Happy Blog Birthday to me

Well, I’ve officially been a blogger for more than two years.  The fact that I didn’t do anything big to mark the actual day (which was about a week ago) is unfortunately a reminder that I have not been particularly focused on this blog of late.

The name of the blog, Angry 365 Days a Year, was a description of a challenge I set myself when I first started: write something angry at least once a day, every day, for a year.  I actually achieved this, partly by driving myself crazy a few times in my desperation to maintain my quota.  Once the first year was over I relaxed a little, promising myself that I wouldn’t get to worked up if I missed the occasional day.

Even so, for quite a while I was still averaging 25-30 posts a month.  The turning point was when I took time off work to organise the YouTube gathering in Melbourne last year.  I never realised how much I relied on the rhythm of a workday – 90% of my blog posts were written in my lunch hour. Without that pattern, I found it very hard to make the time to sit down and type a post.

Also, YouTube has been taking up more and more of my time.  For some reason I find it easier to make videos than it is to write blog posts, even though making the videos takes longer.  Thinking of the idea, shooting it, editing and rendering the video, then uploading it takes at least 2 or 3 hours.  And that’s not even factoring in the time I use up answering comments.

It took me almost 18 months to reach 1,000 subscribers on YouTube and in the last 6 months I’ve gone up to almost 4,000.  Along with this, the number of comments on each video has gone up gradually from a handful to at least 100 for each video, often more than 200.  So given my obsessive need to answer comments, most days I’m answering well over 100 comments (as I still get a lot of comments on old videos.)

One of the reasons YouTube has become more appealing for me than the blog is there is much more instant gratification on YouTube.  It is much easier to find an audience on YouTube than it is on an individual blog as YouTube aggregates the videos in a way blog hosts don’t.    On the other hand, achieving success with a blog post feels more satisfying as you have to do it yourself.

And while there are more people watching YouTube than there are reading blogs, I shouldn’t underestimate the power of a popular blog post.  After all the closest I’ve come to a “big break” has come via this blog.  My infamous “alli diet pills make you shit oil” post was noticed by someone from one of the American broadcast networks and I was almost interviewed for one of their feature programs.  I’m still kind of bitter that didn’t go through but that’s the way things go sometimes in this big, tough world.

Well, I’m about to start a new contract.  The last one was pretty stressful and I never regained the rhythm of writing in my lunch break – I essentially had to get the fuck out of the building for an hour each day.  Maybe this one will be a bit more balanced and I’ll get back to writing regularly.

Anyway, to round off, I want to thank everyone for their support (for however long you’ve been with me).  Particular thanks to the die-hards who’ve been reading almost from the start, like Sandra with whom I pretty much share a blog birthday.  It’s been quite an adventure and I’m not about to stop now!

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