A Letter From The Editor…

Hey, what’s up, guys? Long time no speak!

It’s been a solid two and a half months since I’ve posted anything here, and even longer since I’ve said anything substantial. The truth is, I got super burnt out from writing and ALMOST burnt out from creating and took a super long hiatus in the process. I’ve long told myself that if I couldn’t produce good, meaningful content consistently, then I’d kill the site so I wouldn’t neglect it. During my hiatus, I had that same thought revisit me over and over again, and although I felt like I had done all I could with my writing, something inside of me wouldn’t allow me to kill my site. In reality, without this site, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish most of the things I’ve been able to do. It played a major role in being the perfect conduit for me to pursue many other passions and projects. Yet, somehow along the way, I lost sight of its placement and importance to my brand, and most importantly to me.

A few years back, I rebranded my site with a very specific vision in mind. A vision that would see me diversify the things that I wrote and spoke about because I didn’t want to be fox-holed into just being the “comic con guy” or the “cellphone guy.” I wanted to be viewed and looked at as a legitimate journalist. I wanted to be respected amongst my peers, and I would accomplish that by growing and expanding my content to better compete with sites like The Verge, or TechCrunch, or Wired. I was a one-man show aimed at competing with some of the best tech teams IN THE WORLD. A lofty goal, but also highly unrealistic. So, in order to keep up with the seemingly endless stream of content pushed out by my competitors, I reverted back to the same content I had previously shunned. It was quick, it was easy, and it would allow me to be able to keep up somewhat with the larger sites.

After months of trying to be consistent, while consistently falling behind, I saw both my content and my creative drive suffer. As a result, so did this site. The main branch of my content tree was suffering, all because of me and I had no clue how to stop it. So I retreated. I stopped writing consistently and left the site to die, all because I had resigned myself to the fact that I simply could not compete with the bigger content creators. It wasn’t until recently that I had the epiphany that I wish I would’ve had months ago — Maybe I was putting too much pressure on myself to try to “compete” with entities that I really didn’t have to. I had spent years carving out a line for myself, only to drive back onto the busiest part of a metaphorical highway. I don’t need to be as good as The Verge, Wired, and all those other sites because just being myself is what got me where I am in the first place.

I don’t want to get too preachy or launch into some insanely inspirational speech, but I do want to say that the direction I took The Curated Culture in, was one clouded by a vision of what I thought it should be, not what it actually is. So going forward, you can expect more original content, short and long-form articles about all the cool shit that’s happening around our society and within our culture. No, they won’t be stuffy and well-written, but they will be my 100% unfiltered thoughts and feelings on a wide range of subjects that I think are cool, and so should you. I’ll also be working on updating the look and feel of the site, so while you’ll still get REGULAR, NEW, and ORIGINAL, content, there may also be a bug or two here and there.

Thank you for your continued support. I look forward to providing you all with some truly entertaining, engaging, and fiercely dope content. Oh yeah… I curse a lot too, so here’s your warning.

See you soon.