Hey guess what. I’m kind of retiring.

First, the important stuff: Longtime contributor and dedicated pal Daemetal will be taking over as boss. Team will remain intact (as far as I know). Lots of cool things are likely to happen in the future.

Less importantly, this is a very literal “kind of” retirement. The Homicidol Maniac persona will be a part of Homicidols Dot Com for as long as it’s around. I like doing this stuff even if I don’t do it as much as I used to, and I feel a dual sense of responsibility and like lifetime ownership. But D’s going to run the show from here

So that’s that. Time for a self-indulgent retrospective!

At that time that this published, it will be just short of six years since I first started to put together a content plan for the “idolcore website” I started to tell people about. I’m of the Babymetal generation, my first exposure to any of this stuff coming via the “Megitsune” MV on September 4, 2014. By about September 10, I’d already consumed almost everything Babymetal-related that I could and was dually moving on to both Sakura Gakuin (RIP) and various other groups that would pop up on Google or YouTube if you searched on Babymetal-related terms. Like, anybody else remember Babymetal.net? They had that sidebar filled with video from other groups? Good entry point.

But anyway, digital communication and Babymetal, and it was obvious to me that there wasn’t any kind of organic marketing strategy behind this phenomenon, just a lot of ancillary earned media via paid media. If it works, you know? But I felt that the rabid community of Babymetal fans that could really only coalesce online was the key to unlocking even greater success, so I put together a pitch and sent it off to Amuse’s office in LA and never heard a fucking thing about it. Which, fine, but I’d already outlined a whole strategy to help to grow this particular group’s popularity in certain circles … why not just apply that to the whole scene?

And hence Homicidols. The first posts I ever drafted came in October 2015, and then the buildout, and then, well, I did the thing.
It’s been a great journey. My goodness, those first couple of years were so heady. I know that people tend to turn original things into best things in retrospect, but I really struggle to think of a better year (during my idoling time at least) than 2016, just packed full as it was with amazing debuts, all-time musical releases and some of the coolest video content people in the scene ever put out. And we were all enjoying it together, finding new ways and places to talk with each other about what we liked. It was really easy energy to feed off of! That was the era of the four-posts-per-day pace, the up-all-night-for-streams habit. My life was falling apart otherwise; Homicidols not only gave me something to do, it gave me something good to do. And I kept it up for almost three full years! And then slowed down but never stopped! This is personal published post 4,102. I’ve never done anything else creative as frequently, and definitely not over such a period of time.

But when I had my first stress-induced freakout back two summers ago, I think that was when the writing went on the wall; 2020’s longer hiatus was basically a preview. That I never brought back the Corenament nor Queen of the Scene was an effect of limited time and very little mental wherewithal to try to make them work. It hurt, but it was real.

I love idol, you guys. By which I mean, I actually don’t care at all about a lot of the things that make idol be idol, but I love the creativity, the variety, the way the platform works. I listen to one idol thing or another pretty much every day, and I’m always jazzed to make new discoveries (SIPP!). It’s why I can’t just up and leave, but it is time to take a few official steps back.

What’s next? Well, I’m getting married today to the finest human being I’ve ever known. I’ll even post a photo later to prove it! And then I’m taking a few weeks off to properly adjust to the things that I’ve been meaning to do in this new chapter, and … well, then it’ll be time to do them. I started some new recreational stuff here in the community recently and will spend time on them, and I have a new creative project to start plus a career transition to make. Oh, and gods be good there’ll be little Maniacs before too much longer.

Next for Homicidols is whatever terrible wonders that D and Team cook up. I’m as curious as anybody to see what those results might be! It’ll be weird at first not actively planning and executing, but still okay. This thing I did is in good hands; when I come around, it’s a lead I’ll gladly follow.

I love you guys. I’m signing off because I should, but when I pop up in a little while with some OMG LOOGIT THIS post, let’s not make it weird. Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.