A Reawakening
In the beginning there was… an idea.
No, shit, wait, that’s the Avengers. I’m washed, forgive me. It’s part of the deal when you become a dad. Over time you just wake up and you’ve grown a beard and own cargo shorts and damn it, that crossover SUV DOES get great gas mileage while also serving my needs as a dad on the go AND YOU KIDS KEEP IT DOWN BACK THERE, DADDY IS TRYING TO THINK and you are deeply familiar with all things superhero.
I’m lost. What was I… oh, right.
It was 11 years ago that I began a sports blog. I had been reading them for years, and they were part of my daily life. I was getting married, and my fiancee at the time requested that I stop closing the bars every night, and instead have some sort of hobby. So I started an NBA blog.
We’ve had, I think, five iterations to date. The original, which was just me and a friend (so like Iron Man and War Machine). 2.0 which featured SI’s Rob Mahoney, Zach Harper, Holly Mackenzie, Graydon Gordian, and a stats writer who now works for an Eastern Conference squad. 3.0 was mostly me rebuilding after they went on to bigger opportunities, and learning how to successfully aggregate. (You can do good writing while aggregating; I’m talking to you, Brian Windhorst who is definitely NOT reading this and has always been nice to me and thanks for all your help.) For Version 4.0, I joined forces with the ESPN TrueHoop Network, and I think at one point we featured about two dozen writers and launched another big wave of careers, both long- and short-term. So like Age of Ultron, with the cast of Civil War. And 5.0 existed after I hooked up with FanSided and stepped away from the day to day, until it was shuttered. #InfinityWars’d
In that time I’ve had two kids, began my full-time writing career, first working weekends at NBC before my big break at CBS, and most recently switched to the Action Network in January. Paroxysm fell through the cracks.
There is some doubt as to whether you can even have a sports blog nowadays. Were blogs symbiotic with Google Reader (RIP)? Most of the non-SB-Nation sites have fallen by the wayside. The big sites first accumulated a lot of the same content, and some of the talent, and then drowned it out, mostly going to video. The other thing is that blogging got away from one of its central mechanisms: building off other material, with due credit (again, shouts to Brian.) So that building-off and that conversational atmosphere doesn’t happen in blogs anymore. It just happens instantly, viciously, and constantly on social media, particularly Twitter.
What I’ve found, though, is that there are still young people who want to write. They want to form more complete arguments that are longer than 140 and 280 characters; they want to use stats and video. The industry may be in shambles, but writing is still something people want to do. And they especially want to write about basketball.
So we’re here, we’re back, but not the same.
The new Paroxysm is built on a crowd-source model. Twitter has so many bright, funny people with interesting analysis, and I wanted to open this site up to them.
So here’s how this is going to work. A year ago, before I changed jobs and had a whole lot of craziness hit me, I had a sign-up sheet. Then trolls wrecked it. Then I had another one. Here it is. You sign up. We’re working our way through it.
Our first piece, written by Paroxysm alumnus Caleb Nordgren, will be about the Bulls and, well, them Bulls-ing pretty hard this offseason. From there, the next author will build off something Caleb wrote. It could be a response, it could be pulling out the theme, it could be talking about a player, it could be anything that reminded the author of something they want to write about. Then the next person will do the same, and the next person, and so on.
Different authors each time, as I and those willing to help edit can make time to edit. It might be a lot per week, it might be a few. It’s an ongoing project, a chance for people to spread their wings.
OK, let’s talk about money. There is none. I’m not part of the partner program with Medium. This isn’t sponsored by Action Network, or FanSided, or anyone. I’m not getting paid for this. The handful of folks helping edit from time to time are also not getting paid. There’s really no money here. I absolutely fault no one who doesn’t want to work for free and who passes on by.
There are tons of good arguments not to do work for free. Shea Serrano, who if you’re reading this, you know, has laid them out–but just google it if you’re interested in hearing more. The only thing I, and others helping to edit can offer, is a chance to be seen, to get feedback, to have a microphone bigger than your current one (which might just be Twitter).
That said, If someone wants to give me several million to start a basketball website and pay everyone fair compensation, please hop into my DM’s. But until that happens, this will have to be a labor of love from all involved.
You own the content, not me, not the site. You can republish it anywhere you choose, and you’ll have the ability to remove anything you want removed.
This is an attempt to see if we can make something new and different, that’s kind of like something old and familiar. It’s like a franchise reboot, but better, and with fewer special effects. So let’s see how it goes.
Welcome (back) to the Paroxysm.
