Thank you for 100 articles! Nothing we have done could be possible without you, the readers. The last 8 months have not been what I intended, but it is more than I could have imagined. There have been some changes from our original direction. The changes have been all of us working together to take a deeper dive into things that matter.
In January over 800 people read our fledgling articles about nostalgia mattering today. By the end of May over 16,000 were reading Gen X Watch articles from over 10 different countries! Except for June, every month has seen continued growth in readership.
This growth has happened living in the tension of relationship between writer and reader. The core idea, nostalgia that matters today was embraced, but the expressions of what that looks like had to change.
The Problem and the Inspiration
There are a lot of Gen X creators. The most popular ones are toxic, look down on the generations after us, and are not honest about what drove us to the beauty of the pop culture we enjoyed and the traumas we experienced.
I started thinking about this during the lock-down phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a collective trauma going on. Much like the AIDS epidemic there were a lot of unknowns and there was no effective treatment or vaccine. Children were affected scholastically and socially. The latch key feral generation had a prime opportunity to be a guiding force in how to navigate the waters of social isolation. I feel we failed Gen Z in that regard.
We were born for this shit! This could have been our moment to be a lighthouse in the fog and the storm of the pandemic. I took the assignment seriously. While checking on my Boomer neighbors I was having encouraging Zoom and text sessions with Gen Z people in my life while learning how to use tools of the modern age more effectively from Millennials.
In that time I was having a lot of trauma as many others were. I found peace in nostalgia. The music, the movies, and the reruns were all there for me in a manner that I did not have access to in any other time in history.
In conversations with my therapist we learned something. It is common to have nostalgia at my age as a means of peace. There is a circle of life. Often in youth we discover our pop culture to quiet the storm of life. The movies, the books, the music, the shows, and the fashions are the sublime moments of escape from the things that were hurting us as we used these props to help discover our identity and expression.
So I leaned into my 80’s music, reruns, and rediscovered my favorite movies of my teens and twenties. But I was also fascinated by the idea of where my nostalgia comes from. What was trending with Gen Z? I didn’t expect to see the bridge.
80s and 90’s Millennial and Gen Z Expressions
Film photography, digital watches, vinyl records, and other things I bought when I was a teen was being purchased by today’s teens. Then came Stranger Things and from that Kate Bush and Metallica were charting again. This blew my mind! It would be like my being in high school and the Glenn Miller Orchestra is at #1 on the radio charts and on MTV night and day.
But why weren’t we connecting as generations? I blame us. Our leading content creators driving our nostalgia is, generally, horrible to the younger generations. We are totally awesome and they are so lame! How could we do this? How could we have grown up on the Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Star Wars, and Ferris and become a generation that is running an Empire that is just as toxic as the parents we vowed never to become like?
I wanted to write these thoughts down, but after my failed suicide attempt in 2019 I had stopped writing as a columnist. Then a friend died unexpectedly on Christmas morning of 2023. That shook me to my core. She was the antithesis of our collective toxicity and had so much to share and give. Her signal was cut off too soon and mine stopped broadcasting.
How much time do I have left? How much longer will this window of opportunity of 80s and 90s pop culture matter for me to express these thoughts with any relevance? The answer to both questions is not as much as I would like to have. Now is the time.
I bought a URL and assembled a team of advisors that I trusted to launch this project. Nostalgia that matters today.
We were never going to compete with the toxic sludge from other Gen X creators by the numbers, but maybe we would reach a precious few and maybe some younger generations would resonate with what we were putting out there. We did. You came and you changed it.
The Most Awesomely Rad Audience Any Creator Could Ask For
Our audience delights and confuses me. We have very little traction on social media, but holy shit you read our stuff. In a time where blogging is dead and social media leans heavily on the algo to short videos and AI has made it more difficult than ever for search engines to connect readers and writers, you are here and almost every month the audience continues to grow and as you do, we change and evolve with you.
65% of our audience is women! The majority of these women are Gen X with Millennial women right on their heels. Over the last 2 months we have seen Gen Z women climb from .5% to just shy of 5% of our readership. Unfortunately, analytic models are still very cis hetero binary so without polling or using move invasive tools I can only say that based on comments and observation, we do have a very vocal LGTBQIA+ crowd. I could not be more thrilled by this kind of audience.
With one exception, we are always paying attention to what you are responding to, commenting on, and tuning out. I do not feel that this is capitulation to the audience for ratings and clicks, but it is a symbiosis and harmony in the relationship between reader and writer. Because the algorithm is so broken right now, word of mouth is the strongest ally for our brand and our budget. Authentic response, respect, and adjustment to the needs of our audience without sacrificing our core values is not marketing, it is earning your continued readership and showing you gratitude.
In a moment I am going to speak to the exception and ask for a little more from you in our relationship. But in this moment, know that I am very grateful for you.
You have challenged my writing, my thoughts, and my heart. As the editor in chief I can honestly say I am a better and more thoughtful man and writer because of you.
In this article we are about to celebrate and recognize what you have made the top…and the bottom…of this space and the difference it has made.
The Exception and the Favor
As a columnist I have spent 20 years pushing the envelope and arguing with editors on social content. On this side as being a writer and the editor in chief, I see why they restricted me, and I disagree with them, and sometimes with you.
I love that the readers celebrate the articles we publish celebrating women and queer people. Hope grows as you resonate with articles that speak to bridging the generational divide with kindness as opposed to being gatekeepers of joy. But whenever we write about black women, women of color, or women with disabilities, the drop in readership, shares, and engagement is alarming. This leaves me with a choice.
I can pivot and write less about what is not read as much or I can double down. I have chosen the latter. When black women, women of color and women with disabilities are written about as sympathetic props in collective trauma porn, it gets read. But that is not who I am as an ally and a friend and a neighbor. In my growth and evolution these women have taught me things about myself and humanity.
My stubborn doubling down and refusing to be that editor is slowly starting to see a corner turned. My most recent Fem Friday about a woman named Jenny who is profoundly deaf and a former model has been one of our most popular articles in 3 months. This means so much to me because it shows that you are beginning to trust us and embrace growth and diversity as feminism enters the fourth wave.
The favor is support financially and more shares. We have not seen a new patreon or tip in months. Shares are slipping as well. Much of our growth is happening right now from me using every tool at my disposal to increase our search engine optimization and impressions on what limited budget we have and time I have. This month has seen a sharp decline in shares and may not be another month of growth.
As you can see, we need you! I need you.
If I could take the foot off the gas a little and have greater partnership with you we could focus our energies on better content, paying writers (including me) more than a tip, and keeping this lighthouse shining bright! I know that we all have struggles, but I also know that consumer spending is up. I want to keep this space ad free and not have to answer to corporate demands and pressures to keep us free to write what you want to read. We need your help to do that.
Now, lets get to celebrating the gift you have given us and the deepest connections we have together as writers and readers!
The Overall Top Columns!
What is nostalgia? How has it helped us? And how can we use it to make a difference? This is nostalgia that matters today!
If we combine the energy of the top 3 overall articles, we have over 20,000 reads. But if we are being honest, over 10,000 of these come from one powerful source. Mister Rogers! The common theme on all three of these that you, our amazing readers, resonated and shared is nostalgia that matters today. These three not only define the bittersweet nature of nostalgia, but the life lessons we can take from those touchpoints in our lives and use them to be kinder and perhaps even inspire the next generation.
The Best of Fem Friday
Fem Friday has become an anchor to GenX Watch. Like an anchor store in a mall in the 80’s and 90’s or a anchor song in a new album by your favorite artist, Fem Friday is an accidental draw for our core audience. Every Friday we celebrate women who have inspired and affected change for decades. Their mark on us is both societal and personal moments.
The top three have a common theme and a very pleasant surprise as a largely ignored Fem Friday has risen to the top of the ranks in the last week.
The common theme in all three Fem Fridays is that they co feature women I knew from 1988 through 1992. These were young women who did not change the world, but they stood up against a world that restricted them even more than the world does today. They did not always win, but they stood as strong as they could for themselves in impossible circumstances and in all three cases, changed me and were the weeds in the garden that made me a better man in middle age.
One of our lowest read Fem Fridays that underperformed compared to the others found new life after I published an interview with Jenny. Suddenly, you rediscovered an earlier piece where she taught me how to feel music differently. You saw her as I do. Not as a deaf woman to be sympathized and seen as less. After the breakout interview you rediscovered this piece and saw a powerful, vibrant, and spirited person who had something to teach us in regard to feeling music more profoundly and beautifully.
You read not just about Joan Jett, Kate Bush, and Patti Smith. You read about the real lives of Sarah, Cassie, and Jenny. They are also the foundations for the created demand of a YA book series based on these stories that is currently in production along with other expressions featuring these women without the celebrity hooks we connected them to.
My friend and other Fem Friday, Heather, also points out that these three have the most sensual content and tells me that back in the day girls would put bookmarks in the steamy scenes of their favorite books and these three have that in common.
Here they are and I hope they continue to be rediscovered and treasured and am more grateful than I can say that of all the women you celebrated, you chose them.
The Best of Jeremy Ritch
Three guest columnists have appeared on Gen X Watch, but none have captured the hearts and minds of our readers like Jeremy Ritch has. With 15 of our 100 articles to his name, he always brings something amazing to the table along with new readers. Jeremy has a lifetime of music promotion, social commentary, poetry and art to draw from his deep well of thought and expression.
I was once asked if I was jealous of Jeremy’s talent as a writer. The answer is no. He is one of the most prolific writers I personally know and his writing does the same thing his friendship has done for me over the last 18 years of friendship has done. He challenges, inspires, and moves. The readers agree.
In the top three I cannot draw a parallel other than to say they are brilliantly written.
Jeremy adds contrast to Gen X Watch and contrast makes art more beautiful. In contrast you also have harmony. Jeremy shares the core values but expressed what he has to say differently and this makes me a better editor in chief. I do not always see eye to eye with Jeremy on some social issues and opinions. But I cannot do what editors have done to me because a prolific voice challenges me and makes me uncomfortable. That would ruin the contrast and reduce the beauty.
What Jeremy does touches lives and pushes boundaries. If there was a sober less toxic version of Hunter S Thompson, it would be Jeremy and we are lucky to have him writing here.
Here is Jeremy’s top three as read by you, the readers.
The Bottom Feeders
I felt it was important and fun to write about what you did not connect with. We try some things and it does not always land and that is okay, with one exception.
The Kevin Bacon piece I thought would get a stronger traction but I misread the room. It was a heartwarming story about our connection to all things and a celebration of how he has used a game created about him to make a difference to others in other generations.
Atari 2600 was a total miss on my part. There is a genre of gamer journalism that can tap into retro gaming better than I can. I thought that with the popularity of our mix tape and walkman piece, this would be a fun bit of nostalgia. I was wrong and I had a good laugh when I realized it was bombing.
The third one hurts and it goes back to what I spoke to earlier. Our third lowest article read and shared ever is a Fem Friday. It is a Fem Friday about one of the most prolific black women to ever to grace our lives and inspire so many. She saved my life and that of my child and many others just with her powerful words. If I am being honest, it hurts and makes me angry to see this one only have 40 people even click on it when the average Fem Friday gets more than that by lunch on the day it publishes.
We have a black woman running for president right now and I hope she gets more votes than Maya got clicks. Because if she does not, we are in trouble.
Thank you!
Thank you for exceeding my expectations. Your reads, your shares and your comments in public and private mean the world to me. The fact that reader interaction and demand have led to a very special book project and brought some real life Fem Fridays back into my life means more than I can express.
The Pateons! You make this possible and I hope more join you.
The partners like Jeremy and Tawn and my secret advisory board. You are the encouragers and recalibrate my moral compass in ways I never thought possible!
Thank you for 100 articles and I look forward to see where the next 100 takes us together.
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