This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss last night's shindig.
EMANUEL: I’m writing this a few hours before the 404 Media anniversary party assuming I’ll be too hungover to do this tomorrow morning, which for me means I’ll have more than two beers and will not get in bed until after 10pm, which is not how I normally want to live my life. The party is one of those worthwhile exceptions, and if you went and are reading this now I hope you had a good time and that you bought Joe’s and Sam’s books while you were there so they didn’t have to carry them all back home. If we talked at the party and I said something stupid or was otherwise awkward, I’m sorry. I’ve done little but blog and change diapers for the last nine months and barely remember how to talk to adults.
The party is coming at a weird time because we’ve had a difficult end of summer here. Business is going great and we’ve had a lot of great stories with more on the way, but as I mentioned on the most recent podcast we’re down pretty bad, with several people traveling, taking much needed time off, and getting pretty sick, most definitely as a result of traveling. We’ve done a lot of patting ourselves on the back recently as we’ve hit the one year mark here, and we’ve patted you on the back as well for making this all possible with your paid subscriptions, so I will not belabor the point other than to say: thank you for your support and patience. Hopefully you didn’t notice it too much, but we’ll be back in full force soon, hopefully next week.
Speaking of illnesses, if you were at the party and are reading this you now know the tragic news that Jason was not able to make it to the party because he just came down with covid. We are all very, very sad about it. We’ve all seen each other in various formations over the last year, but Sam, Jason, Joe, and I haven’t all been in the same room since before we launched the site. We were planning on getting together to celebrate, to record a subscriber only podcast in person about how 404 Media is doing while we were in New York (this will still happen at some point soon, but maybe not in person), and obviously we’re all looking forward to seeing each other, and you, at the party.
To explain to you the depth of the tragedy here you have to understand that out of the four of us Jason is by far the most social and party- enjoying person.
The ranking goes like this:
I’m at the very bottom. I like staying home and my idea of a great weekend is gaming with the blinds drawn and no one talking to me for 48 hours. If you see me drink more than two beers I’m fully on a bender and should probably seek medical help.
I’d say Joe is right above me as I think he also enjoys peace and quiet. However he has been known to have a few at the pub with his lads, as mates do.
Sam actually enjoys parties and socializing. Of the few parties I’ve gone to in recent years, most of them have been hosted by Sam. We all wanted to do some kind of event for the one year anniversary but Sam is the one who did the majority of the work on putting it together. She likes partying so much she does labor for them.
Then at the very top is Jason who is like an olympic partier. I feel like if I’m talking to Jason and he’s not working he’s either surfing or on the way to or from some sort of gathering. I’ve come to respect it but definitely I’ve expressed my contempt and confusion about his lifestyle to him directly multiple times. Very, very impressively Jason has been able to work hard and party hard 99 percent of the time that I’ve known him, like peel himself off the floor at 7am after 8 Modelos or whatever and come do something very hard and complicated at work as if nothing happened. I know that he’s in pain not just because of covid but because he’s missing this party.
We are all sad he didn’t make it because we wanted to see him but also because he is life of the party material. Hopefully everyone still had fun and don’t feel rugged.
UPDATE: It’s Friday morning after the party and I am NOT hungover. I only had one and a half beers. I did lose my voice however because a lot of people came and it was loud. Everyone was incredibly nice. Once again we are incredibly grateful for your support and it was a delight to meet many of you in person. Hopefully we’ll do it again soon!
JASON: I don’t think I could have gotten COVID at a more annoying and personally upsetting time. As Emanuel mentioned, I’m devastated that I had to miss the party. I’ve got it pretty bad at the moment but am slowly on the mend. Just wanted to write to say that I’m sorry to have missed everyone who came and even more sad that the four of us couldn’t all hang out for the first time in forever. We’ll figure out something else soon.
SAM: I agree with Emanuel’s party power rankings but I will add that I like throwing parties (and especially respect the endangered art of a good house party) because having little jobs to do and being in control of the environment makes me 10000% less socially anxious. But there was nothing to be anxious about last night; 300 of our besties–many of you we met for the first time IRL–in an old familiar haunt with a sheet cake. What else could anyone desire?
Emanuel is also correct that we are sliding into the end of year one by the seat of our pants. But that’s also the benefit of being an indie media publication; we don’t have investors to keep happy or KPIs to hit or whatever the fuck. If we need to go into power saving mode for a week or two due to being human beings, we can do that without a ton of stress.
Thank you for coming last night if you did, and stay tuned for more 404 events in the future. In lieu of more words (boring) here are some photos from the evening. If you have more please send them to us, we'd love to see them!
