The Success and Struggle Behind “Is This Why I’m Still SIngle”

I’ve had my blog “Is This Why I’m Still Single” for about a year and a half. It’s undergone tremendous change since I first started it back in September in 2013. It went from my own blog, to a collaborative blog and then back to my own blog. It experienced incredible growth within its first year and has now hit a slump as a result of content change. And by content change, I mean I’m writing less like BuzzFeed and more like “Thought Catalogue”, except way more grammatically incorrect. While I’m a little bummed that people aren’t reading as much these days, it’s nice to write about things I feel strongly about rather than writing articles like “10 Signs You’re A Virgo/15 Times Taylor Swift LITERALLY was perfect/Which Jihadist group are You Quiz”

About two and a half weeks ago the blog surpassed the 200,000 view mark. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve waited until now to say that. Perhaps it’s because I don’t feel as if I should gloat about something that isn’t all that impressive. It’s possible that 200,000 views is impressive, but given the recent decline of the blog, it doesn’t feel too impressive. The Facebook page for my blog has been hovering around 490 likes for over 6 months and I’m averaging less than 300 views per day. And the most irritating part? I don’t think that the content has become increasingly worse. The blog is not as active as it used to be for sure but it’s not as if it changed so much that a decline of that nature was warranted. And because of that I can’t help but feel frustrated. It’s disheartening to put effort into something and share it with the world, only for the world to really not give a shit about it.

Maybe I’m a bit bummed because I secretly thought I’d be a big deal by now. I thought that I’d be averaging thousands of views per day and be the writer of a blog that everyone talks about. I thought I’d start making money off of this or at least get some offers. And you know what, I haven’t. Nothing has really changed. I’m sure some of readers are thinking, “If you’re doing it for the money or the fame, you’re not doing it for the right reasons” but like, what else do bloggers want besides those two things?

I don’t know where to go from here to be honest. Do I start pouring money into the blog and try to market myself? Do I accept that the blog is over and spend my free time doing something more valuable? Do I offer to give the HONY guy a hand job to  convince him to give my blog a recommendation? All important questions. But until then I have to remind myself that I have had some success. In the past year and a half, I’ve published (with the help of writers like Colleen, Jon, Taylor, Sam, Avery) 270 articles. Over 143,000 people have visited the site, with some of them being from places like Australia, Sweden, Brazil and the United Kingdom. Even one person from Micronesia visited the blog, and to be honest I have literally NO idea where that is. I have to remind myself that good things have come from this experience. I’ve learned how to market myself, I’ve picked up on trends and I’ve realized that sometimes my opinions aren’t always the most correct. Most importantly, I’ve learned that I have so much to write and say and that the joy I get from doing these things is something I can’t ever let go of. Maybe I won’t be a professional blogger or be as widely hated as Perez Hilton, but I will at least try to pursue my passion. And if it doesn’t work out? I’ll just marry a really old gay man and pray that God will take him from me and leave me with a vast fortune that I can spend on penny candy that I can throw at people less fortunate than I.