Eleven years ago this month I started www.ALANILAGAN.com. It had about 2 visitors (myself and my webmaster), twenty photos, twenty written works, and a vainglorious ‘About Me’ section overflowing with hubris. Over a decade later, we get a million hits on a good day (two million on one recent great day), and last year we clocked in over 100 million hits in total. Those numbers ring deceptively high, as hits aren’t an accurate gauge on how many people are visiting your site. Unique visitors, however, are – and we now get over 100,000 a month. That’s peanuts for most big-time websites, but for a personal blog about an often-off-putting prick like myself, it’s pretty damn impressive.
Anniversaries are a bigger deal here than they are in real life, mostly because it’s easier to link to the past online than in person. Madonna anniversaries, wedding anniversaries, and big ten-year anniversaries (and their hyped-up spin-off posts) get a lot of the glory, mostly because this is the one area of indulgence wherein I get to look back. So let’s do that for this morning.
While I don’t usually like to do it, sometimes the only way to move forward is by looking back. Examining what worked and what didn’t, what went well, and what went to shit. With an arc of eleven years, it’s easier to see patterns of happiness or distress, moments of melancholy and moments of contentment. Overall, though, even with all the troughs and peaks, you have to admit that I’ve kept things pretty steady, at least on this website – perhaps the only aspect of life over which I have complete control. As such, it is probably one of the purest places to find the truth – at least, as much of the truth that I’m going to reveal to the world at large. And, that’s actually quite a bit.
Thank you – yes, you – for visiting. Not just today, but for any day you’ve taken the time to stop by and peruse the silly antics, man candy, and Madonna moments that I post here not only for my entertainment, but for yours. I used to think that I did this solely for myself, but over the years it’s become more than that, and while we may never be as interactive as some sites, don’t think that I can’t sense you and feel you and appreciate you, out there in the dark. If you want to step out into the light and introduce yourself, you are always welcome to contact me directly at alanilagan1[@]gmail.com.
Happy 11th Anniversary – to us.
Back to Blog
