10 years. That’s how long it’s been since I started this website.
Yeah, I may have had a few smaller sites before then (is Tripod even still a thing?), but it was in 2007 that I finally purchased AngryJerk.net and began actively writing articles for an audience larger than myself and a few friends. Being who I was at that time, my sole goal was to write as much inflammatory shit as I could and see how many people I could piss off, with just a touch of my own actual opinions thrown in for authenticity. I admit, my end-goal was to provoke a shitticane with the UN or some special interest group. I was actively pushing the limits of free speech to see what it took for some third party to step in and try to censor me.
Somewhere around 2009 or 2010, I reached the site’s peak. I was in the top 200,000 websites on the entire internet, pushing my way into the top 100,000. For being some douchebag on the internet writing childish rants to piss people off, that’s pretty damn remarkable. But more remarkable was the fact that I suddenly had fans, some of which I still talk to to this day (Brothers Torbrex and Rogar, the guys I stream with sometimes). People liked my writing, they liked Angry_Jerk. I opened up a web forum, and several people joined up. It was the Golden Age of AngryJerk.net for sure.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Somewhere around 2012 I got a social life. I no longer had time or the anger to write articles. I gave up writing. Yeah, I made a few half-hearted attempts to bring the site back, but my time management skills weren’t quite there yet, and I kept giving up. This is why there are sporadic updates between 2012 and 2015. I had no idea wtf I was doing, I was drunk and high about 85% of the time, I was more concerned about when the next party was and what girl I was going to hook up with next. Also, I had finally went “full-time” at work, which meant a higher rate of pay, full benefits, and, unfortunately, more hours. I work 6 days a week, 8 1/2 hours a day.
As I write this, I hear you:
“But AJ, I don’t give a fuck about any of that. What’s the goddamn point of this article?”
The point of this article is Angry_Jerk is back for good. All that stuff I just wrote about? I’ve finally sorted my shit out and am back to write more articles. Bigger articles. Better articles. When I was copy-and-pasting the old ones over, I found myself repeatedly asking if I really wrote all that shit. That shit sucked, fuck those old articles. My old articles are trash. Except those ones I marked as “Classics”. Those are better trash, probably good enough to clean up and resell at a flea market or something.
Since this article is supposed to be my “State of the Website Address”, here’s what I’m working on for the future of this website.
1. Rebuilding my reader-base.
As it stands right now, I probably only have a handful of readers. I have around 130 likes on the official Facebook page, yet I’m lucky if 15 people even view one of my posts on there. I have a feeling that most of those likes came from people who didn’t really know what the site was about, and just blindly clicked “Like” on the little ad that Facebook sometimes puts in your bottom right corner. Yeah, Facebook apparently gave me a free ad for a little bit. How kind of you, Mark Zuckerjew.
I don’t know how many people read my site daily during its prime, but I’m going to rebuild my reader-base to numbers even higher than that. My first step, obviously, is to write more content. If I write it, they will come.
You, the reader, can help by sharing my articles around the internet. You can also do shit like write the URL on walls or desks or something, but I must publicly discourage vandalism. You’re probably better off just sharing the URL on Facebook or Twitter or something, tbh. Another thing you can do is encourage discourse by commenting on the articles with this comment system that WordPress has. It’s pretty damn easy to register an account here. Let’s create a community.
2. More streams
AngryJerk.net has a Twitch.tv channel. I’ve done a few streams with AngryJerk.net Brothers Torbrex and Rogar, where we play games like Overwatch. I like doing them, they’re fun. It’s been a while since we’ve done one, but that’s going to change. Expect more of these streams in 2017.
I would like to make highlight reels of the streams and upload them to the official AngryJerk.net YouTube channel, but I’ve been having bad luck with video editing software. I can’t find a working cracked version of Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere freezes up on me, and pretty much every other video editing software I’ve come across either doesn’t do something as simple as split a clip from a specific begin/end time, or requires a PhD in engineering to figure out how to use. I just want to cut and paste clips of me and my buddies sucking shit at Overwatch, not make the next big summer blockbuster. I could use an official video editor. hmu via email if you’re interested, subject line “Video Editor”. Obviously you’re doing it for free, but really if you have experience doing this it shouldn’t be much work. You’ll receive public credit for your work, naturally. When this site finally gets big, you’ll get bragging rights too, so that’s a plus I guess.
But yeah, look forward to more video game streams this year.
3. The return of Rantlister.
For those who don’t remember or weren’t around for it, Rantlister was a list of rant sites, sites similar to this one. Every week we’d post the new articles from the sites on the List.
I plan to bring this back as a feature of AngryJerk.net, perhaps under a new name. There are still a small handful of rant sites that are semi-active. If you know of any rant sites, feel free to let me know so I can consider adding them to the List.
I project a launch date in February or March for this, so keep your eyes peeled.
4. More activity on Facebook and social media.
I’ve never been too big on the social media craze, but it’s time to change that. All the good stuff happens on sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. In the coming months, I plan to increase my presence on these sites. While I’m already on Facebook, I don’t post nearly as much as I should. There’s a lot of shit going on in the world, I should be commenting on it. Twitter is apparently the perfect medium for calling people out on their shit, and that’s what I do best. The link to my brand-spanking-new Twitter account can be found on the sidebar to your right, under the “Follow Us” section. If you can’t figure this out, I don’t want your retarded ass following me on Twitter.
As far as Instagram goes, I’m not sure how many pictures I can take or upload, but I can certainly try to find out.
All my social media accounts are under the “Follow Us” section. Get the jump and follow them now.
To sum up this article, 2017 begins a new era for AngryJerk.net. Here’s to this decade, and here’s to another decade!