When I first decided that I would write about my 5 year Blogoversary, I imagined I would just post about new things that have come along since I started blogging. It’s always fun to see how things have changed.
Then I got the other idea to highlight some of my history. I enjoyed showcasing interesting posts that I wrote over the past five years. It was fun for me to take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how this blog has changed, I hope it was fun for you too. Writing that post though, got me thinking about how there are some types of posts that I haven’t written in a while. I have mostly writing about adventures we have been taking, which I love doing. However, I realized that I missed exercising the creative part of my brain by creating silly pieces about cicadas or a for example a eulogy to my broken blender. I would like to return to some of those types of ideas in the future.
Yet, I also liked my original Blogoversary idea, where I explored new things that have entered our world since this blog began. Don’t fret, I’m keeping it light, so there will be no exploration of big ideas or heavy subjects. I won’t be considering the implications of #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo in this post today.
When this blog was born on April 13th, 2017 Starbucks was just getting ready to premiere its Unicorn Frappuccino. Remember that? For like two weeks, people seemed obsessed with it? It came 6 days after I debut the original version of Everyday Adventures With Katie, then called Hic Sunt Dracones.
When doing the research for this post, I really thought that I was going to discover something amazing like Uber or Grub Hub came after this blog was started. Yet I was sad to find out that most of the companies that I thought would surely have popped up in the past 5 years, have actually been around for quite a while. Many that I see frequently in advertising and seem new and hip like Vrbo or Peapod are older than you think and are more like 15 or more years old.
I really thought AirPods, the wireless ear bubs made by Apple, where going to be my silver bullet. But they debuted on December 13, 2016. So AirPods are actually 6 months older than this blog!
The closest thing I found to a brand or company that is ubiquitous and younger than my blog was when I remembered that Gritty is less than five years old. Gritty debuted on September 25, 2018. Doesn’t it seem like he has been around forever?
Researching this post made me feel a tab bit basic, truthfully. When I searched for new companies that started in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, most of lists included tech companies that I had never heard of. This made me feel uninformed and out-of-touch.
What I did find is that Target has debuted many new brands since April of 2017 and I am proud to say that familiar with almost all of them. Joy Lab, Wild Fable, Good & Gather, Smartly, and Made By Design are as familiar to me as my own children. I’m kidding about the children part, but I do know those brands well.
My over-familiarity with Target paired with a lack of awareness about what tech companies exist made me feel kind like a stereotype of a suburban stay-at-home mom. The fact that I have a general idea of what Starbucks drinks had a moment in the past five years hasn’t helped me feel less like a stereotype. Even if I have never ordered most of them, don’t mean I don’t know that they exist. I’m talking about you Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, Mermaid Frappuccino, Pink Drink, and Dragonfruit Refreshers.
The other main observation I had while researching this post is that many of the new companies from the last five years are streaming services. Quibi lived an entire life cycle from birth to death in the last five years as did CNN+.
We, as a society, have also become accustomed to using: Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, and Apple TV+. None of those services where around five years ago.
This blog is also older than Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s relationship. So that’s saying something. Even if you add this most recent dalliance with their last one, it only adds up to about 2 1/4 years, if my information is correct. And doesn’t it seem like they have been together forever?
By applying the transitive property that means this blog has been around forever! So good news, even if it only seems like Starbucks drinks, Target Product Lines, and Streaming Services have come out of the last five years it also feels like forever has passed in the past five years. And I think that sounds about right, don’t you?
Have a great weekend,
Katie
