gradientlair:

This month marks the third year of my personal writing, womanist commentary/analysis, and content curation with my blog Gradient Lair. Thank you for being thoughtful, respectful and supportive of my personal space. It is still a one-person, ad-free, personal blog on the Tumblr platform/social network. (If you want to financially support Gradient Lair, click here!)

I have been through a lot (some wonderful, a lot good, an incredible amount of really really bad) using social media primarily since 2006 (if I exclude AOL/message board days in the late 90s in undergrad), writing online in general since 2008 and having this space since 2012. In 2012 I expected maybe 100 readers, which would have been totally fine with me, if you know me. As of now, there are 21,400+ subscribers and way more readers than that; hundreds of thousands of page hits monthly, 50-100K+ notes monthly, 30-50+ college IP address hits per day, and personal Twitter (@thetrudz)/blog Twitter (@GradientLair) retweet/mentions reach and impressions in the tens of millions per month. It’s a lot; being an introvert and someone not big into hypervisibility (as in *shivering* terrified of hypervisibility; exhausted by plagiarism and other exploitation), it is a lot to take in. 

However, who I want to focus on right now are the wonderful Black women–who I primarily write to/for (other than for myself; again a personal space)–who have reached out to me in friendship and sisterhood. I thank you and appreciate you. You’re beautiful, kind and wonderful. Also to other people who are respectful of the purpose and intent of the space but still engage kindly, thank you. It’s good to know you online, and some of you I’ve met offline.

I can’t say that I always thought that I would make it to year 3 of this space (or at times life itself) because of what I’ve been through online (and offline), which you are well aware of if you’ve read here for a while. But alas, I am here, in body and life, and still with this space too. Now, some changes are pending; I’ll explain this summer. It’ll be okay though; I promise.

To keep this space going–the emotional/intellectual labor it takes and the time–as well as general support or gift, I do have a DONATE page and I need and appreciate that. You can give a one-time donation or sign up for monthly recurring donation, if affordable. (If not, I still thank you for the verbal encouragement and support.)

Take care. ❤