A Fateful Day for a Blogiversary

/ November 9, 2017

To my surprise I just received this notification:

Ooops – I had no idea. I wish I had known; I could’ve prepared a little blogiversary post instead of just writing off-the-cuff.  So, what does one say on the occasion of a blogiversary? A nostalgic look back over the years? A tearful thank you to the backers of the enterprise and my family for unrelenting support of the years – I couldn’t have done this without you *sobs’? Outlook to a bigger, brighter, allround-better future? Well, the quick fix is a little stat overview that proves how this blog has grown. Check this:

From a grand total of 4 (FOUR) visitors and 0 (ZERO) comments in all of 2012, to 13,000+ visitors and nearly 6,000 comments in 2017. And the year isn’t even over yet.

Yet, today’s date is weirdly contradictory when it comes to a festive mood. The 9th of November is, of course, a fateful day in German history:

  • 1918: Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates 
  • 1923: The Munich Beer Hall putsch fails – but eerily foreshadows the horrors of the soon-to-be-established terror reign of the fascists
  • 1938: Reichskristallnacht – the night of the broken glass – in a concerted surprise attack, the Nazis burn thousands of synagogues in Germany, and destroy Jewish shops and property, leaving no doubt now about their genocidal policies.
  • 1989: East German authorities decide on a whim to open the border between East and West Germany. The Cold War is effectively ended, the wall falls.
  • 2012: Guylty starts blogging on WordPress 

Maybe the timeline shows a progression from horrors to something better (and I am not including the emergence of my blog in that sequence of events – that would be a little bit too flippant). That is my hope. A Schicksalstag (day of fate) to encourage us to strive for freedom, for democracy, for the expression of our individual selves. Guylty.net does not have political aspiration, nor is it revolutionary in its contents or context, but it *is* my expression of self, and I hope it is a place of free, equal exchange for my readers, too. It would not be possible without you, so thank you all for being so loyal, so supportive and so fun to hang out with! I look forward to maintaining this platform for another year!

 

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74 thoughts on “A Fateful Day for a Blogiversary”

  2. Wow. TODAY is your blogiversary?? You should at least smash some stuff up. Or something. In a totally friendly way, of course. That’s bizarre. Happy blogiversary!

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  4. Pingback: Guylty’s blogiversary: Smashing walls | Me + Richard Armitage

  5. Why did you cross out “2012: Guylty starts blogging on WordPress?” I think November 9, 2010, is an important day in German (and world) history. I hope you keep at it for a long, long time, Guylty. I love your blog and count on reading it regularly!

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    • Hehe, that had to be crossed out because my start on WP can surely not sit in a row with events of historical significance 😉.
      Thank you for being a rock and a steady supporter. I appreciate it very much!

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  6. And another thing. (Always, she has a second thought. Sigh.) Do you think you started your blog on a November 9th because you were using it as therapy to push a shitty day out of your mind (I ask, as I use Armitage fangirling to self-medicate on a regular basis), even if sub-consciously?

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    • Nice thought, but no, I don’t think so. At least not consciously. I initially needed a WP account in order to write on me+r, and my first post there was sometime in mid-November 2012. I had never planned to start blogging on my own platform. It just developed that way…

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      • I just looked back at my email — I don’t think we were thinking about the date at all, if our correspondence is any indication. We’d been chatting about it since the last week of October, and I wanted to be able to publish a fan showcase to introduce you (as at that time you were only on tumblr) and that was the day I finished editing it. There had been a national election earlier that week, and the Hobbit premiere stuff was starting; I’d bought my AUJ premiere tix. Nov 9 is a day that’s always on my mind, for various reasons, but it’s more of a “this is an auspicious day,” insofar as I have two close friends with birthdays that day, than “this is a bad day that needs to be warded off.”

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        • Hehe – you know what? I actually re-read the Nov 9 e-mail correspondence earlier on, too. And came to the same conclusion as you. We had been organising my debut on me+r for days and weeks, and it was coincidence that I signed up to WP that day… (BTW, I was also laughing about my typically German way of covering all the bases – copyright, access issues, processes in case of ending our cooperation… 😂 Oh man, so bloody German…)

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          • I laughed when I reread all that discussion of copyright, too. It didn’t bother me at the time but from the perspective of five years later it does seem funny. I was more bemused about the discussion of whether you’d attract enemies because I had so many. There’s another landscape that has transformed multiple times in the interval.

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    • 😂 You had plenty of other bloggers to get your dose of Armitage from 😉. Many of whom have stopped blogging over the years 😢. And many of whom are still around 🎉 But thank you 😘

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  10. Yes. I’d be happy to write the dialogue but someone else will need to provide the logistics for your character 🙂 #alsoallthosephotos #servetusisnotavisualthinker #whichwassortofthebeginningofthewholestoryanyway

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  11. Glühückwuhunsch 😊
    Mensch, wie gut, dass es kam, wie es kommen musste und ich dich gefunden habe. Ein echter Glückstreffer 😘

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  13. Herzlichen Glückwunsch! Es ist wirklich schön, dass du diesen “Ort” geschaffen hast, an dem so viel Austausch möglich ist. Ich schaue gerne bei dir vorbei und dein Blog ist ein fester Bestandteil meines Alltags geworden. Danke für all deine Mühe und das Herzblut ❤

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  16. Happy Blogiversary! You never fail to lift my spirits. I hope RA continues to inspire you in ways that keep you blogging for a long long time. Congrats ❤️😘

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  17. Wow, five years of fabulousness. Funny, educational, caring, craftiness and never boring. I don’t know how you do it. Congratulations on all you have shared with us. So much fun. Thank you for every shrine, photo analysis and oof..

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  19. Aaaagh, I’d be late for my own funeral. Only just seen this.

    Many happy returns of yesterday, Guylty. The Armitage Blogosphere became a Richard <– hilarious autocorrect for richer — happier place when you joined up.

    Thanks for all the morale-boosting roundups and everything else.

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  20. Tata..tata…tata!!!! 5 years! Toll!!! Meine Liebe, mach weiter mit deinen Exkursionen und Expeditionen in deine und unsere ach so wichtigen, erfrischenden Parallelwelten….. (kann frau das so sagen?) I’m glad you are there where you are!!! 😉 Cheers!

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  22. A belated Happy Blogiversary to you! Thanks for helping to keep us in reading and viewing material… the weekly roundups, the fabulous shrines, the fascinating *ooofs* and all of the rest!

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  26. Happy Blogiversary!!! Die besten Glückwünsche! Mach einfach weiter so, unglaublich was Du alles kreatives geleistet hast. Auch wenn der Bazillus inzwischen weitgehend abgeklungen ist lese ich alles bei Dir immer noch gerne, macht einfach riesig Spaß!
    ❤

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    • Das freut mich besonders, wenn du immer noch gerne liest, auch wenn das Interesse abgeflaut ist. Liegt sicher auch an dem Kreis der (ehemals) Gleichgesinnten, die sich hier immer noch versammeln. Danke fürs Mitlesen xx

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    • Thank you, Tommie. I was just thinking about shrining and how I haven’t had access to my study the last few weeks. It’s where all my shrining stuff is, and it serves as a guestroom occasionally. With back-to-back guests for the last six weeks, I haven’t been near a shrine for a long time…

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  29. Happy anniversary! wow 5 years.. how time flies. I think it is a beautiful coincidence to be on similar dates with the coming down of the wall, at least there are good dates in history too. It’s lovely to think ‘this’ has been a place to come to for 5 years, it’s very welcoming indeed 🙂 And i admire your disciple ! (and deplore mine at the same time and all the thoughts which remained unwritten and unsaid) Glad at least you always give us an opportunity to interact 🙂

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