Ten years later : How “Friday Funnies” became DomainGang

Keeping a personal blog for a decade is easy, one can write whenever they have the time, or the inspiration – or the need to share something with the public.

Doing the same for an industry publication that provides content daily with very few exceptions, requires an enormous commitment. It’s no longer a “whenever” project, it’s a sanity-testing labor of love.

A decade ago I launched DomainGang.com, after many years of sharing funny and not-so-funny jokes and creative stories related to domains on a number of forums. I announced the launch of DomainGang here on Acro.net the following day, switching from the “Friday Funnies” category of posts that I was testing on this blog.

The first day’s posts were all parody, fed by my need to get some steam out by outputting creative stories that poked fun at the domain industry. I also realized that sharing real news as it happened, or informative stories about domain name experiences was a necessity. So I did the obvious, mixing them all up.

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Several months passed by, and after sharing news of the violent assassination of an investigative blogger in Greece I made the decision to mark real stories as such, with an image indicating that they are “100% true.”

Not marking the parody stories was a conscious decision, leading to numerous DomainGang stories going viral on social media. It’s a lesson in how skimming headlines tests one’s comprehension skills – readers should engage with an article and take time to understand it, extracting its parody message when present.

Today, parody content is probably less than 10% of all news published on DomainGang.com. It’s not that I feel less creative, it’s just that after almost 10,000 articles I’ve covered all the obvious bases of existing humor as linked to the domain industry. New parody articles rely on current news and events, and that raises the ratio of articles reporting real domain news, but without compromising the content volume I produce.

DomainGang is a labor of love, and it has a great audience of fun supporters, and kind sponsors that acknowledge it. Early on, during TRAFFIC 2010 in Las Vegas, I was reminded by Igal Lichtman to live life doing what’s important to me.

I feel privileged to have been able to output my mind’s creative energy doing what I love doing, and what feels fun through these past 10 years. By doing so, I’ve been able to forge friendships and business relationships, and to appreciate others within the domain investor community, and beyond.

A decade of committed, creative writing alongside my “regular” jobs as a graphics and brand developer and domain investor, has helped me cope with personal challenges in life. We all want to give up when the storm hits hard, and writing can be therapeutic. One of the many benefits of inventing domain-related characters for the sake of creativity, is that they can say whatever you want them to say.

At the end of the day, I’m here to enjoy doing what I love doing, and I’m OK with the few who either don’t understand what I do, or aren’t willing to take time to expand their cognitive appreciation of creative writing. After more than 30 years as a journalistic writer, I’ve learned that, just like art, writing is primarily self-serving; having others appreciate a written piece is a bonus benefit.

It’s impossible to thank everyone that has supported me over the years by name, so I will zero down on one couple. Bruce Marler has been a great friend along with his wife Tiffany for more than ten years, and they graciously let me “use” them in several news and parody stories, laughing it up all the way. Thanks Bruce, and Tiff – for the inspiration, support, and your immeasurable amounts of true friendship.

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