Your really significant birthdays, the single-digit ones, tend to vanish from memory as they're replaced by other life experiences. I do not remember my first birthday, although I am sure some other people had a nice time at it while I was like indulging in Tummy Time, or whatever 1-year-olds do. So it was nice, as an adult who no longer needs to do Tummy Time—this sounds like bragging, but I now have the physical strength to hold my head up without even having to practice—to experience a first birthday in which I had some serious individual investment.
A year ago, we didn't have a website. After this terrible, falling-down year, we somehow do. This is your doing pretty as much as it is ours, and our gratitude and happy shock at the reality of it is a theme that will (spoiler) recur often in this week's episode of The Distraction, in which Drew and I spoke to basically every member of the Defector staff about the year that was and the website that is.
If you watched Wednesday night's streaming birthday party on Twitch, this will sound somewhat familiar—Brandon heroically cut together the interview segments, and Josh at the mighty Brooklyn Podcasting Studio recorded the audio. (If you didn't, and would like to enjoy two hours of interviews and various video-related spoofs n' goofs from a cavalcade of guest weirdos, you can do so here.) All of us are very grateful to be able to do it, and very eager to try to find new ways to make this preposterous website good, and worth your subscription dollars.
Next week the podcast will return to normal. We'll talk about the NFL and lumbar support, and I'll say the word "calzone" in a way that will somehow scandalize and enrage listeners. This week, though, we are celebrating and saying thanks. The regular idiocy will return in due time; for now, just know that we really mean it and really appreciate it.
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