Invisible Oranges

Cosmo Lee started Invisible Oranges in September 2006 as a repository for his articles published by other magazines, such as PopMatters, Decibel, Stylus and Metal Injection.[4][2] Lee had recently moved from San Francisco, California to Berlin, Germany and published all of the articles in English.[2] The website's first article was a scathing review of Voodoocult's debut Jesus Killing Machine, published on October 6, 2006.[5][6]

On September 24, 2011, after five years of running the blog, Lee stepped down as editor-in-chief of Invisible Oranges, but retained ownership of the domain.[7][8] The announcement was made six months earlier, on March 21, 2011, at which time Lee invited new writers to apply as editors and contributors.[9][10][11] On August 26, 2011, Lee posted a second and final recruitment offer for editors, text editors, art directors, gatekeepers, calendar managers and writers.[12][13] Lee has since gone on to become associate director of direct response at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

Michael Nelson replaced Lee as editor-in-chief in September 2011 and remained in that position for the next nine months. Aaron Lariviere replaced Nelson as editor-in-chief in May 2012 but only lasted a brief eight months. Nelson and Lariviere were both contributing writers at Stereogum during their time at Invisible Oranges.[14]

In December 2012, Lariviere announced his departure from Invisible Oranges, leading Lee to consider shutting down the website. Instead, BrooklynVegan writer Fred Pessaro offered to take the editor-in-chief position at Invisible Oranges. On January 4, 2013, Invisible Oranges officially joined the BrooklynVegan family as its fourth blog, behind BrooklynVegan, BV Chicago and BV Austin.[3][15] Invisible Oranges' domain name was immediately transferred from Lee to BrooklynVegan's owner and founder David Levine.

Pessaro left Invisible Oranges after only nine months as editor-in-chief, in September 2013. He has since gone on to write for Noisey and Revolver.[16][17] Doug Moore (vocalist in death metal band Pyrrhon) replaced Pessaro in September 2013.[18][19] Moore restructured the executive department, adding to the team Vanessa Salvia as assistant editor, Wyatt Marshall as deputy editor and Kelly Kettering as director of promotions[19][20] Moore, however, only remained editor-in-chief for eight months and, like many of his former editors-in-chief, has gone on to write for Stereogum.[21]

Ian Chainey replaced Moore as editor-in-chief in April 2014 for another short eight months.[22] Joseph Schafer replaced Chainey as editor-in-chief in November 2014 and honored that position for two years and eight months; the longest time an editor-in-chief remained in that position since Lee.[23]

Wyatt Marshall left the deputy editor position in August 2014 but the role was not taken over by anyone else. Vanessa Salvia and Kelly Kettering both left Invisible Oranges in February 2017, at the same time as Ian Cory and Jon Rosenthal became executives. Cory acted as second editor-in-chief, simultaneously with Schafer, until the later's departure in July 2017; while Rosenthal was made an associate editor.[24] Andrew Rothmund became copy editor in July 2017; he was later promoted to editor-in-chief in January 2019 when Cory departed after one year and eleven months in the position.[24] Rothmund has since become the third-longest-running editor-in-chief, behind Lee and Schafer, with almost two years in the position. Rosenthal was promoted to senior editor in February 2020.[25]