Sweet 16


Sweet 16

This year, 2014, the Eroico site turns 16. Hard to believe that I've been at this for such a long time, and even harder to believe that I've not given up.

As the publisher of this site, every year I take stock and wonder if it's all for nothing. This is a very small site, and our traffic never cracks double digits on a daily basis. Just about all of the feedback we get is pure spam. Our Twitter feed is also just as numerically dismal, and I'm not even positive those followers are actual people.

So every year, I question why I should bother continuing. This site is lost in a sea of other blogs, most of which I often find mundane but marvel at how many followers are listed on any one of them. I've also long been amazed when I see Twitter feeds picked up by sites like "Think Progress" and I wonder: how do these people get noticed? I'm thoroughly perplexed how people I've never heard of manage to get cited by major sites and I think we're doing better work than pissy observations in 140 characters.

Still though, in the end, I wind up deciding to forge ahead and keep publishing material. This site will eventually disappear and no one but a handful of people will have ever looked at it, but it's something that I created and was responsible for. I've considered moving this entirely to a Tumblr because those are free and easy to maintain, and I still wind up wanting to keep the system I've set up here: a custom-made backend with PHP, a laptop and a graphics editor. It's not terribly sophisticated but it's a homegrown solution and it's mine.

Maybe the takeaway is this: don't give up. I know very well that I will certainly never get famous or even cited by major sites, and that our traffic will always be tiny, but I want to persevere. And you should, too, especially those times when you just want to give up. No one starts a website for glory or fame, and God knows over the years, I've seen lots of blogs fold and their creators disappear. People manage to survive and so will we.

So, here's to a new year, 2014, and may you remember never to give up doing something you love.