If the cover image for this blog didn't clue you into the purpose of this blog, I have, indeed, decided to renew all of our web hosting subscriptions and keep the blog running for another year.
Why? I don't really know, exactly. I'm not even certain why the website exists.
What led me to my decision to keep the blog around? Well, I'll attribute it to a couple things, most notably it was the kind words and support you shared publicly on our timeline or privately in our DMs encouraging us to soldier on, thanking us for the laughs that help sweeten up your day.
Your friendship helps us sustain. Your endorsement of our work fortifies our resolve. Your continued desire to see what we do next is the engine that propels this train forward.
Thank you.
Yet, it was a completely unrelated conversation that sealed my decision to renew the site. It was a discussion - on the failings of Conservatism and the Right and it was too dour for even my self-deprecating, yet cautiously optimistic, world view.
This defeatist tone reminded me one of Norm Macdonald's best-ever tweets.
I don't want to be so gay that I derive inspiration from a dead comedian, but I am, indeed, that gay:
Cynicism is a poison, spit it out.
Finding Norm's wisdom helped answer any lingering questions still rolling around in my head.
My takeaway was thus: I don't have the power to make things "all better", I can't fix all of the societal wrongs I perceive around me, I won't be able to make the world exactly the way I want it to be. . . but I should try. I should try and you should try to do accomplish all of these things.
No, things aren't the way you want them to be. No, things aren't unfixable.
But you need to try.
And maybe this stupid fucking website, despite how it breaks my heart sometimes, is part of the way I try.
The truth is that the growth of our video content has greatly outpaced the growth of our blogs. People seem increasingly reluctant to read things these days and part of me did wonder if closing down the blog to to focus my efforts on the videos was the prudent choice.
But I like writing and the blog is the soul of the Flappr Project.
As embarrassing as this is to admit, I want you to love what we do as much as I love what we do.
It's a character flaw and one I shouldn't let serve as an excuse not to "try."
So even if it feels shitty when too few of you read something I spent time on . . . I can‘t let that crush the merit to the work and my heart along therewith.
So here we are, committing to try again, not because total success is foretold (or even probable) but because it is an opportunity to express ourselves, share our world view and, perhaps, make the world just slightly more the way we want it to be.
Who knows, maybe something written by the ever-optimistic, @kycocainebear, finds the right person on the right day and inspires them to do something, anything, to help.
Maybe someone reads a scathing challenge to Conservatism, Inc. from @drunkrepub and decides to push an elected official to support the values of the voters who put them there.
Maybe someone reads @travis_tyree's guide to healthy living, changes some bad habits and saves their own life?
Maybe a teenager watches The Russian Revolution - Good Thing, Bad Thing? and instead of falling head over heels for Marx and Engels, falls head over heels for Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Sowell instead?
Maybe stumbling upon one of my euphemistic tomes on MILFs gives a laugh to someone in need of one.
Maybe the horse will learn to sing?
Onward. Anything less would be a sin.