Introducing Ranch Baby

Hi friends, and welcome to Ranch Baby!

Like many writers/journalists/online people before, I’m taking the leap and doing it: I’m starting a newsletter. The world is mostly bad, might as well be online in a new different way about it. 

For those who don’t know me personally ... Hi! I’m Mel Woods, I’m a writer with nearly a decade of experience making stuff online. I’m currently the senior editor, audience engagement at Xtra Magazine, where I make TikTok videos, call out transphobia, and help bring our award-winning journalism to readers around the world. Prior to joining Xtra I worked at the late, great HuffPost Canada until its untimely demise in 2021. My freelance work has appeared in the CBC, Slate, VICE, The Tyee, The Walrus, The Globe and Mail and a bunch of other places. I live in Vancouver. I have two perfect cats. I play competitive Magic: The Gathering and I love ranch dressing (obviously). 

So, why a newsletter and why now? Part of this is a result of the turning of the calendar page. In 2025 I want to write more, and write more for me. Maybe my long-gestating book project will actually get off the ground this year; but a newsletter is a good start. The other part is that all of our social media platforms are falling apart and I’m grasping for something to hold onto. I feel like you might be doing the same right now.

And now you can join in that grasping by subscribing to Ranch Baby. ✨

Why subscribe to Ranch Baby? 

Subscribing to Ranch Baby (it’s free!) will get you semi-regular writing, observations and commentary on the things we’re all talking about (or at least the things I’m thinking about.) Ranch Baby will serve as a gathering space for updates on my work from the content I make in my day job, along with other freelance stories and media appearances. This is not meant to replace the work I do day-to-day, but rather be a new space to bring that work straight to you without the mess of these social media platforms. The stakes are low, and we’re going to be a bit looser here and have a bit more fun. 

This is an evenings and lunch breaks and weekends project, so we’ll start things slow and with very little structure. But I’m excited to write some things (both silly and serious), and also get to be a bit more in touch with my community. 

The origin of the Ranch Baby

The name Ranch Baby harkens back to my internet journalism origin story. While out at pub trivia during grad school in early 2018 (coincidentally, not long after the last time my beloved Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl), I jokingly told my friends I was going to write an article ranking ranch dressing brands. Two beers deep at the bar, I pulled out my laptop, wrote a 150-word pitch and sent it off to the VICE Canada general pitch line, not expected to get even a rejection, let alone an acceptance. 

But the next morning at 7:30 a.m. I showed up to my media law lecture, opened my laptop and saw it had been forwarded to an editor at Munchies, their food vertical at the time, accepted, and then I got paid $300 USD to eat a bunch of ranch and do a bad photo shoot in my East Vancouver basement suite. In retrospect, it’s not a game-changing byline or freelance rate, but it was my first big freelance break during school, and that story led to many more assignments at VICE. It was also a key factor in landing my first full-time role at HuffPost Canada in 2019. 

I used to bring this specific story up when talking to journalism students as an example of just going for it. It’s a case for shooting your shot, making the content you want to make, and finding a way to get paid to do it. In 2018, there was a path where you could be a blogger, write silly and fun things, and have an audience for it. Then the VICE that I knew died. So did the Buzzfeed I idolized when I was a university student. And then HuffPost (taking me and a dozen of my coworkers at HuffPost Canada with it). 

Sure, many of these platforms are still around in zombified, AI-driven form, and sure, the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl again, but the internet is in a vastly different space than it was when I filed that pitch from a bar in February 2018. It’s darker. It’s worse. It’s fracturing at an unnerving rate. And to be quite frank, it scares me a lot. I’ve spent a decade learning how to use these platforms and how to make stuff people want to read and watch on these platforms.

What happens to me and my work when they’re gone?

Building something new

With many traditional social media spaces collapsing, getting bought by billionaire bad guys, encouraging anti-LGBTQ2S+ hate or just getting banned, I’m increasingly motivated to carve out a different space and audience. Email newsletters are not without their limitations, but present the ideal spot to keep doing what I love, share some thoughts, have a laugh, and carve out space for those of you who want to do the same. 

I really want to recapture the spirit of that younger, more idealistic Mel who dreamed of writing about ranch dressing for VICE. I’ve hemmed and hawed about a newsletter project for years at this point, and now I’ve accepted that there is no right way or time to do it. You just have to do it. 

With Ranch Baby, I get to be the change I wish to see in the world. I am the Ranch Baby.

So join me on this brave new frontier, and let’s carve out a little corner of the internet that is flavourful and flirty and fun. And don't forget to subscribe! ✨