Asian Addicts Anonymous

It seems like for a few months or more last year on social media, friends kept doing throwback/flashback whatever Thursdays…or was it Fridays… I so wasn’t in the loop, lol. I thought it was only fitting to do a Flashback series in honor of Asian Addicts Anonymous turning five years old this year. So each week for at least the next 5 months, you’ll get a post flashing back to various happenings on AAA and maybe in my drama-watching, music-listening, manga-reading life.

So, in honor of our first week, lets start at the very beginning. (Bonus points if you know the singer who I used to make AAA’s first logo.)

It seems like my boss had always been talking about migrating our site to a new format whether it be XML, liquid grids, or some type of CMS. WordPress was always on the front burner so in 2010 I was tasked with learning it. I decided that if I had to learn something, I might as well utilize it in some way with something that I enjoyed doing. Thus my baby, Asian Addicts Anonymous was born.

Obviously I had no idea what I was doing. After my first awkward “Hello World” post on February 7, 2010 it would take me another week to post anything. On February 15, I posted my first review of…drumroll…Japanese drama Untouchable. In the blogosphere this drama starring Nakama Yukie got some mixed reviews, although if I recall correctly probably more on the negative side. For me though, I found the drama funny and delightful and it was a show that kept me guessing about the twists and turns in the plot. Nakama has started to play a lot of the same roles over and over again, but somehow that hasn’t gotten too old with this drama and I liked seeing a different comedic side that wasn’t quite like her characters in Gokusen and Trick. I have actually re-watched this drama series and still liked it for a second time around…that actually can be quite rare, you know?

Prior to starting AAA (accidentally the name was misspelled as Asian Addicts Annonymous…whoops…I probably shouldn’t tell people I’m an English major, should I?), [Bonus points for you if you know what my nickname was before I started going by NeeNee.] I hadn’t done too much reading of drama blogs at all. I had myself, only started watching Asian dramas and movies in the summer of 2007 while I was jobless fresh out of college. My blogging experience was also from college when I had to create a blog for a digital culture class. But after starting AAA, I began to dive into the blogosphere more and more although always as a constant silent lurker.

From the tentative first real post, I began blogging on a regular basis about dramas and music, sometimes more than once a day. I was so young back then, lol. No, not really. Only 25. But even now I wonder how I once maintained all that I did. Of course, I can’t say my posting schedule maintained a nice flow. It has its ebbs and flows and I’ve gone lots of months hardly posting anything or posting nothing. It was really hard to maintain anything or blog about any dramas when I started working more hours at both my two jobs. With varied hours in the early morning, afternoon, and late evenings, this blog did have some serious dips in content.

It took almost a month before I got my first comment and my stats were relatively dismal to start, but once Ender’s Girl showed up I really started feeling good about blogging and sure, comments were never copious at any one time, but they make you feel that when you’re putting all of this effort into blogging that its worth it. Good stats are fine. They really are, but sometimes a person needs a nod from a real person to affirm all of the hard work and hours because this hobby quickly became something very time consuming, sometimes tedious, but its always been a labor of love.

I don’t complain much and I love my silent lurkers, but I’d really like you to delurk if you will and let me know about a first in your life. Maybe when you first discovered AAA? Or maybe when you first got into the addictive world of Asian entertainment? I’m just curious. I really only ever hear from a small handful of people, so I’m always interested in what led others here and what they’ve enjoyed about my site.