5 years

I have almost 175 thousand views on my blog. It’s not a lot, if you do the math. That’s 35,000 per year, a bit less than 3,000 per month, or about 100 per day. Not that impressive.

I guess what you might not consider are the 0 views I had for weeks when I first started my blog, because I didn’t know how to tag posts and didn’t tell anyone about it.

You might not know that when I was a senior, there was a month or two when I was heading to the library at 8am every other morning to do WordPress’s Daily Challenge, which was posted every morning at 8am.

Meanwhile, for the past three months I’ve posted a total of 6 articles.

I think every time I start to think about what I’m doing with my life, I always evaluate my blog in a silo. Actually, most of the value in starting a blog has manifested in how it’s affected the rest of my life. The opportunities it’s given me. The confidence it’s helped me build. The way it’s let me express myself in a way that allows others – and myself – to better understand how I think and what I like.

This blog prepared me to start my food blog. And damn, what Cat the Critic has done for me, I never expected when I haphazardly edited that picture of Anton Ego from Ratatoille in Microsoft Paint to be the header image for the site.

But that’s a different story.

The first time I clicked the insights tab on WordPress, the blogging game changed.

The insights tab, an easy to read report about my readership, revealed a lot about not just my posting habits, but myself as a person.

2014 was a good year for me. It was a tumultuous and liberating year for me as a senior in high school. I thought I was in love. I got into college. I got my license (lol). That year, I leaned heavily on my blog to serve as an outlet for my thoughts about my high school, the debate community and blogging. I’ve chronicled these chapters of my life heavily, and when I read back on them these days, I’m flooded with nostalgia. I also wrinkle my nose at my writing, which illustrated my view on myself and the world back then.

I’m not done with high school debate yet, nor am I done with college debate before it’s even started.

Where I’m going to college, they offer a fantastic debate program. That alone should be enough to convince me to continue, but I’m still on the fence. And that’s totally okay. – “When you’re approaching the end of your high school debate career…”

Uhm – I didn’t touch debate when I came to Northwestern.

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These days, my blogging game is pretty weak. I’ve been pulled away from WordPress by classes, my part time job, and the people in my life. I’m not mad about it. The places I’ve gone in the meantime have been amazing. Most recently, it was probably driving 8 hours to go to a bass music festival in Ohio, the memories of which I’m still basking in.

Blogging also let me engage music, one of the three driving forces in my life (along with food and writing).

Back in freshman year, I started to carve out a niche for myself in music. I enlisted my friend Maddy to share playlists regularly on my website. We called it “Mr. Moist Presents.” It was a thing – I’d go through the songs and pick my favorites. Fun fact: I’m awful at describing music – just awful.

Then I started to post playlists that I made, as well as “Music Favorites,” which were short profiles on my favorite artists of the moment as well as shows that I was going to. I think in January 2016, I was just bursting with music to share and looking for a way to disperse it all.

Earlier this year it occurred that much like how at Phonathon, I would call prospects and get rejected half the time, but some people still took a chance with me, I could do the same with my blog.

That, combined with my journalism background, propelled me into interviewing artists. I have no clue why Crankdat’s manager said yes to an interview when I emailed him earlier this spring. I had never done one before. BUT HE DID!

And with that, I started to build my credibility. I got to talk to some artists that I’ve been listening to since high school. It was surreal. 

This is where I’m at right now. Manila Killa, who performed at SnowGlobe, Hard Festival and Coachella, agreed to an interview. And we actually had a really good conversation. Like, a really good conversation. And he said that he appreciated that I read up on him before the interview and asked some non-generic questions. He said that he spoke about some things that he’s never talked about.

That made me really proud, honestly.

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So finally, I guess the intended purpose of this post, aside from helping me clear my mind for the first time in A LONG TIME, is to say thank you.

Thank you to the people who read every one of my posts, and thank you to the creepers who skim occasionally when they’re curious, and thank you to the people I’ve never met and don’t know that are interested in my thoughts for some reason.

5 years!!!!

Cat

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If you made it here, here’s a playlist.