State of the Blog Address

Congratulations, everyone! Welcome to the 200th post made on TheColonialist.com.

To celebrate, we present you all with a brand new blog design. We kept it just as simple as the old design, but with a little more gloss. We also switched the blog’s server to Wordpress. Wordpress is the better blog engine, and we knew we’d have to make the switch eventually. Let us know what you think.

We wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone, ourselves included, what The Colonialist is all about.

During our first few weeks as a blog, I spoke with a good friend/professor about what we were doing and he told me the history of the Hatchet as a paper. They gained their independence from the University in 1993, spurred from similar sentiment that I felt. The University as an institution was stunting their creativity and journalistic freedom. They couldn’t say what they wanted, the paper wasn’t speaking for the student body, so they broke away and started saying what they wanted. Now 15 years later, a lot of the student body felt The Hatchet had become what they had hated.

I felt incredibly tied down during my first two years at GW. There wasn’t a place where my concerns or thoughts could be expressed with those around me. I felt like the Hatchet was predictable and institutionalized. They weren’t speaking about things I cared about, and it felt like they had an obligation to themselves to take work incredibly seriously. They felt like a behemoth. A behemoth that sucked up the wrong information, watered it down, and spit it back out with a sensationalist headline. They misrepresented what it meant to be a community news source and I didn’t think they were speaking for any of us. I had wished for over a year that someone would make a blog like this one, so we could all share our concerns. No one did, so I did. It would have been a lot nicer just to read it, you fucks.

How We Started

In October of 2007, I sent out three Facebook messages to people I thought defined different aspects of the GW lifestyle. I asked them if they thought GW would benefit from something like this blog, and more importantly, if anyone would read it. I don’t remember how they answered.

Later that day, I talked with my roommate and fellow TheColonialist founder, Kirk. This was our conversation:

And the rest is history.

The Colonialist consists of four main writers: Kirk Larsen, Kevin Mead, Darren Miller and me, Travis Helwig. This has not, and will never be the “receSs blog” despite the fact we are all associated with receSs. We are not a blog that exists solely to hate the Hatchet, although we do. The Colonialist is about community. We hope that comes across.

What We’ve Done

We hate to say it, but we benefited from the Swastika incident. If anyone cared enough to create some sort of conspiracy theory surrounding an already ridiculous situation, we would be the logical masterminds. To this day, our most read post was our analysis of the incident. We owe the majority of our readership to that post. See, Sarah? Something great did come from your actions!

As the insanity surrounding the hate crime faded away, we realized we actually had to create content. So, we winged it.

We like to think, and we hope you agree with us, that The Colonialist has allowed for campus news to move from feeling like a lecture to a dialogue. By simply allowing a new un-journalistic voice to become part of the neighborhood, we feel like as a community, progress has been made. If we’re wrong about something, your comments tell us. If we’re right about something, your comments tell us. If we missed something important, your emails let us know.

If we have accomplished anything with these first 200 posts, it was the ability for anyone with a computer to have a say.

And people started to notice. We have been featured on prominent DC Blogs like The DCist and DCComedy4Now. We were nominated by US News and World Report in the category of “Best Alternative Media Outlet.” We have steadily gained readership over the past few months, to the point where we now have roughly 500 unique visitors every day. And the amount of comments has drastically risen in recent weeks. Any post with any sort of substance is usually turned into a discussion. We like that.

Where We’re Going

Our biggest goal for the future of The Colonialist is to continue to foster dialogue on a campus that often finds itself polarized and divisive. GW students tend to silence dissent at all costs. GW students find themselves victims of preconceived notions about them based solely on the groups they are a part of and their profile on Facebook. GW students don’t discuss. GW students insult. This is something The Colonialist is actively trying to change.

We welcome with open arms editorials and comments that disagree with us. We will gladly accept rebuttals from Hatchet writers and supporters, who disagree with our journalistic stances. We want an open discourse.

On this campus we tend to put politics and beliefs over friendships. That is a stupid idea. Despite starting a blog that hopes to be the antithesis of The Hatchet, I consider myself good friends with many writers, contributors and readers of that paper. I am a reader of that paper. I hope to become friends with more of their staff as the year rolls on. We want to help foster a GW community that is less about yelling opinions and more about exchanging ideas.

If we post something you don’t agree with, don’t stop expressing yourself here. Tell us why we’re fucking stupid. And if we disagree with you still, even better! Keep arguing!

In addition to continuing an open dialogue, we have a few more tangible things coming in the future. We will be starting a series of “Guest Blogs” written by important or noteworthy members of the GW community. SA President-Elect Vishal Aswani will be addressing the student body directly through The Colonialist in the coming days, and reading your comments as well. We hope to open this option up to other student and faculty leaders in the future.

We will also be hosting a series of events in the coming weeks. Yes, events in the real world. It’s terrifying we know, but sometimes sun light is good. We were hoping to kick off events with a SA Presidential debate, but the Marvin Center messed up the scheduling and it didn’t work out. We’re going to hold concerts, performances, and other events, so you can pre-game for and enjoy them.

In terms of actual blog content, we are looking to increase the amount of submissions we receive for humor articles and editorials. We don’t receive many and we want that to change. In addition, we are considering opening up The Colonialist staff to include permanent contributors and segment writers. That is not set in stone, but keep reading if that’s something you’re interested in. More information about this will be available soon.

What You Want

Tell us what you want from us. What are we good at and what do we suck at? Do you want more sports coverage? The return of Phil? More DC Snacksmen? More Hatchet bashing? Less Hatchet bashing? More event reviews?What can we do to make this blog better suited to the community? Comment on this post and tell us what you want more of, and we’ll try to accommodate. However, we will not post pictures of drunk freshmen at Japone. Leave that to those guys with the terrible web design and sad, desperate erections.

This is a two way street. We need your help to survive. Keep sending us your events, we will post them. Keep sending your contributions, we will post them. Keep sending us tips and suggestions, we will post them. Keep commenting on our posts. This gives us knowledge and hope that people are reading. And please, tell your friends. Share our posts on Facebook. Send it home to your parents. If we really want to foster an open discourse at GW, that means everyone is invited. (Yes, even Karl Rove and Ann Coulter.)

The Important Part (If you read anything, read this)

As we reach our 200th post, we would like to take this moment to say something we haven’t said yet: Thank You. This blog only works because you guys and gals read it and comment on it. You pump the blood into it. You are the life force behind this and we want to thank you for enjoying our work. The fact that this blog is still alive 200 posts later is ridiculous and we only have you to thank. We would not post if you didn’t read. With real appreciation and sincerity, thank you. And we thank your parents for birthing such attractive, intelligent, and internet-savvy children.

This concludes our masturbatory 200th post.

Thanks for E-verything,

Travis Helwig and TheColonialist.com Staff

P.S. If you read this whole thing, wow. Go outside or something. Like, seriously. It’s nice out. Or come over to our place. We’re always playing 4-Square.

P.P.S. If you ever see us playing 4-Square, you are more than invited. It’s more fun with more people.

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