Way, way back in the latter days of February, 2008, Mike and I started Pop Critics as a site where we could dish out news and opinions on the world of pop culture and entertainment. We teamed up because we had both been running similar sites on our own, we shared a love of entertainment, and we shared a vision for what Pop Critics could be.
Over the past seven months we’ve had a fantastic time and managed to reach levels of success that we didn’t think we would reach for many more months or years. Many of you, our friends and dedicated readers, even volunteered your services to write articles and recaps for the site and your help has been instrumental in helping us achieve the success we’ve attained thus far.
Unfortunately, success doesn’t always come with fame and fortune (especially fortune) so both Mike and I have had to maintain full time jobs while trying to juggle all the demands of running a popular site that has been updated anywhere from 8 to 12 times a day, every weekday, for the past seven months. Well, over 2,100 articles have been posted to the site since its inception. It would be an understatement to say that we, and especially our families, have had to make sacrifices to make this possible.
There comes a time in any project that the participants must look at where they are, where they want to be, and what it will take to get them to their ultimate goal. Mike and I have both been doing this, together and separately, over the past several weeks. What we have both come to realize is that our current arrangement simply cannot continue to work. The number of hours we’ve been spending on Pop Critics has simply grown to the point where we can no longer justify the sacrifices we are asking of ourselves, our jobs, and our families. While we have enjoyed success, ultimate financial success and freedom is still too far down the road for us to be able to continue.
Pop Critics, as you know it, will be shutting down. Our partnership on this site will be coming to an end.
I want to personally thank all of you who have stuck with us and continued to follow this site over the past months. Your visits and comments have kept us going day after day and we have enjoyed immensely the time we’ve spent interacting with all of you. Although I have never actually met most of you, I feel that I have made some great friends. I will miss our daily conversations.
I also want to thank those who wrote for us and contributed for nothing more than an occasional pat on the back or “thank you.”
Richard Porter has been, perhaps, the most prodigious and deserves special thanks. His articles are always well written and well received. He’s been like a third partner over the past several months.
Praise for Richard isn’t mean to denigrate our other contributors by any means nor is our gratitude limited to his contributions. Over the past months we’ve had contributions from no less than nine people. Adam Czar, Ana Clark, David Scrivner, Jina Olbinski, Julie Secor, Nicky Vender, Shawn White, and Jeff Brunson have all written outstanding articles for us and I cannot thank them enough. Many others contributed on other ways. Their hard work and dedication to our vision did not and has not gone unnoticed and Mike and I are both eternally grateful for their help and contributions.
Our plan for the immediate future is to spend more time concentrating on our families and various personal projects. My wife and I have a fifteen month old daughter and Mike and Jina are expecting their first child soon so we have plenty to keep us busy. Pop Critics will remain online for the remainder of the month, however, regular updates from Mike and I will cease as of today.
We are unsure of what will happen to the Pop Critics site itself although we have discussed the possibility of selling it. Hosting fees are too great to continue to carry the site for very long so it seems unlikely the site will stay live past the end of the month. If you or anyone you know is in the market for a well trafficked, PR4 entertainment site, we’ve got the site for you.
Mike and I both have individual websites that we plan to continue maintaining indefinitely. You can always check out what’s going on in our lives and what projects we might be involved in by checking out my site at http://jasonaclark.com or Mike’s site at http://www.amikelife.com.
It’s been a great adventure that I’ve enjoyed thoroughly. Thanks again for all your support.
It was a nice effort and I'm sure you both and contributors learned a lot from it.
Congrat's on maintaining it for for so many months.
Having a very tiny entertainment sites myself, I only update it a 4-8 times a month. I'm mostly getting search engines traffics. Maybe, you could both do that by being more “niche” instead of posting many times a day.
Anyway, good luck on your individual sites!
Jason – thanks for allowing me into your little bit of the blog world. I enjoyed helping out when my schedule allowed and I'll definitely be sad when the site actually goes dark. It was great getting to know you and Ana through this site. I wish you both the best.
Shawn
Good luck in your future endeavors and enjoy your families.
Man this article needed some sad music with it… actually no it didnt, cause I would have cried for sure =(
What a great effort you and Mike put forth to share your interests in Movies, TV, Music, Books, Video games and everything else that was cool. The addition of additional writers only made it that much more interesting (addition of additional…lol, I need a writing class).
Understandably this took an inordinate amount of time and effort on your guys's part to keep the info coming and us entertained. I have to say the best part for me, was having a distraction from the daily corporate crap grind to tune in here and meet a new host of friends, some which I'm glad to have on instant messaging chat lists.
As I grow older myself, you find sometimes that the seriousness of career pathing and general life issues seemingly push away the smiles and laughs. I have to tell you, tuning in here to see all of the back and forth banter, witty comments, freindly jabs (Mike was really a great sport wasn't he…), and interesting conversations would really make a work day pass by with ease.
Thanks guys for the laughs and new friends, you guys did A HELL OF A JOB on this site!!!
SO SAY WE ALL!!!
SO SAY WE ALL!
I actually welled up reading this. I know that I'm pregnant, and you might all dismiss my tears as just that (hormones)… but I will really miss this place that you two have painstakingly created. And I will miss the community that has arisen. On to crappy sites, I go.
*Sigh* Where am I supposed to go now for the Spike Lee bashing? I guess I could hang outside Clint Eastwood's place, but eventually he'd just start taking potshots at me. Damn.
Damn real jobs and responsibilities!
They really do suck.
You guys are all making this a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I'm thankful for it. Nothing this much fun should pass away too easily.
I am really going to miss hanging out here. There really are not any entertainment blogs out there that have 1/2 of your content and quality, not to mention intelligent friendly members. I will miss you all. Thanks for the hard work and awesome site. I enjoyed every minute visiting PC!
Thanks Steve. We actually did consider trying to keep the site going and just scaling back our participation and relying more on our generous contributors, but we knew it wouldn't be fair to everyone else. Plus, with our personalities we knew we'd have a hard time stepping back and not being involved as much…if that would have even been possible.
Shawn, I can honestly say I've had a fantastic time getting to know you here on the comments and through your writing (wish we'd had more of it!). Thanks for being such a big part of what we were trying to do here. You always make me laugh.
Thanks Cap'n for all your contributions. You really kept a lot of conversations going and always managed to make me laugh.
I think Mike and I would have been incredibly happy if we could do this full time and have it be our job. Our hearts were totally committed. Unfortunately, we sometimes have to make crappy decisions that we know are for the best.
The site was a great distraction for us too. Of course, that is part of the problem.
And I must agree that Mike has definitely been a good sport about all the kidding.
At least there are plenty of crappy sites out there.
Thank you, Raven. That's a wonderful compliment. We're going to miss all of you guys too.
Well, I'm always happy to Spike Lee bash on any given occasion.
Yeah, I think Matchbox 20 said it best when they said, “I wish the real world would stop hassling me.”
WAIT! YOU'RE WHAT?! How will I go on without PopCritics?! Crap.
LOL….
Damn indeed. This sucks! But I fully understand given the circumstances.
Best of luck and godspeed to all those involved.
I congratulate you guys on creating a site that I think all of us thought was a breath of fresh air in terms of great entertainment sites. But like you said, it takes a lot of hard work to give us such a great site and choices have to be made. Stay classy.
Brilliant…
Just when you think things were going somewhere (new look etc), this is pulled out from underneath the table… The last few months I've been here have been a lot of fun. Very entertaining and well written (practically professional) articles. I won't be able to look forward to the Charlie Jade Recaps but I can live. I'll miss coming here everyday and reading comments. I don't think I've seen a website/blog full of fun and friendly people such as this one. It was definitely different. I'm glad I was apart of it. It was fun while it lasted. Good luck to guys and your future endeavors.
I agree that the people who frequented this site are a rare breed that none of us are likely to find gathered together in one place again (unless we all swoop down on another site). That's mostly what made this so much fun.
Thanks for the compliments on our articles. And don't get too sad about Charlie Jade just yet because I'm almost certain the recaps will end up on another site if Pop Critics doesn't stay live (see the article I just posted).
What a herculean task for two guys–and more.
I thought you were a subset of a larger media group, although the integrity is seamless. Would be nice if you could find a way to keep it going–hope that can happen. Much luck to you in your endeavors. Hope the Charlie Jade recaps will keep going…(okay I'll see the article). Don't go…….
They'll keep going either here or somewhere else, no worries.
But thanks for the kind words…I think we MAY get to keep it going, although Jason and I will be more of random contributors, but someone else wants to keep it up.
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