Saturday, September 8, 2012

Tattoosday: Five Years and Counting

Thanks to Nathan @ KnuckleTattoos.com for This Image

I'll be honest with you, Dear Readers, when I managed only six posts in August, despite a backlog of over fifty subjects, I feared the worst. The fact that I only had 1 (one) reader inquiry asking if everything was okay certainly deepened my concern.

You see, July 31, marked the fifth anniversary of this post, over on my original site, BillyBlog. That was 1997, and I had my most fruitful year as a blogger. Within six weeks, my idea to highlight someone's tattoo, be it a friend's or a stranger's, had exploded. I had more material than I expected, and I loved it.

So, on Saturday, September 8, 2007, after six Tuesday posts, I spun off Tattoosday into a stand alone entity. And BillyBlog hung around, and still exists, in theory, although I posted exactly three times in 2011 and three (so far) in 2012.

Five years for a blog is past middle aged for this type of media. For, you see, for every HuffPo or other serious, amazing, SUCCESSFUL blog, there are thousands that don't make a year, or two.

But here we are, five years old, celebrating our anniversary. And even though we officially first posted on July 31, 2007, I neglected to celebrate back then.

Like I mentioned earlier, last month was bleak. My job of fifteen years ended on August 31st and I was distracted by the closing of our company which was located across from Penn Station, where there was a prolific supply of tattooed commuters and tourists.

But September, which often marks the beginning of the end of summer, prime inkspotting season, brought me renewed faith in the site, and the desire to continue through this mid-blog-life crisis.

You will be seeing the standard sights from my fellow tattooed New Yorkers. My backlog, as is generally the case, stretches back several months. However, I will be expanding a bit in the format department, adding more news and media.

I've been documenting tattoos in New York City (and beyond) for five years. This is our 1317th entry into that little experiment I started way back in 1997 as a once-a-week feature.

I want to thank all of our readers and contributors for their support and participation in Tattoosday. Your existence, as subjects and fans, makes my life richer, and I am humbly appreciative of your existence.

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

1 comment:

Claire said...

Hey, Bill--

Please don't lose faith in your audience yet. I'm sure I'm not alone as one who reads your posts faithfully but rarely comments. This may be for various reasons--mine is due to the fact that I get most of my blog updates via Google Reader, and the crossover to an actual blog page to comment is a bit of a hassle. Regardless, I'm a huge fan of Tattoosday and would hate to see it come to an end. Positive that there are plenty of other readers like me!

Also, very sorry to hear about the loss of the job. You must be going through a lot right now, both emotionally and financially. Wishing you all the best.

Maybe you should use the big change as an excuse to visit Jersey City :) Lots of beautiful work on this side of the river! I live next door to Jersey City Tattoo--great location for inkspotting.