TODAY: The Twentieth Blogiversary Of Joe.My.God.

Today marks the twentieth blogiversary of this here website thingy. Counting this one, we’re at 151,117 posts over 20 years, the last 15 of which have been without a full day off, although my posting on weekends is usually at a slower rate. As I’ve said on this day every year, whether I am insanely committed or am insane and should be committed – that is entirely your call.

I appreciate all of you for sticking with me all these years, particularly over the last few years when the entire world was turned upside down by the pandemic.

In this post last year I noted that site traffic has indicated that most of you tend to read JMG during office hours and that continues to be the case, although I suspect not as many of you are reading this in your work-from-home sexy underwear compared to the lockdown years.

Looking back on the last year of posts, it’s evident that the blessed relief from the twin horrors of the Trump years and the pandemic have arguably been matched by unprecedented and vicious attacks on LGBTQ rights.

Bans of LGBTQ books, “Don’t Say Gay” laws, the seemingly unstoppable erosion of trans rights, the rise of ardently anti-LGBTQ Christian nationalism, attacks on Pride and drag events by literal Nazis, and the ever-looming threat to same-sex marriage dominated our posts on LGBTQ issues over the last year. We’ve won some of these battles, but we’ve lost a frightening number of them.

On the business side, I continue to refuse pitches from ad services seeking to load JMG with pop-ups, page takeovers, and full-screen videos because while they pay much better than static ads, they sure are intrusive and annoying. (Seriously, I get about five of these pitches every day.)

But that’s also why some of the ads you’ve seen lately on JMG have tended to be PSA types and other annoyingly ill-targeted “remnant” fillers. And to be fair, a lot of those ad dollars now go to social media “influencers” – a word that spellcheck still says doesn’t exist.

If you’re not seeing those ill-targeted ads, it’s likely because you’re among the around 60% of JMG readers who use ad blockers and therefore miss those forlorn messages from lonely young ladies wanting to chat right now.

If you are seeing them, my apologies. (Please do not sign up for any Russian brides.) Most ads are regionally targeted and/or tailored to the web habits of the reader, so if you see any ads that definitely do not belong on this “far-left radical” website, as Richard Grenell calls us, let me know.

As I said last year on the topic of cratering ad rates, it’s the generous support of the JMG community that keeps the lights on around here. PayPal sends me a monthly tip jar recap, but for those who donate without a PayPal account and for other reasons I still don’t understand, I usually don’t get an email address to send a note of thanks. To steal a line from the fabulous Coco Peru, that bothers me.

On behalf of myself and our tireless tech support guy Jack, who deals with a lot of stupid nonsense at stupid hours, you have our eternal thanks for being part of the rollicking community of “homosexual buccaneers” and straight allies that fight the good fight.

Thank you for enduring my typos, my “Don’t Panic” messages, and for sending in news items. I get too many emails to respond to them all, but all of them are very appreciated. The ride will likely only get rougher from here until November, so hang on. We’ve got the kids and righteousness on our side.

Help yourself to some punch and cookies. Please don’t let the cat out. And onward to year TWENTY-ONE!

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