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Happy 20th Birthday FanBolt!
Happy Birthday, FanBolt!!! 🥳 I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since it all started. What an incredible experience it’s been. I’m going to get a bit emotional and sappy for a minute. So hang in there with me. 😂
My origin story involved a lot of bullying in grade school, so I wasn’t great at social situations (understatement). I didn’t trust people – and I was just awkward AF. 😂 🤷🏼♀️ So the internet and messages boards became a wonderful social alternative for me.
When I started FanBolt, I was a senior in high school, blogging away in my parent’s attic. It was just two months before the cancellation of WB’s Roswell. And having made a site called LeavingNormal.net (that was getting thousands of hits a day for the series), I knew I needed to create a new site (one that wasn’t dependent on just one series). Of course, I wanted to retain some of that traffic. But most importantly, I wanted to create a hub for conversation for the friends I had made through that series. (Many of which I still talk to today!) ❤️
So FanBolt was born, and with the site’s early success, really cool things were starting to happen. I found myself getting contacted by Warner Brothers to be the official blogger for their The OC website (which I was for 3 years until the series ended in 2007). Studios started reaching out to me to interview actors/actresses. I was invited to visit TV show sets (my favorite still being Stranger Things Season 1). I was getting to see movies before they were released. I joined several film critic groups, attended 11 San Diego Comics to date, work with incredible charities, published over 20,000 articles, and traveled both domestically and internationally to highlight different events/locations/tv shows/films on FanBolt and speak on geek culture and fan culture. (I’m even in a documentary on comic book culture!!)
But the best thing that FanBolt has given me is a group of friends that I couldn’t describe as anything else other than a family.
What an incredible 20 years it’s been… and I wouldn’t change a single thing. ❤️ So to wrap things up, here’s to the next 20 years 🥃 – because there’s still plenty to come! 😃 Thank you all for being members – and geeking out with me on the regular! ❤️
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2 Replies
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We have had so many laughs on here over the years. So many fond memories have been made. So many friendships have been created all because you decided to branch out. Some of us og remember leaving normal (I for one ) 😊 remember when fanbolt first started most of the user names had to do with Roswell, charmed, Buffy or the o.c. when Everwood had it’s own group. When you had to refresh the page in between posts. When in the morning you never knew what you would find in the tabloids. 😙 .To reading other fan ficts, and so much more.
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Happy (belated) Birthday! I remember finding FanBolt back in 2009. They were running a promotion with a DVD trading website called Goozex. Goozex has been gone for years now but FanBolt keeps going on. After I found this place I stuck around. Some of my most fun memories revolve around my fave hit shows. Burn Notice comes to mind first. I used to update weekly on it and follow anything at all about the case and the series. That was, and still is, my show (I am literally on season 5 of yet another rewatch). Around the same time, I was really into Leverage. Both of those were so fun and we had lots of discussions on both. Good times! Thanks Emma, for all the years of entertainment!
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