To everyone who has actually spent a good portion of time reading my website this past week, I just wanted to extend a heartfelt thanks. Most of my traffic has come from the Vice UK article that talks about those who make up fake posts on Reddit, written by the wonderful and talented Amelia Tait. I owe so much to Amelia for liking my Bitmoji post enough that she reached out to me to chat. Her work on internet culture is truly some of the most unique and insightful writing I've encountered and I'm flattered to have been able to work with her in any capacity.
While the amount of page views I've received due to being featured in the article is still minuscule compared to actual successful blogs, my traffic has noticeably increased since it was published. I've been checking my analytics out, and a solid amount of people have been spending anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour reading my blog, which is incredibly encouraging, and I'm honestly so thankful for it.
It blows me away that people all across the world are reading my stuff. I had users from Edinburgh reading for 30 minutes, a person in Belgium who read for 45 minutes and even an individual from some Italian coastal city that I've never heard of who read my website for over an hour! (Grazie!) These people were the record setters but honestly there were people all across the world engaging with my stuff, including a ton in the United Kingdom and many users in the US (for some reason, Europeans consistently spend more time on the site than Americans).
Whoever is reading this, whether you're a returning visitor or a new user, thank you. As the Vice article mentions, I'm a movie theater manager, but what it doesn't mention is that my job has been shut down since April and that it doesn't look like I'll be back anytime soon. I've always wanted to be a professional writer anyway so this blog sort of became my project during quarantine as a way to boost my resume; I never thought I'd be able to get it mentioned in a major publication, and that was huge for me.
All writers really want deep down is to have an impact on people. The fact that somebody thousands and thousands of miles away in a country I've never been to is spending even five minutes on my site and hopefully getting a laugh and taking his or her mind off of all the craziness in the world is the reason I do what I do. I saw a post a couple of months back stating that quarantine is finally allowing us to realize how essential artists actually are. While I definitely don't consider making up posts about hot Bitmojis to be art, I'm still proud that I'm making these tumultuous times slightly more bearable for even a single person in my own small way.
Outside of Mexico and Bermuda I've never left the United States, so it's especially meaningful to me that my work is resonating with people who live in countries and cultures so different from my own. I was supposed to visit Paris for the first time in April which fell through due to the pandemic and that was a huge bummer. But even though my dream of traveling the world is on hold for the moment, I'm still thrilled that my writing, thanks to Amelia, has given me the opportunity to be a member of the global community and contribute to the culture, however small that contribution may be.
All of you reading my site is by far the best thing to happen to me during the course of this pandemic, so thank you. I hope my writing can provide you even a fraction of the joy that your readership has provided me.