It’s that time again as we head to the blog’s anniversary, which I started on the 17th of February. Since I am doing my weekly episode impressions, I may as well get this over with two days early. Sure, things have been rough, but it’s time to share my reflection.
The 9th year of blogging have been very tough. Let’s focus on the good. Compared to the last two years, traffic has finally started to rebound. With that, it bought a modest amount of ad revenue, probably more than what I made with Google Adsense. However, the lack of comments continues to be the sticking point that continues to frustrate me as seen in the chart below.
While it may change, there are only six comments, which is a big drop compared to previous months. The lack of comments thing has always been a consistent thing that bothers me since 2015. The lack of comments gives me a feeling that not too many people actually read my content. On a few occasions, it makes me feel that I am wasting my time blogging. The job search that continues what looks like no end in sight is making things worse.
Aside from that, I am not where I want to be in life. I thought I would pay off most of my debt, start thinking about dating, and start a family. Of course, things never work out perfectly since life is unpredictable. This is why I can relate to Koharu Yoshino from Sakura Quest. She wanted to find a job in Tokyo to escape the possibly of living in her rural hometown for the rest of her life. However, she faces many setbacks with every company rejecting her after every interview. It’s not until she receives a job offer at a tourism board in effort to revive a rural town is when she became lucky. While it’s not something she wanted to do at first, she gradually started enjoying her job. In fact, I am mentioning this since I am currently reading the manga adaptation of the show.
The thing is, just like Yoshino, I will eventually become lucky and receive a job that will be a better fit. The current situation is just a setback that everyone faces in life. Of course, aside from family, I wouldn’t survive this brutal job search without keeping myself occupied.
Besides doing training and working on my business to gain more experience, things like anime blogging and interacting with others in the fandom is what makes me feel hopeful. It kept my sanity when I looked for a job when I graduated in 2015 since there were people I could interact on my blog. It’s not surprising since there were 683 comments made during that year alone. Now, it dropped to 299 last year. When I stopped working, I lost the ability to interact with others on a daily basis. The comment drops and good number of fellow bloggers unfollowing me on Twitter does not help.
I have to admit that I am not a big social media user. Still, it’s hard to continue blogging with the lack of social interaction outside my family. Believe it or not, this only adds more to the troubles I am dealing with. However, it’s not as bad compared to what other people who are worse off than me.
The point is, in another year, I will be doing this for 10 years. Nowadays, there are only a good number of anime blogs around this age that is still alive. Even so, I still want to keep continuing since I put in a lot of effort. This won’t be possible unless I receive more support such as people commenting on my posts, and not using ad block. This is only when I will get myself more involved with the community, which I have been neglecting for so many years.
While things are tough, I am hopeful that the light at the end of the tunnel will eventually come. Despite this anniversary coming off dark, I would like to thank everyone for continued support from my subscribers, followers, and visitors who read and enjoy my posts, both old and new. I hope you will continue to support me into the future. ¶
You are one of the few who keeps serious in this style of anime blog yet! I hope it continues for a very long time!
Thank you for your continued support.
I apologize for the lack of commenting too, since I don’t pick a lot of new anime lately, I don’t really have a lot to talk about.
As for the job search, I can understand your pain as it’s a problem I have been wrestling with for quite awhile too. Just keep on keeping on and hope we both can find the solutions to our struggles in life.
It’s understandable.
It’s surprising how long the job search dragged on given that the economy in the United States is good and unemployment is low. It’s mostly because I am only interested in civil service Information Technology jobs, which obviously takes longer given how competitive those jobs are. Just hope that this year, our fortunes will change for the better.
Wow 9 years – how have I just discovered this blog. I’m beyond impressed and I am looking forward to year 10!
Thanks. It’s definitely an achievement to blog about Anime for 10 years, but it does make me realize that aside from time going by so quickly, but how Anime progressed though the years.
Congrats on your 9th anniversary! I’m sure things will work out better for you good sir. Don’t give up and keep on fighting. The only time you can truly say all is hope it lost is when you yourself give up. I’m sure you’re a man of action and that day will never come so always go for gold no matter what dood! Here’s to many more years of blogging and being part of the aniblogosphere. You’re a valuable member of the Yuri Nation after all.
Giving up is never an option. Sure things look bad, but there are others who are less fortunate. Hopefully things will be better and I have more luck this year.
Also, thanks.
I have been living in an isolated bubble for most of last year, but trying to interact with people I follow or read from. After moving to a new part of town, I decided to change jobs, but was lucky enough to get a temp position in a help desk/call center type job until I hear back from the position I’m trying to get. Temp position does pay pretty well (not as much as my old position), but should be hearing back from the job I want next month. If I hadn’t moved all the way out to the rural part of town, I would have kept my old position, but the new one has better chances of getting me to where I want to be next career wise. Not too thrilled that my Security+ renewal exam is coming up this year, but that is life. Anyway, really hoping that everything works out for you since I have been in a similar position…even though I am still not better off myself. But things always have a way of working themselves out.
I understand that feeling since it takes a very long time to hear back. I have done several interviews for jobs in Central Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Washington DC and New Jersey, and either I don’t get an answer back or receive an email that I wasn’t selected. Since I am only applying for federal jobs, the process takes a very long time and I am still looking for any federal information technology job.
At this point, I don’t think I will get hired or even called for any private industry job since I haven’t have full-time employment for a long time. I would rather have meaningful work helping the country instead. But aside from that, I have been focused primarily on my business, developing open source software and relying on donations. Understandably, it makes hardly anything and I am still relying on my parents to help me. It
Talking about Security+, I finally finished my continuing education credits by doing more self-paced online training. Hopefully, the training will help me gain the skills needed for a job. Still thinking about possibly doing the Cybersecurity Analyst certification exam to see if that helps.
Hopefully things will work out for us. Although I keep hearing about the economy being at full-employment, it is still tough to land in a job, even with a bachelors and master’s degree, some job experience and a certification.