Super Cool Stuff 2025: A year in review
Last year, I did a year in review called Super Cool Stuff. We’re doing it again. In 2024, I made plans for 2025 and wrote the Weaver’s Deep Thoughts origin story (spoiler: it started as a hashtag). If you didn’t read the origin story, I highly recommend it, it’s kinda fun. This year I’ll review last year’s plans and renew plans for 2026.
But more importantly, here are the fun Super Cool Stuff year in review graphics — some of you are making appearances in these! So look them all over. Thanks for being amazing and reading along. And if you’ve never left a comment, but read the newsletter when it hits your inbox, consider hopping on this one and saying hi and joining us in the comments in 2026. May 2026 be the year we spend more time talking to one another. We all need more community and light in our lives these days. And you’re good people. Let’s chat.
Super Cool Stuff 2025
Click images to view in full-screen.A brief note on 2025 and 2026.
I spent a good portion of this year head down doing a lot of school work. In 2026, I’ll be finishing my last two classes by March and graduating in May. At least, that’s the plan, fingers crossed. That also means I’m currently looking around at jobs and internships and things. Towards the beginning of 2026, I’ll be leaving academia behind and rejoining the workforce.
My focus for the moment is that I would love to be doing editing work. I’ve found I really enjoy editing the written word. So if there’s any publications or media outlets looking for an editor in 2026, I might be your huckleberry. I’m also looking into the social media side of things as well. I hope to be editing, writing, social media-ing or something by spring and for a living. It’s gonna be different and I look forward to it. I’ve enjoyed my time at SNHU, but I’m ready to get back to work and hopefully a more normal-ish schedule. Please clap.
I’ll also be a first-generation college graduate and that’s pretty special. I’m planning to go to the commencement in New Hampshire to celebrate that fact, so I’ll plan to share a photo of me in a graduation gown at that time.
How did last year’s plans for 2025 go?
I made some plans or goals for 2025 in the round up last year. I figured it would be worth it to review how I did and renew some.
I would love to see more discussion in the comments on every newsletter. We actually saw a decrease in commenting this year, in terms of the amount of folks commenting. I can’t say for sure, but part of me feels like it may be I did something different that didn’t land as well. But mostly, I suspect we all have had fatigue in 2025. It was not an easy year for a lot of folks. To that end, I kinda hope to respond to this idea by making sure I’m a little more on point and being a light too. We need lights in the world. Like, big blinding headlights.
Side note: there was way more growth statistically this year, we just weren’t talking as much. Website visits saw 151% growth over 2024, unique visitors saw 212% growth over 2024, and page views saw 63% growth over 2024.
More fiction and some poetry too. This happened. There was a lot more fiction and some poetry too. What I didn’t do was give myself a goal though. For 2026, I’m aiming for 6 guest authors to write short fiction — I’ve already got one submission I’m editing now from author Syd. And I’ll probably try and get a poem or two again. In the first year of publishing freebies to the library, we added 6 short stories and 2 poems.
Add at least one more free newsletter per month. It wasn’t always easy, but I did up the amount of output this year. Sometimes it meant an extra of some kind, other times it meant a free short story or poem.
Subscription goals. The goal was to reach 100 subscribers this year. That did not happen, unfortunately. As I write this, we’re currently sitting at 72 subscribers. We added 16 noobs this year, but lost a few too. I’ll aim for 100 in 2026 again.
Do more cool things with the Messenger Community chat. This kinda fizzled this year. I tried to move away from Messenger in January of this year, because of the Meta changes in moderation policies that impact trans folks — at least one trans person in our community chat deleted their account. I tried Discord, because most folks voted for that as an alternative, but few moved to it. I eventually shut it down and started a simple Signal group chat and am also juggling Messenger. It’s weird. And I’m not quite sure what to do with it but I don’t like having two. I’m open to suggestions on this. Even if the suggestion is to nuke it. I’m inclined to just keep the simple Signal chat and nuke the Messenger one which isn’t getting much use anyway despite having more folks in it. Any rate, sound off in the comments any ideas or suggestions on this. And I’ll probably make a proper decision in January of what to do.
Additional plans for 2026.
Since some of the previous year’s plans are rolling over, I’m gonna try and avoid adding to many new ones. But here are some good ideas.
More guest essays. We only had one this year, from Nichole Higgins on her ADHD diagnosis, and it was excellent. I may try to focus those on mental health or social issues this year, to make it easier to pull in submissions. In the past, there was no real focus for those looking to submit essays.
Less social media. How does that make sense with regards to the newsletter? Well… it means I push the newsletter out across social media platforms like Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn, Handshake, and Mastodon. Probably even another one I’m forgetting. This year, I spent a lot of energy trying different platforms and strategies. It was exhausting, honestly. I miss having just one or two to focus on. One is ideal, really. That said, my focus right now is to try and focus on the ones that seem to matter most to my readers and community which are Meta, honestly. Facebook and Threads primarily. That’s not to say I won’t use some of these other ones, but I won’t be focusing on them for the newsletter stuff. And this also plays into the next one…
More of the microblog and Ask Nat questions. I do like trying to take back some of the ownership of my microblogging by hosting it on the site. I’ll probably keep that up and focus harder on it. And please, keep asking me questions anonymously, so I can keep answering them. I love that so, so much. I get so much joy when an email hits my inbox with a question from ya’ll. If you haven’t done so, you can subscribe to the microblog separately using an RSS reader. I didn’t want to send those to your inbox. It’s also in the menu on the site.
Add a Producer subscriber. When it comes to the newsletter, I never wanted to price people out of the paid tier so I kept it $1/month. But there is also a higher tier that is designed for folks who want to play a bigger role in paying the guest writers and maintaining the newsletter. I pay the writers I feature and that’s only fair and good. Full disclosure, a few have declined payment, and when that happens I spend that money on advertising their work more. I would love to add at least one Producer subscriber in 2026 to help build this super cool stuff. It’s only $5/month. Check it out and consider being the first.
“Emotion” by Samantha Song (featuring the Bee Gees).
In 2025, I kinda fell off including music in the newsletters. I wasn’t sure you all appreciated it as much as I did. Let me know in the comments if you want me to get back to the music in 2026. This song is a favorite of mine and I hadn’t heard it in a long time until it popped on during the end credits of the comedy horror film Companion which is one of my favorite films of the year. What was one of your favorite movies of the year?
