s in it?'
He stops to consider his answer.
'Our teachings, the ways of the LAD, the origins of the LADverse, the commandments-'
'Commandments?' I respond loudly. It alerts me to my intense body language and tone. I compose myself and revert back to playing it cool, 'What are the commandments?'
'You want to hear them all?'
'How many are there?' 'Ten.'
'Okay.'
'I am the Lord thy LAD, thou shalt not have any LADs before Me.'
I gesture for him to keep going.
'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy LAD in vain.'
'Are they all just going to be Christian commandments with ‘lad’ shoehorned in?'
'Thou shalt steal… content.'
He stares past me in the way men do when they stop listening. He finds another gear and ploughs through the memorised list.
'Thou shalt kill… time. Thou shalt honour thy father-'
'And thy mother?” I Interrupt.
He breaks from his trance, coming to as if my question were a cup of water thrown over him.
'No. There are no women in the LADbible.'
'None?'
'Women are opposite the goodness of culture.' He briefly glances down at my breasts and remembers who he’s talking to, 'Or so the bible teaches.'
He looks uneasy again. I ignore his discomfort and move on.
'What do you mean by culture?'
He pauses and looks up to the corner of the room, like a drama student asked to convey reminiscence.
'Football.'
I go to respond but am interrupted by a banging at the door.
'Room service!'
The door is being opened before either of us can respond.
My informant is startled and fumbles for his glasses. In the panic he puts them on upside down. A plastic moustache and nose protrude from his forehead.
'I’m sorry we’re in the middle of an interv-'
I don’t finish the sentence. I am stunned to silence by the large Phil Mitchell-looking man entering the room with a trolley. He is squeezed into a maid’s outfit, one of those impractical black French maid’s outfits that no maid, French or otherwise, would ever actually wear. A long brown wig cascades like water over each of his bare shoulders.
My informant attempts to scream but makes no noise. He backs up into his chair as far as it allows, finally perching on the backrest, agape.
The Phil Mitchell-looking man reaches for an object on the lower level of his trolley. It looks like a cordless drill with a hole in the end. He lifts it up and points it towards the informant. I realise now it is a gun.
'Destingy belingy bon po boo de floo floo.'
Phil Mitchell starts speaking gibberish, a language from a country that doesn’t exist.
'Belingy dingy ding.' The informant retorts pathetically, like a man begging for his life.
Phil Mitchell smirks and exhales sharply out of his nose.
'Delingy.'
Whatever he says it sounds cool, like something Clint Eastwood would say before climbing onto a horse and trotting away.
Mitchell fires the gun. There is a large bang and a hole appears in the plastic nose on the informant’s forehead. He falls backwards off the chair. Silence.
The gun is swung in my direction. Phil Mitchell stares as if examining a threat. He adjusts a strap on his maids outfit and I briefly catch a glimpse of where it has been digging into his skin. Suddenly I am drawn back to the gun as it is cocked to be fired once more.
Before I can consider any reasoning for doing so, I lift up my t-shirt and sweater to reveal my bare breasts. There’s a long pause, more of a series of pauses joined together. The draft from the open hotel door flows over my skin and I feel cold.
Phil Mitchell glances down at my hardening nipples. He considers something momentarily before turning on his heels and running away. The wig falls to the floor as his footsteps crash off into obscurity. I am briefly reminded of a child I had recently witnessed fleeing from a freshly broken window. I snap back from the memory with my tits still exposed.
I lower my sweater and grab the recording equipment. As I go to leave, I trip over the informant’s oar. Embarrassment gives way to relief as I remember the only witness to the stumble is dead. I take a few steps and then remember something else: my shoe is somewhere in the hotel room and full of tea. I leave it. It’s no good to me now. I think of home as I stagger asymmetrically down the hallway.
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