So Long, Farewell...

Lovely blog readers!

I'm excited to share that, after weeks of frustratingly hard work that may or may not have involved tears shed and tearing out my hair, I've started my very own website for all things pop culture, books, music, and everything in between - jeffreyreads.com.

This also means that, after 6 years, I've decided to say farewell to Living on Guilty Pleasures. In the immortal words of the Von Trapp children... so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye...

In all seriousness, it's been very difficult for me to make the decision to say goodbye to this blog. I've put so much work and love into it over the last 6 years, not to mention that it's been the place where I've grown and found my voice as the writer I want to be. But more importantly, this blog was - for the longest time - the place where I would curl up with books, obsess over pop culture, and throw caution to the wind of what people thought. When I was younger, everyone I knew used to constantly ask me why I cared so much about pop culture and books, and I never really had an answer. I just knew that I was passionate about it and that it mattered to me, and so I started this blog - because on the Internet, nobody found it weird. They understood. So I blogged obsessively about The Young and the Restless, books, and TV for many years, never once thinking it might be something I would want to pursue professionally.

Anytime someone in real life would ask me about my blog, I would get so embarrassed and pretend it didn't exist. For so long I was still a fourteen-year-old boy who didn't fit in anywhere except in the worlds of daytime soap operas and sitcoms, and was so used to nobody else understanding. Even after I started writing about more popular subjects that more people were interested in, I was still so apprehensive to draw attention to my blog or my writing. Crippling self-doubt has always been my default setting. But recently I realized that writing and pop culture are two of the only things that set my soul on fire, and so I have to pursue them. It also means that I have to keep on growing, and move on from a writing space that I've outgrown.

Over 6 years, Living on Guilty Pleasures has amassed nearly 29,000 views, which is bananas-level crazy. But guess what? Having faith in myself and thinking that people will care about what I write is still hard and overwhelming. I'm truly a writer with imposter syndrome. But I also know that the worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt, so I try my best every day to give the finger to the voices in my head that tell me nobody cares.

If you're reading this, and if you've read this blog before, thank you so very much. It means more to me than you could ever know. I also hope you will continue to follow me and my writing on my new website, where I will continue sharing the same kind of content. I actually spent way too much time obsessing over details and staring at my computer screen well into the early hours of the morning, so please validate me by checking out my new website!

Thank you again for all the love and support over these last 6 years.

XOXO,
Jeffrey