The Web was full of interesting people participating in all manner of things this year—both good, and bad. During our first year as a functioning publication we’ve been there to cover it all.
Our lofty goal of creating “the paper of record for the Internet,” has taken us far and wide. As a result, we’ve been there to celebrate the highs, comment on the lows, and marvel at the spectacle at every twist and turn.
Our founding vision was to cover citizens of the Web with the same love, skepticism, respect, and enthusiasm as a traditional newspaper might cover the citizens of a bustling, growing metropolis. As a team, we’ve consistently found this vision to be larger, and more rewarding, than we ever could have imagined.
Each time I point our wordcloud tool at the corpora of this year’s Daily Dot content, the result is slightly different. The weight of our words remains a constant but, the placement is a bit random on each attempt. After several pseudo-random rolls of the wordcloud dice, I chose to pick this version to represent our first year on the Internet for one simple reason. People.
In any version of statistical analysis applied to our content this year, one word places at or near the top of the list: people. And, after all is said and done, that’s what we’re about—because that’s what the Web is about: people. It’s the good and bad in all of us, connected at the speed of light and multiplied by the forces contained within us all.
We live in and report upon what certainly ranks among the most interesting times to be alive in the history of sentient bi-pedal beings (who happen to have the ability to write things down for posterity.)
So, as we endlessly tumble around a little yellow star in a great big galaxy, I know I’ll remember this year for many revolutions to come. Because, as Hunter Thompson once wrote:
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
And, that’s exactly what we did.
Cheers to a first year executing an idiom our CEO, Nick, loves to use as a sign-off for internal email dispatches—“Rollin’ pro.” And, to another year covering the dateline known simply as, “today, on the Web.”
