Well, here it is. Today marks the official One Year Anniversary of Rorschach Reviews. 365 days ago I started as a complete newcomer to the blogging world, with no contacts, no followers, and no idea what I was doing. Since then, the site has grown from a glorified Myspace page to, well, a slightly better looking and more heavily trafficked Myspace page. For those of you who haven’t been with me for very long, I thought I might give you a little rundown on what lead to me starting the site in the first place.
Last summer, I was all set to intern at a Seattle-based company who will remain nameless for the purposes of this post. Then, literally the week before I was scheduled to start, the company informed me that they had decided to no longer hire any interns for the period in question. I was frustrated, but with some very helpful encouraging from my girlfriend I decided to fill my new-found free time with something at least vaguely constructive. One of those things happened to be a movie review blog, a suggestion which I suspect originated out of said girlfriend’s attempts to save herself from my film-related ramblings.
So, for the first few weeks, I went under the title “Rambling Man Reviews”, mostly for lack of a better title. I ended up settling on Rorschach Reviews because of my personal focus on the subjective nature of movies. Since then, I’ve spent about as many hours blogging as I have on studying for business school, a fact that shows just how nonsensical my list of priorities can be at times. Luckily, that work hasn’t been for nothing, as in the past year my little blog has gained nearly 200 followers on WordPress, 120 followers on Twitter (which I am still terrible at using), and as of today 250,000 views from 185 countries. I’ve made a lot of great people from around the world over the past year, but here are a few I’d like to point out for specific contributions.
- Tyson Carter from Head in a Vice for becoming my site’s first follower
- Nick from Cinematic Katzenjammer for designing the kickass logo you see up above
- Fogs from Fogs’ Movie Reviews for my first advice on how to network with other bloggers
- Fernando from Committed to Celluloid for keeping my top commenter spot for four solid months now and counting (With Tim the Film Guy in a close second!)
- Every one of the 16 bloggers who have taken part in Blogger Interviews.
There are plenty of other people I’m grateful to, but I’m already starting to run low on finals studying time so I should probably wrap things up soon. There are just two things I want to cover before I get back to work.
1. In honor of my one year anniversary, I am changing my site’s tagline from “100% Movies, 10% Sassy Gay Friend” (which has nothing to do with anything) to the more fitting “What Do You See?”
2. I’ve been having difficulty deciding what should come next for Rorschach Reviews, so I thought you, my readers, could help me by letting me know what you’d most like to see. This could mean a new layout, new features, you name it. If you have something you’d like to suggest feel free to put your two cents worth in down below in the comments, or shoot me an email at aswinn92@live.com. In particular I’m always looking to increase my level of collaboration with other bloggers, so ideas in that vein would be especially welcome!
Once again, I want to give a big thank you to all of you, whether you know me through the blogging world or through the real one. I hope you stick around to see what year two has in store for the site, and I will do my very best to make it worth your while.
Congrats, Andy. It’s actually pretty cool seeing how far you’ve come since your inception not only as a site, but as a writer as well. Also, that new tagline is so much better. I liked the old one but I didn’t think it made any sense lol. Finally, I don’t know of any suggestions for new things moving forward but I’d love to work on something together with you.
We’ll make it happen! Lol, like I mentioned w/ Fogs that tagline was just a place filler when I first started then I forgot to change it.
Congratulations on your first birthday! Always enjoy reading your stuff so I hope you keep up the great work. One quick question though: 250,000 hits? How have you managed that?? Top work!
Mostly through specific tagging, i.e. if I mention something in an article like “Corvette Zero One from Last Stand” I’ll put that phrase in the tags. I used to just tag random stuff that wasn’t even in my articles but I feel like less of a sleazebag when its actually something I’m writing about.
Also, thanks!
I shall change my tagging tactics to reflect yours! Thanks very much and congrats again.
Congrats!
Congrats! Good luck for your many years ahead.
Thanks! Always appreciate a fellow content linker like yourself 🙂
Mazel Tov! “What Do You See?” IS a much more appropriate tagline, that fits great with the blog name! Congrats again, and here’s to many more!
Thanks Fogs, and I had honestly totally forgotten about that tagline until a few weeks ago. I think I entered it as a place filler when I made the site then just didn’t think about it after that
Congrats man!
Wow! 250,000 hits?? That’s impressive. Congrats Andy, you have created one hell of a site! Here’s to the next year!!!
Always nice to hear from The Hipster, I still stand in awe of your graphic design skillage.
Congrats Andy! I’m only caught up with your blog recently, but I’m looking forward to reading your writing going forward.
Thanks Dan, glad to have you on board!
Congrats! That’s a great anniversary. Keep up the great work.
Danke 🙂
Greetings . . . for precious first year . . . that’s always special like first love 🙂
Nirav .
Nice one dude, and thanks for the mention. I followed you, and then I wrote 1 article in a month as I was still working it all out. So Im classing my one year anniversary from next month 🙂
250k……wow. I remember I was ahead of you at one point. Then you figured out the tag whoring and look at you now!! LOL – I kid, well deserved and your site keeps getting better and better. Heres to the next 12 months Andy 🙂
Lol tag whoring for the win! Luckily the tag whoring has been taking up less and less of my view count, nearly all of my views now are coming from tags that are about specific aspects of the movie rather than anything skeevy.
Looking forward to your 1 year anniversary 😀
Congrats Andy, good luck for the next year 😀
Congratulations, man! Here’s to many more years of great blogging! And thanks for the shoutout. It’s always a pleasure visiting Rorschach Reviews! 🙂
A Total CONGRATS, Sir!
The Statement IS Very Correct…
…The First Year IS The Hardest.
But, Now, You’re Free Of The Trappings Of Being A Newbie And Now You’re A Pro.
How Does It Feel To Have A Full YEAR Under Thy Belt???
When It Happened To Me, I Was So Damned Happy I Treated Myself To An Alcoholic Beverage…
…And I Don’t Drink Then, Usually. hahahahaha
Congrats Again!!!
-B.
Pingback: The Weekend Stupor: Things, Stuff, Goods, and More | The Cinematic Katzenjammer
Congrats on one year!!!!
Thanks!
Congrats on the one year anniversary. I like the new tagline, but I also have a huge place in my heart for nonsensicle things. lol
Lol, I’m with you there, life is so silly sometimes I feel like I have to add a little bit of nonsense just to keep up
Congrats! This is just the beginning! 😉
Pingback: Linked 11/6: Super Sweet Summary of Two Weeks | Mettel Ray Movie Blog