Today is the 20th anniversary of this blog
That’s mind-boggling to me.
I started very tentatively, at my son’s suggestion. When he said I should start a blog I immediately said, “No, no way.” But he went to Blogger.com, showed me a few blog templates and told me to choose one and a blog title, and set it up. I didn’t give any of it much thought at all at the time and really just did it to get him to stop nagging me. But he told me it would be there if I ever wanted to fool around with it.
A week or two later, I guess I was bored enough to go there and fool around with it. After a few posts entitled “Test,” I published my very first real post, which was this one, only of course it was on my old Blogger website and got transferred over here many years later when I moved.
I posted intermittently for a few months, with almost no visitors and no comments. Actually, it took me a while to even get a site counter up there – at first I didn’t know there was such a thing. So I’m not sure what my initial traffic was, but if I got ten visitors a day that would have been a surprisingly large number to me.
Then one day in late February of 2005 – for no reason I can explain – I decided to get serious. What would happen, I wondered, if I tried posting every day and writing to other bloggers asking them to promote me? I made a little pact with myself to do that for one month and watch my traffic and comments, and if nothing improved I’d just quit. I was uncertain I could actually grind out a post or two every day for a whole month, but I did manage to do that, and got a few links from other bloggers who were in a generous mood.
In a month or two I had hundreds of readers a day, which seemed like a big big deal at the time. I even got a few Instalanches with ten thousand or more. I originally had no photo on the blog, but I decided I needed one because all my readers assumed I was a man and I wanted to correct that notion. It was my son, again, who suggested – because of my shyness – that I mimic the Magritte painting with the apple. The first photo I put on the blog was so bad (I don’t seem to have it anymore) that I soon replaced it with this better one – which I replaced a few years ago because it had gotten so outdated:
By the time a few more months had passed, I had a respectable mid-level – although not huge – audience and an active comments section.
Back in those days there were a lot of individual bloggers and there was a lot of blogger camaraderie. Blogs were the hot new trend, and the excitement was building. Pajamas Media formed and we had huge blogger get-togethers where I met people I’d been corresponding with, and the din of a hundred bloggers all jabbering together was formidable. When we had meals, much of the food went untouched because there was so much animated talking that people couldn’t bear to stop long enough to eat.
Those days are long gone. But they lasted a few years and were very fun.
And how did I meet Gerard? He was one of the many bloggers I wrote to, explaining what my site was about and sending some links. He was kind enough to link to me on his blog, and there were two or three short exchanges of that nature. Then, for reasons that remain obscure, one day he sent me a very long email about what was actually going on in his life at the time. It was written with his usual flair and I was fascinated. So that’s how we met – in the virtual world, long before we met in what he called the world dimensional (that phrase is from a poem by Hart Crane).
Well, now it’s a habit for me to blog. I also value my readers highly. Do I do it for you? Do I do it for me? Yes and yes.
Let’s celebrate!
Thank you for your time and effort.
It appears to me that most of us reading and commenting are geezers. I wonder if there is a way to attract younger viewers. But younger viewers who can comment in a civil, reasoned manner.
I appreciate the work you put in. This is one of the few blogs I regularly consult. And thank you for keeping the tone non hysterical….
I started reading your Blog, Neo Neocon in October 2005, the first time i retired and enjoyed having the time to check up on several sites like this one and dear Kathy Shaidle 1964 – 2021 – at her 5 Feet of Fury blog and her fellow Canadian Kate at Small Dead Animals, The Roadkill Diaries as well as Gerard and his two fun sites.
Now going on 20 years later this is the first site I check every morning and I have enjoyed having a, from afar, best friend crush, since I am a happy married guy, on you Jean for many years. Thank you for your wit and wisdom and kindness that shines through your writing, it helps a lot in these interesting days. So, there’s that for sure. Here’s to your health and many more years of fine writing, and sharing with all of us.
Happy anniversary, neo! Hope there are many more to come!
I check in multiple times most every day. Thanks for your efforts and commentary. Congratulations on 20 years!
Congratulations! And thanks for what you do!
From the belly of the beast, I salute you, the best antidote to misogyny I know!
Thanks, very much, for all your efforts. I dropped in from Gerard’s blog 4 or 5 yrs ago & was hooked with the 1 visit! You’re on my daily read list with Ace, Instapundit, Don Surber and various news sites.
I think history will show you and your fellow bloggers kept the faith in our country alive until the coming restoration our Republic.
Well done & keep up the good fight!
RJ
Happy anniversary! I don’t comment much but I read you pretty much every day.
My blogging history tracks yours to some degree–my 20th anniversary was last January–though I never had the readership you do. I never promoted it, either, so I suppose I could have done better. Also my posts were less frequent, weekly for years, and after that rarely more than two a week. So I can appreciate the amount of work you do, getting out multiple posts most days.
Even though I had a full-time job at the time, the first dozen or so years were the best, especially in conversation in the comments. I grew to really value that. Unfortunately I had to switch platforms ca 2010, and was unable to transfer the comments.
I take it that you plan to continue? I’m wrestling with that for various reasons. Too many irons in the fire, mainly. I narrowed the focus last year, to books and music only, and now am not sure I want to continue even that much.
Ray+Van+Dune: I smiled at your “antidote to misogyny” comment. I get it. Every time I find myself fuming at the AWFLs–or, worse, making the mistake of trying to talk to one, and start having dark thoughts about whether extending voting rights to women was a bad idea, I remind myself of Neo and other women of good sense. Like my wife. I really feel sorry for conservative men married to progressive women.
I do get a certain bitter amusement out of remembering the insistence of ’70s feminists that the world would be a *so* much better place if women had more power. Hillary. Kamala. Pelosi. Letitia James (?)….
I started reading your blog in 2007
or maybe late 2006. I do not remember if I found yours thru ” Dr. Sanity” or vice versa. I probably stumbled on one of you thru something like the old LGF blog. But I am not sure.
I have learned a lot thru this blog and some of the comments.
Congratulations, Neo. Twenty years is quite an accomplishment.
Thanks for all your hard work. You are exceptionally good at what you do, and you’ve made all of our lives a little better.
Hooray! Happy blogiversary!
For me it was 21 years February 25th, but I largely fell out of blogging after famously marrying a fellow blogger. It was a kick I would never have expected having a degree of fame online. Weirdly, yours was not one of the ones I read back in the early days. The two blogger gatherings I attended were a New England Bloggers gathering at the home of Weekend Pundit in New Hampshire, and later a get together at a restaurant in NH, where I got to meet the elusive Jay Tea in person.
Congrats Neo! I discovered Instapundit just after 9/11 and that introduced me to this whole blogger world. I started my own blog in 2003 and had a brief stint of success and volume of visitors when Steven DenBeste (remember him?) put me on his “rising stars” list, but I couldn’t keep up with daily demands needed to sustain success and traffic, plus I was starting a new job in a demanding and hyper competitive industry so stopped blogging.
I know I discovered you in your early days via Instapundit links and you became a regular read.
Over time, my consumption of blogs faded quite a bit and my reading focused more on markets and research (the job thing) and less on politics. I’d check in on Instapundit periodically and I’ve never missed anything from Richard Fernandez, but that was about it. I’d very occasionally check in here and probably went for stretches of years without a visit.
Then October 7 happened and I’ve been back here daily ever since. Although I was a pretty active commenter on Dean’s World for a stretch, I never really was here. But I remember a lot of the regular names and have found it comforting to see a number of you still around.
Thank you for what you do every day and your conversion story was fascinating to read as it happened. Keep up the great work!
Best,
Paul
neo:
Congratulations, your stellar qualities shine through that apple.
congratulations neo
Congratulations, Neo. Twenty years is quite a milestone.
I found your blog through your recorded sessions with Shrinkwrapped and Siggy. My blog reading in those days was extensive. After Shrinkwrapped and Siggy quit, you and Gerard became my first two daily stops followed by Ace and Insty.
Now, with eyesight fading, my reading has dwindled down to only you. I am grateful for the depth and focus you bring to so many subjects. Your writing is clear, substantive, and informative.
I’m also thankful that you have attracted so many commenters who have knowledge and skills that add to yours, and provide an educational experience found nowhere else that I know of on the blogosphere.
Thanks to your son for encouraging you. What a blessing he has been to you, and to we, your readers.
Here’s to many more years.