Trump creates one new job.
Starting today, WTF Just Happened Today is my full-time job. See? Trump IS creating jobs. That's right. I quit my job.
WTFJHT started as a personal project – a challenge to chronicle the daily shock and awe of the administration's first 100 days. I mean, how hard could writing 100 blog posts even be?
tl;dr
1/ I'm running WTFJHT full time.
2/ Now would be a good time to become a member and support WTFJHT
3/ Buy limited edition WTFJHT t-shirts, stickers, pins, and postcards.
4/ Want to volunteer? Fill out this form.
This has been – by far – one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my career.
Everyday I get emails from community members telling me that WTFJHT is the antidote to an impossible news cycle. Journalists have said they check WTFJHT before their own publication in order to catch up. It's an incredible feeling knowing you're helping people cope in an uncertain world.
And you know what? I have no fucking clue what I'm doing.
I'm still figuring this out. I've never started a political news blog or newsletter before. I've never managed a community this large before. I’ve never quit a job to run a business before! I've made a ton of mistakes, but I've learned a lot, too. And those mistakes have made WTFJHT better.
Here is what we've accomplished together in less than 90-days, with just a few hours of my time a day:
- 80k+ email subscribers
- 23k+ Facebook Page Likes
- 17k+ Twitter followers
- 90 consecutive blog posts
- 72k+ words written
- #drawingthenews x WTFJHT collaboration
- The Normal Person's Guide to Internet Security
- The Guide to 45's First 45 Fucking Days
- A couple Do Something! experiments
- An Amazon Alexa skill
- A Slack channel
Now, imagine all the things we could do together if I had more time to work on WTJFHT?
It's clear that this is bigger than just some guy, a blog, and his cat. It's a community of people that give a fuck about the world. I don't wake up at 6am every morning and compile the news because I like waking up before the sun. I do it because I promised to tell you what the fuck just happened today.
The most impressive thing about this community is that you've put your money where your mouth is. When WTFJHT shifted from a project to a second full time job, I called out to the community to help pay for the cost of maintaining the site. The community responded to the tune of more than 1,200 readers pledging more than $6k/mo. to support me.
Yeah, it's bigger than just some guy and his blog. It's something important. It's vital. Necessary. And it's not possible without the community – without you.
So, I'd like to help you spend less time trying to stay informed so that you can spend more time giving a fuck about making the world a better place.
So what happens next?
We're going to get through the first 100 days together. It's easy to congratulate ourselves and say, “We did it! We survived 100 days! Go us!"
Don't.
Whether you've been with me since the beginning, or just joining me now, take a second and remind yourself that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Because Tweets don't change the world. You do. This is going to require persistence. It's going to require focus. And, it's going to require better media habits.
To get there, we have to make WTFJHT sustainable.
The site is in need of a design overhaul, and I'm not talking just a new coat of paint. Some of the under-the-hood bits that make it run need some love. These are necessary for supporting new products, like topic following, notifications, and more.
The publishing schedule is going to shift to M-F. I'm going to temporarily stop publishing on the weekends. I need a breather. I bet you do, too.
The WTFJHT Community Center will launch to host a Sunday evening roundtable. We might discuss the major news from the week. Or, maybe it'll be something in response to what happened during one of the Sunday political shows. Or, maybe we'll talk about basketball. I don't know. I'm open minded about this. I want it to be community-driven. More soon.
Want to volunteer? If you have a skill to share, boy, do I have a job for you! I'm looking for help with everything from copyedits to coding. Fill out this form if you want to get involved.
I'm going to take my first day off in three months this weekend. It'll probably start by drinking some coffee and reading the news.
–Matt
PS - If you find WTFJHT valuable, now would be a fabulous fucking time to make a donation to ensure it continues going strong.