11 years of Ogiue Maniax feels…strange. Because it comes right after the 10th anniversary milestone, it feels a bit like a new beginning. I’m honestly not entirely sure how to approach celebrating 11 years, so I’m going to be pretty off-the-cuff with this post.

Sometimes it hits me just how much time has passed. Titles that I remember being the hot new thing back in 2007 are now seen as retro classics by a huge portion of anime and manga fandom. What’s more, the way we approach fandom has changed entirely—case in point, YouTube has gone from being the strange new thing to being the place fans go to for anime reviews. As someone who stuck with writing for the most part, it’s been interesting to see the rise and fall of anime blogging. The fact that my blog views are roughly around where they were in 2008 feels like I’ve made a return back to the early days, but everything’s different. The world, the internet, even I’m not what I was 10 or 11 years ago. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind.

As much as I’d like to be able to reach more people, I’ve come to realize that trying to follow the trends of what you should talk about can be like a shackle on your creativity and autonomy as a creator of content. It’s not necessarily easy to talk only about the latest and hottest thing, but on a personal level, I would find it to be stifling. If I’m interested enough in a current show to say a couple of things, then that’s great. But I’d rather not feel forced or compelled to hit on a specific subject just because it would get more eyeballs on me in the short term. Besides, you never know when the thing you did in the past will come sliding back into the spotlight. Just this past month, I suddenly saw a huge uptick in visitors to Ogiue Maniax. The reason: LeSean Thomas linked to my interview with him from Otakon 2016.

This might all seem unusual to say when I’ve had my own Patreon for the past few years, but there’s a reason I’ve set up my highest-tier reward in a particular way. It’s $30 because I don’t want it to be absolutely impossible for the typical anime fan to afford, but I don’t want it to necessarily take over the blog either. I also give myself the freedom to approach any and all topic requests on my own terms, so I can take these requests as both a way to give back to any patrons who decide to take me up on that offer and as a personal learning experience. It’s very easy to get trapped in a particular mindset or view, and having someone literally say, “Well, why not check this out?” can be very helpful.

That all said, I have had to make adjustments to Ogiue Maniax, especially in being careful with my language and approach to writing. This blog, at its core, is a way for me to explore ideas, and it’s part of the process to throw out half-formed ideas to see whether or not they stick. However, as I get older, and as the world around me changes, I feel a greater responsibility in terms of how my words (or lack thereof) might encourage harmful behavior from others. I still feel it important to ask questions about how we as people interact with anime, manga, and all threads related to those topics, but there’s a certain benefit of the doubt I can no longer give to geek culture as a whole. I saw the early seeds planted in fandom that have driven campaigns of racism, misogyny, and downright misanthropy in this world, and I considered myself separate. I keep thinking about all the times I failed to speak up, or all the times I may have inadvertently defended dangerous mindsets, and I feel almost compelled to make up for my errors.

Man, that got heavy.

I guess I’ll end off by saying this: Ogiue Maniax has been an 11-year reflection of myself as a work in progress. It’s an experiment full of successes and failures (and increasingly fewer Fujoshi Files…) where a conclusion still cannot be seen. But I’m also encouraged by this, and I feel that it’s taught me some important life lessons. No matter where we are, we always have the chance to change and to better ourselves. Don’t base your own worth or the worth of your achievements on comparing yourself to others. See only who you were yesterday, and try to move forward from there.