A couple of questions I’m being asked frequently since unveiling this new site is if it was launched with the goal to monetize it and market myself, followed by, “why the new site?”. The short answers are “no” and “because it was a long time coming”. Browse around these guys
The longer answer is one that requires I rewind back to when I first began signing online under the moniker, “typefiend”. For years now I’ve used “typefiend” as my online nom de plume; the name was born in 1999 when I was an art director at a video game publication and a passionate collector of font collections. Back then, although I was starting to run a personal statement writer service, I had not began blogging in the sense we define it today, I was an active and regular participant in the nascent social networking destinations where online communities were beginning to dynamically pop up as the precursors to the Facebooks and Twitters we know today: newsgroups, boards and other topic driven communities where a name and avatar were your calling card. It was sort of a Wild West online environment back then, not as varied in personalities, gender and backgrounds as now, but arguably a bit more passionate and pure when ad sales, analytics and the monetizing of content wasn’t so evident. Check out sacramento design agency for more details. Being online was enough in itself.
Shortly after my father had passed away and after I had returned back to Los Angeles after a stint with Sydney AU company website designers as an art director of a video game publication. I found myself living back at home in the suburbs with plenty of time to spare inbetween design projects as a freelance graphic designer. It was during this chapter of my life I started my first real blog, born out of an assignment for a UCLA Extensions Dreamweaver and HTML class I took to keep preoccupied at a time when the loss of my father, the after effects of a failed longterm relationship, and the doldrums of the suburbs were all weighing heavy. I was also in the my twenties, relatively still pretty shy (crazy, right?) and felt socially isolated, yet to find a comfortable niche…all the ingredients perfect for the making of a blogger.
Three of my earliest website frontpages for typefiend.org and typefiend.com. Oh, to be young again!
You have to remember at this time blogs were still small and personal affairs, where people spent hours spilling the minutiae of their lives and the term “blog” was yet to have entered the popular lexicon. An embarrassing, if not honest amount of detail was shared on this first personal site. From the mundane to the achingly personal, I began posting regularly: adopting my first kitten, dealing with an ingrown hair that developed into the biggest pimple on my nose, dealing with the loss of my father. I didn’t hold back, partially due to the vanity of youth, but also because I was bored and lonely out in Northridge (thankfully that would soon change with the appearance of Emily on my radar, via an early comment she left on my blog complaining about the size of the font used).
In time, I migrated over to LiveJournal, finding the platform both easier to use than hand coding my own site, but more importantly because “LJ” offered something I was looking for: community. These days LiveJournal is a ghost town, but years back LiveJournal was an extremely active and vibrant community of online energy, activism and drama. In the early 2000’s LiveJournal adoptees were all in the prime of our youth and I found myself suddenly with hundreds of online friends and thousands of followers actually reading and interested with what I was writing about (it was around then I began concerning myself with analytics via Sitemeter, at the apex garnering 30K pageviews per month), the exhilarating progression from absolute obscurity to virtual popularity only a lonely 20-something could appreciate.
I look back at those years on LiveJournal with the same fondness people some reserve for memories of summer camp, a time when the sight of a certain name or avatar popping up in my friend feed either gave birth to excitement or dread, and a time when writing long format posts were the rule, not the exception. LiveJournal was rich with varied views and passionate opinions, both which I had in plentitude, and it was during this period the foundation of my professional life as a blogger was laid down. It was there we started blogging about our life together and sometimes silly side projects like Operation Penny Pinch (one month living completely on 99 Cents Only Store finds and The Asian Mustache Olympics (I lost).
Thanks to connections via LiveJournal, I found myself writing for sites like Blogging LA (opining the virtues of a good bowl of ramen in Los Angeles) and TUAW (of course!), and strangely hobnobbing with some of the true movers and shakers of the LA blogging scene. With weeks inbetween designing video game strategy guides for Random House as the one you can find for League of Legends and others in sites like Elitist Gaming, I found myself busy writing here, there, everywhere, but mostly relying upon LiveJournal for daily musings and communication with my fellow LJers, in love with the process of information dissemination and the production/consumption of content specific to the online sources. Criticize me for anything except for the fact I was definitely committed to writing online for the sheer joy of writing.
Fast forward a few years later after the proverbial well ran dry in the publishing world, and I returned back to an office job, designing children’s toys and furnishings. I joined Apartment Therapy first in 2006 after I entered Emily and I into what was then called the Apartment Therapy Smallest Coolest Apartment Contest (we now call it Small Cool and it’s difficult to believe our quaint studio apartment would have a fighting chance against some of the entries today); we came in as one of the runner-ups. We didn’t win any of the prizes, but I did earn myself a contributing position, taking on the helm of the Los Angeles site alongside, Jonathan Lo of Happy Mundane. In the first year of contributing for AT I was posting up to 13 times a day and operating the site with an unfocused passion which was frankly kind of crazy considering both Jonathan and I both had full-time jobs. But when you’re doing what you love, long hours are par for the course. After awhile, we brought on some additional writers, Jonathan left (weep) and I took on the role of managing editor (yay).
About a year later I bid my fulltime job, farewell, and took on Apartment Therapy fulltime and started making a living doing what I had done before when I wasn’t being paid a single cent: write, share and connect online. So in this long winded, roundabout way, this post was simply to offer the explanation I started this new site as a full circle return to what got me where I am in life today, writing on a more personal level, something that has been missing for a few years now. I hope this site earns a fraction of the interest of the readership I was able to garner years ago on LiveJournal, let alone the millions of readers I have the privilege of writing for on Apartment Therapy. But even if not, it’s good to be back, writing and sharing for the sheer joy of it.
2 Comments
I don’t say “hi” enough, but you should know I will always read you wherever you set up camp. I enjoy the way you tell a story & you (& Emily, too) are so genuine, even through the written word as we’ve never met.
I have learned a lot from you be it online resources to the joy of community to just living life in the fullest manner possible. You are an inspiration to me & I still get that feeling of excitement when your name pops up (though these days it is on my Google Reader), because I know it will be something good.
Keep doing what you love, always.
P.S. I was just having a thought recently of how the stigma of sharing oneself on the internet has changed so rapidly over the years. Initially, everyone was warned of the creeps lurking around every click (& they’re still there, granted), but now the “weirdos” are those who choose not to connect with others through all available devices. Funny that!
Good one G. One of the few things I ever read is the historical context of people blogs and their personal connection to it. Everyone has a different reason for writing what they do (not why but what) and your is as interesting as your day to day entries (I consider this a special episode). As you said, LJ is dying but its good to know some people, including yourself, is still writing albeit on a different platform.