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Why We Do What We Do
Photo courtesy of the CBC
It’s a simple question…
Why do we do what we do?
I’m not asking this from a macro-perspective; that would open up a Pandora’s Box of responses. My train of thought is wrapped around Quarterlife Man. Here at QM, why do we do what we do? What is our purpose?
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Everything here has a purpose. It stems out of my belief to ‘question everything; take nothing at face value.’
Why do we post on Fridays? Who are we targeting with ‘this’ post? How can we be more effective?
We don’t do things around here to pontificate. To this end, everything has been questioned and everything has a reason for existence. There’s a reason why Chris Horst, Brittany Miller, or Shane Stoltzfus write for QM. There’s a reason why I quit my far-too-comfy career to launch a startup with no initial streams of revenue.
It all matters.
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On Friday, he was looking for PornYou.
I’ve never been to that website–––but I have a healthy imagination so I can probably guess–––and I know what he wanted to do.
Through the power of God and the mystery of Google, he ended up on Quarterlife Man instead.
Now, I won’t pretend that he came to QM, kicked his habit, and is now co-writing a book with Andy Stanley… but this is why we do what we do.
What’s more, I can look back into our site’s history and see that this has happened 45 times. All 45 users entered QM through an article called Is Porn Your Problem? Again, it’s doubtful that they stayed too long, but for those who read the article, or for those who saw our faith section and asked curiously:
“What’s that all about?”
I say, AMEN.
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This is a ministry, plain and simple. We want to reach people. We want people to stumble across that article and be forever changed.
Here are some search threads from Google that led people to our website (keep in mind, all had multiple searches):
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- naked women and men
- where can i find naked women
- where can i see naked women
- where to find naked women
- where are the naked women
- naked women
- naked women with men
- where are all the naked women
- god beautyfull women naked
- god i love naked women
- naked women not covered
- naked women walking down streets
- booty adult magazine
- can you pet a baby elephant in dubai
[/fancylist]
That’s just a snippet. My personal favorite was booty adult magazine. The last query really has nothing to do with the rest… but I’m curious: can you pet a baby elephant in Dubai?
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Also on Friday, we had the largest day of traffic in the history of Quarterlife Man (all seven months, or so). It was for an article called The Tragedy of Soviet Apartment Buildings.
I know what you’re thinking–––total snoozefest–––but it was actually rather interesting. So much so, in fact, that the post went moderately viral on reddit in their economics section. All of the sudden, thousands of hits and over 50 comments came rolling in, the numbers increasing as the day went along. Thousands of economics nerds, who in any right mind shouldn’t be browsing our website, were doing just that.
If you had asked me, it all should have never happened.
It was a Friday. Our traffic is always small on a Friday.
This is a tiny, 300-word post. You need big, relevant content to get big numbers.
The author is in Rwanda. Even he won’t be here to read it.
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None of that mattered. The post was relevant, albeit not to our target market–––but that’s to the glory of God. What good is Quarterlife Man if we just sit in our circle and speak Christianese until the end of time? We need to be speaking out about random things… getting awkward numbers of econ nerds onto our website because they would’ve never visited otherwise.
This is why we post about Soviet architecture… and social justice, and sports, and money, and technology.
This is why we do what we do.
[box_help]Sound off: What could you be doing to step out of your comfort zone? Let us know in the comments. BONUS: What type of content would you like to see on Quarterlife Man in the future?[/box_help]
