Story Time - How a Misunderstanding Caused Me To Start Blogging (The Real Reason I Started Blogging)

 

Hey guys! I don't normally do these "story time" type of posts. I'm a very boring guy, with a very boring life, and I don't have very many interesting or funny stories about myself. But the story of how I created my blog is quite interesting and I've never actually shared this story with anyone before so this would be the first time I have shared this with anyone. I've always said the reason I started this blog was due to Beluga retiring. That is partly true, but the truth is a bit more complicated than that. With the 3 year anniversary of me creating this blog coming up, I decided now would be a good time to share this story. In this story you'll learn what got me interested in Hits 1, why I created this blog, and how a big misunderstanding caused me to start reviewing the weekend countdown. But before we begin I need to give some background info.

I first started listening to Hits 1 in the summer of 2016. I had a 3 month free trial of SiriusXM and Hits 1 became the soundtrack to my drives to my summer job at an amusement park, and I enjoyed listening to the weekend countdown on Saturdays. I remember Hits 1 played a special version of Cheap Thrills that said "C'mon turn Hits 1 on" which I thought was hilarious. At that time I had no idea how big the weekend countdown was and that there was an entire community of bloggers posting the weekend countdown every week. If I would have know that, who knows, I could have started this blog all the way back in 2016. But alas my free trial came to an end, and I was too broke to renew it, so I never listened to Hits 1 again for another 3 more years.

Fast forward 3 years to November 2019. I bought a new car that came with a 3 month free trial of SiriusXM. I enjoyed listening to Hits 1 and the weekend countdown again. During that time, I somehow stumbled onto Beluga's and Waffle's blogs, and realized that there was a community of bloggers that was blogging the countdown every week. Then I eventually stumbled onto Adrian's and CountdownRecap's old blogs, and enjoyed looking at what the countdown looked like all the way back in 2011. For 2 and a half years I was lurking on Beluga's and Waffle's blogs, enjoying their countdown posts and not commenting anything. 

Fast forward again to February 2022. I saw some videos on YouTube where someone made history videos for different artists on the Hot 100. And I thought it was cool, so I decided to make my own videos for artists on the weekend countdown. But getting the data for the charts was proving to be quite a hassle. It was getting tiring having to switch between 3 different people's blogs - CountdownRecap's, Adrian's, and Beluga's. So I thought of a brilliant idea. I would create a place where I could store all the weekend countdowns through all the years into one place so I wouldn't have to keep going back and forth. Since everyone else was using Blogger, I decided to make a blog for my eyes only where I could store all the weekend countdowns to make it easier to make those videos. So from February to May 2022, nobody but me knew of this blog's existence. I had no intention of reviewing the weekend countdown or anyone even seeing my blog.

Fast forward to May 14, 2022. Beluga announced his retirement from blogging, which saddened me and everyone else. I still had no intention of reviewing the weekend countdown or making my blog public any time soon. Then a week later on May 21, Trey released his countdown post. On that week, PGNL by Conor Maynard entered hitbound. I actually knew who he was and that he had 2 songs on the countdown back in 2012 because of all the research I did. On his post Trey said that he had no idea who Conor Maynard was, which kinda irritated me for some reason. How dare Trey not know this artist had a super obscure random song 10 years ago. So I decided to leave a comment on his blog. Now I normally don't leave comments, I had actually never left a comment before so it was my first one. I guess my need to always correct people overshadowed my shyness. I commented that Conor Maynard had a song on the countdown in 2012 called Vegas Girl. If you're interested you can find that comment here on this post https://treyshits1weelendcountdownblog.blogspot.com/2022/05/harry-styles2-week-of-may-21st-2022.html

I check back later and I see that Trey replied to my comment. He said welcome to the Hits 1 community, somehow found my blog on my profile, and said that he put my blog in his sidebar. And then panic rushed through me. I had no intentions of joining the Hits 1 community, nor did I want anyone seeing my blog. It was an eyesore with no proper layouts or formatting. I didn't really want to explain to him how I wasn't actually a new blogger and that my blog was for my own personal use. But then everyone was so excited that there was a new blogger after Beluga retired, and I didn't have the heart to tell them no. So I thought to myself "Welp, guess I have to start blogging the weekend countdown now!" 

I decided to just play it off. I left a comment on Beluga's post saying how much he was an inspiration to me, and that I decided to start blogging in his honor. Which was partly true. But it would have been too hard to explain the real reason I started blogging was due to a very big misunderstanding. On that day I released my very first countdown review. It's very bad, please don't read it https://zestpond.blogspot.com/2022/05/may-21-2022.html. 

And the rest is pretty much history. I've been blogging the weekend countdown every week since then (besides my 6 month mental health hiatus in late 2023/early 2024), and I've become the de facto leader of the Hits 1 community after Waffle and Trey retired from making countdown posts. 

I think that this all ended up being a blessing in disguise. I really wanted to start blogging, but I was too shy to say anything. I think the push from Trey finally gave me the courage to start blogging. I've come out of my shell a lot, and met some really great people in the blogging community. Just think, if Conor Maynard never released the song PGNL, I never would have commented on Trey's blog, and I never would have started making countdown posts, and I probably wouldn't even be here today. That is why PGNL will always hold a special place in my heart.

I guess the moral of the story is don't be afraid to start blogging. Don't be afraid that your writing is bad, or your formatting is bad, or that no one will read it. I thought all those things too. My writing was terrible, my formatting was so whack, and my posts barely scratched double digit views. But with enough practice and persistence I got better, and so will you. You can accomplish anything you put your mind to. I believe in you! Look who I am now. I went from being the least popular blogger who no one knew to the most popular. Anything is possible. 

Well that pretty much sums up my blogging story. Wow that ended up being a lot longer than I thought. I hope you guys enjoyed reading that and it wasn't too long. I really enjoyed writing this. I think it would be interesting if I made a post sometime about the history of Hits 1 blogging from 2011-today. It just depends if I have the energy/inspiration to make that kind of post. Until next time!