Happy New Year! Yes, I know it’s February already, but honestly, I’ve been drinking since November so I’m lucky to even be wearing pants right now sitting up straight right now. Even though it’s closer to Valentine’s Day than New Years Day, I still wanted to take some time out and share with all you wonderful nerds what’s up with us here at 4LN. I did this little “State of 4LN Address” last year (“New Year, New 4LN“) and it’s just a way that I can keep those of you who might be interested up-to-date on where we are right now and what our foreseeable plans are.
Writing something about 4LN is complicated because we have two core readerships: People who know us in our personal lives and support us even if they aren’t invested in our content, and people who really don’t give a s–t who we are and only check out the site BECAUSE of the content. And we’re OK with that. We appreciate all of you equally and we’re grateful when even only a few of you read something we publish. Honestly, if you fall into the latter category, you could probably just stop reading here, or skip to the bottom. I 100% can’t blame you for not giving a s–t about who we are individually, and the rest of this could come across as self-indulgent to you. I only say that to try and give you a fair heads up on what you’re about to get into. The rest of you, the ones who do know us personally, you have to keep reading. It’s mandatory.
Our appreciation and gratitude in spite of only getting a handful of views on something is afforded to us because we make absolutely no money, no monetary gain whatsoever, off of this website. Since we really have nothing to lose, it’s a pleasure for us when any of you take the time to read a comic review or TV episode recap, or check out one of our unboxing videos. However… the fact that we do no profit from our posts means that 4LN cannot always be the top priority for us. It’s unfortunate, but hey, that’s life. We have jobs and families, and responsibilities that will always require more attention than this website, and as (mostly) responsible adults, we know that our everyday life commitments are more important than this. It’s the reason a review may go out a couple days later than planned, or a YouTube video might get published a week past the date we would’ve liked. Preserving our way of life, and taking care of our families comes first. Every time. We’ve never had any misconceptions that 4LN would be our ticket to “the Big Time,” whatever that means. Sure, we’ve had high hopes and dreams, but not once did we ever assume that this website would become the sole means of income for any of us, let alone ALL of us. We’re not THAT delusional. We’ve cultivated it as much as we can, when we can, and abandoned things that didn’t work or weren’t viable for us. We consider anything we at least tried a success because it means we weren’t cowards.
Another reason things can be “feast or famine” around here is because it’s very easy for us to get overwhelmed and burned out, which can lead to weeks where there’s only one or two articles posted, and then others where we have something every single day. Admittedly, lately, it’s been more famine than feast. It’s not something we lament though. It’s a side effect that comes from only having a few regular writers, and occasional guest contributors. Like with literally anything that you do, if you do it a lot, it can begin to feel unfulfilling and you need to step back, breathe, reevaluate, and then proceed accordingly. For all of us, at one time or another, focusing less on 4LN was the way to “proceed accordingly.” At first, when one of us would express these feelings, I think the rest of us saw it as mutiny, but once our time in the chair came, we better understood those feelings. It’s completely natural and we’re all accepting of that now. I say all this to provide an explanation, not an excuse. We’re not looking for pity. Honestly, we’re not even sorry. We’ve chosen to make 4LN fit into our lives, rather than forcing our lives to revolve around it and these are simply side effects.
So, what does all this mean for 4LN? Well, it means… it means that we’re done. We’re ending. The time has come for us to put this venture to rest. It’s definitely tough. I mean, how do I say goodbye to what we had? The good times that made us laugh outweigh the bad. I thought we’d get to see forever, but forever’s gone away. It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday…
Ha! JK! LOLZ! We’re not f–king going anywhere, BITCHES!
I’ve had people ask me about what happened to 4LN and why we aren’t doing as much. The honest answer is… we don’t take it as seriously now. Sure, we may never have expected that we’d ride this ship to “internet success and fortune” but we certainly attempted the “dress for the job you want” philosophy. We forced out content just because it was there to take up space and make us look busier. We’ve taken hard stances on things that, in hindsight, were trivial, and we’ve fought to the point of almost destroying friendships over things like… Batman (who isn’t a superhero, by the way). We just realized that none of this, no comic or movie or superhero, is worth being that rigid.
Last year we decided that we were going to be more open with our content and post about things that fell outside of the “nerd” label. That will continue. I anticipate there may be more music articles, as well as more lifestyle themed pieces. We’re also hoping to continue developing our video projects. We had a blast filming at Warped Tour last year, and we always enjoy shooting unboxing videos, so make sure to follow our Youtube page for whatever may pop up there.
We will also keep our “Positivity clause” in effect indefinitely. That’s the one thing that makes all of this worth it. Our only goal at this point, is to write about what we love, what we care about, what we want YOU to love and care about. It’s why we started, and it’s the sentiment we’re back to now. We have no desire to waste your time with negative and disparaging clickbait. 4LN exists, inherently, not because we’re all narcissistic pieces of garbage who craved 15 minutes of mediocre, ill-begotten fame (not *all* of us), but because we genuinely want to talk about what we love. It used to be just comics, games, and other typical “nerd” stuff. But we’ve evolved (or maybe devolved, depending on who you ask) and we can either quit or adapt. We’ve chosen to adapt. So yes, there will still be weeks we don’t post much, and then there will be weeks that we post an article every day. 2 years ago when we’d post an article a day, most weeks 3 out of those 5 articles were, frankly, bulls–t (maybe “superfluous” is a more sophisticated word?), and we were all probably just as indifferent to them as you were. That won’t happen anymore.
To summarize: 4LN is exactly what we want it to be right now. Casual. We’ve always identified as casual nerds, we enjoy nerd culture but we aren’t defined by it. 4LN will go forward reflecting that ideology. We’ll write, and shoot videos, when it’s convenient, and when it’s something we’re passionate about. To that affect, 4LN articles will, admittedly, not always be classified as “nerd”, but we guarantee they’ll always be written by nerds.
With Gratitude,
Stephen Andrew