A Letter of Thanks – To Readers, Friends, Artists

Believe it or not, I’ve been tracking the Oscars on this website for the entire time my daughter has grown into a 16 year-old. She was just a baby when I started the website in 1999. She was born in May of 1998. I needed a reason to stay home with her, and hoped I could start some kind of online website during the wild wild west that the internet was back then. I didn’t know what it would do or the industry that would eventually rise up around it but something told me it would be interesting to people, watching the Oscar race. Back then, there were so many movies to choose from. It really was about finding the best of them. Movies were cultural events that didn’t exclude whole populations of ticket buyers. The Oscars were held long after the year concluded, to measure a film’s success not just with critics but with the public. No one even thought about the Oscars until late December, early January. Now, January starts the Oscar race for the following year and the public has very little to do with it.

So much has changed since 1999 that it’s become harder to write about the Oscar race. The community here changes every year, depending on what movies or actors are in the race, or how many people I’ve pissed off in a given year. I just wanted to thank you who’ve been coming here since I began this site and how much I value the private emails you send me (even if I never write back, I do read them) and the words of encouragement over the years. I also have to give a shout out to my pal Ryan for always having my back, even if it means swatting away puny giants on message boards and on Twitter. He manages a pretty heated comment section.

Also need to give a shout out to Craig Kennedy, who has really beefed up the TV section, with the help of several writers. Dora has helped us out with our FYC gallery once again this year and we so appreciate it. Jazz Tangcay is AwardsDaily’s newest writer and she’s been handling interviews like a pro. Rob Y, who does an enormous amount of work each year on the AwardsDaily simulated Oscar ballot, which will launch again this week. There are too many readers and commenters here who participate is such illuminating ways every day but we thank you too.

My dad is battling cancer, you might have heard about it on Twitter, and that’s made me ever conscious of time passing too quickly. I don’t know how much longer AwardsDaily will continue. I’m sure many would like it to end sooner rather than later. We hope there are many who want to see it evolve, adapt and endure. I’m proud of the site I’ve built, and namely that I’ve been able to support my daughter and hopefully help her get through college. Honestly, I had no idea this would have been my fate when I started this whole thing. But hey, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans, as John Lennon would say.

Let’s see what 2015 brings. I hope it brings many good things.