August 26, 2023

In a few weeks we will approach the sixth anniversary of the launch of Up All Night.

What began as a silly little Geocities-esque website dedicated to hosting silly little articles that I had written blossomed into so much more. It was the home of an ARG that I started. Then it became an archive of weird retro video media. It is the host of a lot of my writing from when I was a teenager. It became the focal point of my journey into producing music and actually putting it out in the world. It was the host of an anthology film of work my friends and I did when we were (much) younger.

Long story short, it became a place where I could be me. A place where I didn’t have to worry about putting my name on something and worrying about what other people thought of me or what I was doing. It was a freeing and rewarding experience.

Over the past six years this page has been viewed nearly 400,000 times. Thousands of people have listened to my music. I even made some money with the music I released. This is absolutely bonkers to me. I continue to receive messages about things someone enjoys about the website. Sometimes I will find my music shared somewhere with nice comments about it. These things have meant a lot to me.

Despite all of this, I know it is probably obvious to some of you that have been around that my output here isn’t anywhere what it used to be. The reality is that I feel like I have done just about everything with this project that I can. I have tried to do other things over the years under the “Up All Night” umbrella, but it just didn’t feel natural to me.

The reality is that nostalgia just for nostalgia’s sake isn’t enough for me anymore. What I have wanted to create for years is work that can pull from nostalgia and tell a story about how it impacts who we are today. I want to create work that reminds us that with nostalgia can also come bad memories as well. That it is okay to remember the bad. Remembering the bad can make you appreciate the good. The warm fuzzies of nostalgia are great, but I’ve hit a wall there.

If you’ve paid attention to my music output for a while, the tone is way off from what I was doing before. It’s not because anything is wrong with me, I’m perfectly fine, but I just want to do more with what I’m doing than just repurpose old commercials and employee training videos.

Starting today, this website is going to be going on an indefinite hiatus. I am going to leave the website as it is and ensure that it doesn’t go anywhere. If inspiration strikes I will gladly return to the table, but I’ve struggled with finding it for so long that I just don’t think it’s there anymore.

Regarding my future, I am going to be dedicating my time to writing. If you would like to follow me elsewhere, I am active on Threads.

I know the idea of starting from a clean slate sounds crazy to some, but I simply feel like it’s what I need to do to take my creative work in the direction I ultimately want it to head.

I love the Neocities community for the kindness it has shown over the years. I hope that you will check out what I am doing if it’s something you are interested in.

If not, I get it also. I know some of the appeal of this platform is that it is the antitheses to the modern web and here I am, migrating to the modern web.

Regardless, I’m grateful that you’ve spent your time over the years on this website and hope that it brought you some kind of joy. Thank you for giving me the confidence to embrace who I am.

See you down the road.