Post by SydneyPaige on Nov 21, 2022 8:56:51 GMT -5
I'm showing my age here, but I was so busy doing laundry yesterday that I completely forgot to post about our anniversary (and I've been planning what I want to write for a few months now yikes!)
Anyways...when I first saw the banner they put on Taylor Connect 5 years ago yesterday, I was crushed. As excited as I was for Taylor's new app, I knew our little community would never really be the same. Taylor Connect was not perfect by any means. There was lots of in fighting, the moderators were barely online and often ignored our requests but, it brought us together. It may have been the first time some of us learned to make graphics, or write songs or poetry or stories, or started collecting merch seriously or talked to someone who lived half way across the world from you or even just talked to another swiftie (we were harder to come by in the early 2010's). I don't think any of us wanted that feeling to go away. It felt like magic.
When the thought came across my mind "maybe someone can make a NEW Taylor Connect", I was secretly hoping someone else would take the lead. I've always been a bit quieter in the fandom. I'm not even sure how many people from the original Taylor Connect would remember me, let alone expect me to to create an entirely new forum. My crowning achievements on Taylor Connect were winning The Ultimate Songwriting Contest that one time and running Swiftopia for a short period of time (mostly cause the actual creator of the thread/club within a club stopped posting on the website). Who was going to join a website I was leading? I shortly noticed that no one else was even so much as suggesting starting a new forum, so I voiced the thought out loud somewhere and then I remembered Mew™ just replied to me saying "I'm in".
I didn't know the first thing about how fan forums worked on a technical standpoint, I do mean it when I say if not for Mew™ , this place wouldn't exist. I knew if I was going to start a forum it had to be right then and right there. I would have had to start posting about it on Taylor Connect while people were saying their goodbyes because no one would know about it otherwise. I luckily had Mew™ 's help with that, as soon as I had a link and newtaylorconnect.freeforums.net was live, I had Mew helping me reply to everyone with our link (which helped because I was still trying to build sections of the site and I was also bombarding him with questions like "how does this work?").
I also knew I didn't have much time to be clever. I like to joke and say that I was being salty when I named the site by just adding the word new to it but, truthfully, I was struggling to think of any other name that would fit and I wanted to steal Taylor Connect's searchability. If you were to google Taylor Connect now, we're the second result that pops up. I honestly thought that I would have received a cease and desist letter from Taylor Nation at one point or another but that point never came so New Taylor Connect lives on (although if that point ever came I would probably just change to site name to NTC since that abbreviation is typically how we refer to the site anyways but this is kind of besides the point, just letting you know my contingency plan).
I could have never imagined anyone other than Mew™ would have joined this site and then you all did. I could have never imagined we'd be here five years later, but we are. We've had our ups (me learning how the theme maker works, CAH nights, every new album drop) and our downs (won't elaborate on this but me and Mew™ do have a joke about the times this website has given us a mental breakdown) and we've seen people come and go but, I wouldn't trade any of it for something different. I've known many of you for years, I joined Taylor Connect just shy of my sixteenth birthday and I'm twenty seven now. It's insane to think I've known you guys for over a decade. In a lot of ways, you guys are my closest friends. It always brightens my day to be able to come on here and see how you are all doing, how you're liking Taylor's new music, how your lives are growing and changing. I'm so thankful that 5 years (and a day) ago you decided to take a chance on me and this website and you're all still here. It's truly an honour. The kingdom lights truly did shine for me and you.
Happy 5 Years, here's to many many more.
Sydney
Anyways...when I first saw the banner they put on Taylor Connect 5 years ago yesterday, I was crushed. As excited as I was for Taylor's new app, I knew our little community would never really be the same. Taylor Connect was not perfect by any means. There was lots of in fighting, the moderators were barely online and often ignored our requests but, it brought us together. It may have been the first time some of us learned to make graphics, or write songs or poetry or stories, or started collecting merch seriously or talked to someone who lived half way across the world from you or even just talked to another swiftie (we were harder to come by in the early 2010's). I don't think any of us wanted that feeling to go away. It felt like magic.
When the thought came across my mind "maybe someone can make a NEW Taylor Connect", I was secretly hoping someone else would take the lead. I've always been a bit quieter in the fandom. I'm not even sure how many people from the original Taylor Connect would remember me, let alone expect me to to create an entirely new forum. My crowning achievements on Taylor Connect were winning The Ultimate Songwriting Contest that one time and running Swiftopia for a short period of time (mostly cause the actual creator of the thread/club within a club stopped posting on the website). Who was going to join a website I was leading? I shortly noticed that no one else was even so much as suggesting starting a new forum, so I voiced the thought out loud somewhere and then I remembered Mew™ just replied to me saying "I'm in".
I didn't know the first thing about how fan forums worked on a technical standpoint, I do mean it when I say if not for Mew™ , this place wouldn't exist. I knew if I was going to start a forum it had to be right then and right there. I would have had to start posting about it on Taylor Connect while people were saying their goodbyes because no one would know about it otherwise. I luckily had Mew™ 's help with that, as soon as I had a link and newtaylorconnect.freeforums.net was live, I had Mew helping me reply to everyone with our link (which helped because I was still trying to build sections of the site and I was also bombarding him with questions like "how does this work?").
I also knew I didn't have much time to be clever. I like to joke and say that I was being salty when I named the site by just adding the word new to it but, truthfully, I was struggling to think of any other name that would fit and I wanted to steal Taylor Connect's searchability. If you were to google Taylor Connect now, we're the second result that pops up. I honestly thought that I would have received a cease and desist letter from Taylor Nation at one point or another but that point never came so New Taylor Connect lives on (although if that point ever came I would probably just change to site name to NTC since that abbreviation is typically how we refer to the site anyways but this is kind of besides the point, just letting you know my contingency plan).
I could have never imagined anyone other than Mew™ would have joined this site and then you all did. I could have never imagined we'd be here five years later, but we are. We've had our ups (me learning how the theme maker works, CAH nights, every new album drop) and our downs (won't elaborate on this but me and Mew™ do have a joke about the times this website has given us a mental breakdown) and we've seen people come and go but, I wouldn't trade any of it for something different. I've known many of you for years, I joined Taylor Connect just shy of my sixteenth birthday and I'm twenty seven now. It's insane to think I've known you guys for over a decade. In a lot of ways, you guys are my closest friends. It always brightens my day to be able to come on here and see how you are all doing, how you're liking Taylor's new music, how your lives are growing and changing. I'm so thankful that 5 years (and a day) ago you decided to take a chance on me and this website and you're all still here. It's truly an honour. The kingdom lights truly did shine for me and you.
Happy 5 Years, here's to many many more.
Sydney
