This coming Friday June 25th will mark the four year anniversary of Frum Satire. In years past I have merely written a post to mark the day, but this year I had the idea to re-post 4 year old posts in honor of the anniversary. I have wanted to re-post some of my old stuff for some time, but the chore of editing the old stuff is so great that I have refrained. If you thought my spelling and grammar are atrocious now, just go back a few years in the archives to feast your eyes on some very terribly written stuff.
The only agenda I had when starting my blog was to have my writing in a place where my friends could see it and tell me what they thought, rather than my emailing them one at a time. Prior to starting Frum Satire, I had no idea what a blog was and had never read one before. I had been posting some random essays on the New York City rants and raves section of Craigslist and had gotten quite a bit of feedback, both angry and praising, my friend Sarah Zeldman told me about blogging while I was in Toronto for my friend Sruly’s wedding, that conversation changed my life.
It’s really strange that I am a professional blogger, very strange for those who have known me for years. The folks who know that I refrained from getting a cell phone until 2006 and never took it with me until recently, the folks that know I resisted buying an Ipod until recently and the folks who know that I have been using the same laptop since 2005. You see, I was what you may call a technophobe and I still am to certain extent, but much of my life has changed due to blogging.
One of the reasons I succeeded is due to the fact that I had no expectations when I started this blog. Many bloggers start blogging after following or commenting on blogs, they think “hey I have a lot to say, I’ll start a blog” but they miss one key point, how the hell are people going to find you? I had no idea that people were actually readi8ng my blog until I was 3 months into blogging, I had no idea what stats, comments or linkbacks were, all I did to get traffic was email different bloggers and ask to be put on their blogroll in exchange for a link on mine.
The funny thing was, I always had a lot to say and I think blogging helped me psychologically. I used to roam around thinking that no one would understand or appreciate these amazing and sometimes funny thoughts I was having and somehow I created an entire community around those thoughts. I never fit into a mold, I didn’t believe in sticking to one topic or opinion and have always prided myself on having the ability to write both sides or the story and put up opposing opinions.
In honor of my fourth anniversary I have decided to start re-posting my old stuff. I have refrained from this due to the headache of editing these poorly written posts. If you think my spelling and grammar are bad now, just go into the archives and take a look at the stuff from four years ago, it’s atrocious. My old stuff is also very judgmental, negative and mostly in rant form, which is so funny because I always get these comments about how I am bashing frummies and so negative, but it’s doubtful that these people have been reading the blog from the beginning.
You can sense different changes in my writing style, when I was just starting out, I could write freely about events, people and myself, I was anonymous and no one was reading it. Nowadays, it’s quite hard for me to walk into a shul and not be recognized, then I have to deal with trying to be incognito which seems to be harder and harder, amking writing about people and events a very tough job. I also don’t delve into personal stuff as much because, well, it’s personal.
I don’t really know what’s in store for me, every year I look back and say “wow, holy crap, this is insane”, but I do have some goals which never seem to be realized. The real goal is to make a living off of this, that either requires a serious social marketer that can get me more traffic, a wealthy donor who would like to fund me, or someone in between a manager sort of person who could book me shows, speaking engagements, get merchandise made and find me someone to help me with my yeshiva memoir. I really think I should write a book, but I need to eat and when I work I rarely sit down and write.
I am also working on doing a weekly live streaming radio show, my mind thinks much faster than a write and I think it would be great to have a show where folks can call in anonymously and bash me, praise me or discuss with me anything they may please.
The only agenda I had when I started the blog was to meet girls and I have met some ladies, I had two relationships with fans of the blog, one of which was the best and most rewarding relationship I’ve ever had and who knows, maybe she’ll come crawling back to me one of these days. But agendas change, my agenda has always been to find that special lady, but then I added trying to bring humor to the frum community as one of my agendas. I then added the agenda of trying to get frum and non-frum or even non-Jewish folks to visit the same website and speak about issues. Sure, they happen to come here and spit in each others faces, but so rarely do the two sides visit the same site, that I am proud to host such debates.
I have met so many cool folks through blogging, I have stayed at peoples houses all over the place, gotten shabbos invitations and jobs. I should probably attribute everything that has happened in the passed 2 years to blogging. My last 4 jobs have all been blogging related. I got two free trips to Israel due to my blog. It’s really impossible to list the milestones, the friends, the gains and the losses, but it’s been an awesome ride and I hope to keep riding.
Now if any of you want to donate some money to the “Heshy’s car is dying because it has 363,000 miles on it and he needs to buy another one” fund, please click the paypal link on the sidebar, it is the anniversary after all.