Year in review: All the nonsense you were forced to endure over 2023
It was a big and stupid year and we're so grateful you came along for another year of het nonsense
Hello friends, it’s your friends Bec and Patrick, and we are your newsletter friends. The friends who live inside the newsletter.
Hope you had a very merry festive season (I’m joining the war on christmas, on the side of christmas) and a HAPPY new year. Bec and I have had a kind of crazy year, and mostly in a bad way, but we don’t want to focus on that. We want to focus on the future.
But, we are so thrilled with the growth of this somewhat haphazard newsletter, thrilled that so many of you continue to read our nice writing, and thrilled that we had a bunch of ideas for next year, as per usual. More on that later! Big plans! Every year since the start of this newsletter, it’s about creating a sustainable publication that we can write and publish while also doing our jobs and creative projects (which we also have exciting news to reveal in the new year too). But that’s next year! Let’s look back on the year that’s been…
Some general stats!
Subscribers: We’re ending the year on 2,200 free subscribers, which is so impressive! Thanks!!!!!
Paid subscribers: We’re ending the year on roughly 200 paid subscribers, which has fluctuated around that number all year, which is just so lovely. Our paid subscribers mean we can afford to write this newsletter AND pay contributors, so thank you for supporting independent media.
Open rate: Our newsletters have an open rate of just over 50%, which is incredibly healthy. Our traffic is genuinely better and more stable than a certain large digital media company I used to run, which I think is such a nice compliment. Makes me feel like I can risk writing about whatever I’m passionate about, without having to worry about traffic quotas etc.
In da media
We also got some great shoutouts in the media, and some lovely referrals from our subscribers. From this mention in Refinery29 to a great writeup in The Big Issue.
All the heterosexual nonsense I was forced to endure
The recaps which STARTED this newsletter are the things we struggled with the most - we only recapped FBoy Island. We’re sorry! Our lives have been insanely busy and bad in 2023, and recapping is a weirdly intense time suck.
We did try to recap OLD seasons of The Bachelor, but quickly found out that 10Play only has snippets of old episodes, not the actual episodes… so that was a failure. It’s important to live with your failures.
However, we hope to do another recap next year. We did not recap The Bachelors that just came out, not that anybody noticed, because nobody watched it. Anyway - next year is all about sustainability, so somehow Bec and I will do something together that will be fun and nice and not send us insane or broke. Hooray!
Contributors and guest posts
Contributor posts: 21 feature articles from guest contributors
Cost: $300 per post
This year we opened up the newsletter to guest posts from contributors. We wanted All The Het Non to be a queer culture and issues publication, and provide a home specifically for trans and gender diverse writers who are shut out from other media, and can write on the topics and issues that they want, across culture and politics and comedy and more. It’s been amazing, and every subscriber helps us afford this.
As I’ve found personally this year, media in Australia is pretty broken and hostile to marginalised voices. I think it’s important to provide a place where LGBTIQA+ writers and issues are prioritised, where we can report on things happening to our communities AND be silly gooses. So thank you for helping that happen.
We published everything from the queer roots of Australian gothic literature to looking at asexual representation in Heartstopper.
We also welcomed the talented Natalie Feliks to the team as a paid columnist, covering queer news, which has been amazing. Natalie will be back in 2024 too, but in a different setup.
Natalie did some amazing coverage, including deep dives into media representation on detransitioners, and interviews with people like Shaneel Lal and Danielle Laidley.
We pay $300 per guest post, which is basically the minimum we’re comfortable with - we’d like to increase that, especially considering cozzie livs.
Stupid! With me!
This year I, (Patrick Lenton, boy wonder, famous pal to the rich and the poor) started my column, STUPID!, where I try to deep dive into whatever interests me in culture and comedy. It’s been really fun, and at certain times in this blighted year, the only writing I was doing that I actually enjoyed. I published 17 articles, with most of them being 2000 words or longer, if that means anything.
A couple of them have gone VERY well, including this piece on Hogwarts Legacy (remember when people thought this game would not only be the biggest of 2023, but would be in any way notable? Completely overshadowed by literally every other game, even if BG3 hadn’t been such a big success). Also this one on The Last Of Us also did well.
I think moving forward I want to do more like the Benoit Blanc article - culture criticism with more humour involved. In fact, I want this whole newsletter to get back to the humour - you can do both! I love to laugh.
Thank you, thank you!
Anyway, this newsletter wouldn’t be possible without you all, and it’s a privilege and an honour to blow up your inboxes with nonsense. I’ll be back in touch in the new year, but until then have a wonderful holiday and please get in touch with any queries or suggestions or anything you want to more of. Is there something that another newsletter is doing that you love? Let us know, we might do it!
And thank you to our contributors, who trusted me with their excellent writing. Please pitch again in the new year, as we’ll be trying to round up the budget again.
WE LOVE YOU! THANKS
Thank you Patrick and Bec for this newsletter
regards Michael