Meta Update VIII
I really don’t know why, but this anniversary feels simultaneously closer to and further away from the last Meta Update article than any pair of updates before them. (Does that make sense? Maybe the targeted ads on Reddit for schizophrenia medication were more on point than I could have ever imagined.) On one hand, I feel like the year has absolutely flown by with everything in my personal life from my job to my house changing on top of what was an incredibly stacked year of switch reviews and debuts. On the other hand, everything that has elapsed in my life and all of those switches that we were lucky enough to encounter over the past year were so substantial and heavy that each one of them feels like the highlight of a year in its own right. Slamming these two feelings together I can’t help but feel like it’s been a really short year of long events. Thankfully, though, I’m not nearly as time-twisted when it comes to considerations about all of the switch reviews and content work that I’ve done as that just simply feels like it has been going forever at this point. And by forever, today and only today I explicitly mean six years. That’s right, ThereminGoat.com is officially six years old as of today! Another year has came and went and somehow I still have not run out of switches to write about, force curves to collect, and exciting new maildays of switches to share with you all week in and out. While I am busier than ever as I suggested by my short year of long personal events, it does feel nice to take a couple of minutes out of my busier than ever schedule to stop and appreciate that this whole.. project?.. has continued for yet another year and that readers like yourself are still here supporting me after all this time. It’s incredibly humbling even, the longer I stop to think about it. As way to celebrate the website making it one more year around the sun as well as for the support you’ve all shown me over the past year of writing, why not break out the annual celebratory birthday cake that I definitely didn’t just rip from Google Images. Unlike previous years, I’m going to have to try really hard to be skeptical as to what I pick to try and prevent us from ending up with an AI-made cake of all things.
Figure 1: The best part about reaching this age range is that we can finally move onto some cakes with actual personality to them. I’d kill for a 29th birthday cake of my own that had HotWheels like this, so I imagine the website is just as deserving!
While a six year old’s birthday party is typically marked by a trip to a bowling alley or an indoor gymnastics arena, it’s kind of hard to take your thousands of pages of written documentation there and have an honestly good time with it. Given that I, as well as the website, are far from normal when it comes to things that we find exciting, I figure that I should inform you all that I have much more ‘Type A’ celebrations in mind for this sixth birthday. Rather than gutter balls, sketchy foam pits, or those weird, metallized helium balloons, I celebrate website birthdays by sharing way too many words and details that not many, if any of you have asked for. Meta Updates are my annual check-in articles where I sit down and lay out the numbers regarding content, readership, changes made in the past year, and a loose set of expectations that I attempt and succeed at following up on at a rate of about half an expectation per year, on average. In the earliest iterations of this format in Meta Updates I and II, these updates were structured around notifying my smaller audience at the time about life and content changes as I did not have any broader social media accounts for my website until the day that Meta Update II dropped. As my readership and social media platforms have grown substantially in the years following that update, I’ve transformed this article into a yearly recap article that is appreciated by a few readers though criminally under-read by most of you. For those of you who are familiar with the Meta Update articles, and thus must clearly be among some of my most dedicated readers, you’ll see that this loosely follows and builds upon the format of Meta Update VII and those before it.
A Year In Review
Note: There was a time in which I was making content prior to the existence of this website. Thus while this is the true 6th birthday of the website, I have classified 7 separate years of content by their associated dates.
Long and Short Written Content
Full Length Article Content
Year 1 – (Nov. 11th, 2019 – Mar. 10th, 2020)
10 Total Articles Released
- 6 Reviews
- 3 Historical/Compilation Articles
- 1 Meta Update (I)
Year 2 – (Mar. 11th, 2020 – Mar. 10th, 2021)
30 Total Articles Released
- 24 Reviews
- 2 Guides
- 3 Historical/Compilation Articles
- 1 Meta Update (II)
Year 3 – (Mar. 11th, 2021 – Mar. 10th, 2022)
28 Total Articles Released
- 24 Reviews
- 2 Historical/Compilation Articles
- 1 Discussion Article
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
25 Total Articles Released
- 23 Reviews
- 1 Meta Update (IV)
- 1 April Fools Content – Ultraclearine Switch Review
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
23 Total Articles Released
- 20 Reviews
- 1 Technical Article - On Differences In Linear Switches
- 1 Meta Update (V)
- 1 April Fools Content – NOVELKEYS X KAILH BIG DARK YELLOW SWITCH REVIEW
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
25 Total Articles Released
- 22 Reviews
- 1 Technical Article - A Better Beginner’s Guide to Force Curves
- 1 Meta Update (VI)
- 1 April Fools Content - My Special Chocolate Dipped Nixie Recipe
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
24 Total Articles Released
- 22 Reviews
- 1 April Fools Content - Leviton Decora Edge White Switch Review
Through the last year of the website, the top five performing articles for the year are, in order:
#1. A Beginner’s Guide to Switches
#2. Sillyworks x Gateron Type R Switch Review
#3. AEBoards Naevy EC Switch Review
#4. Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange Switch Review
#5. Akko Cilantro Switch Review
As of today, the website has had a total of 3,522,122 page views across its entire time live.
In addition to simply posting these long form articles, the following changes to their formatting and design have been implemented or largely worked on over the past year:
- The background sections of reviews, and especially those recently, have continued to evolve from the style that I had chosen over the previous year of writing before it. Whereas the backgrounds from the 4th year of the website’s existence took on a more contextual, story telling-like roll to them, those from 5th year have returned to sharing the list-like history of releases from the brands and manufacturers before the switch being reviews. Examples of reviews such as the Akko Cilantros, Keygeek Athenas, Keygeek Muse, and most recently the BSUN Golden Apple all carry this kind of structure that I’m hoping to continue into next year. While I have nothing against a more loosely associated background section, these kinds of articles are where I feel most connected to the ‘documentation’ side of things when writing.
‘Shorts’ Content
At the start of 2022, I added a new tab to the website banner titled ‘Shorts’ with the explicit intent of publishing 1-2 short length articles per month in addition to my other written content. While that was clearly a bit of a lofty goal given the sheer amount of effort required of the full length reviews as well as my in-real-life responsibilities, I would ultimately like to see that through some day. Last year’s implementation of this was extremely lacking in volume, I will admit, though the one that I did pour my heart into – ‘Have You Ever Seen A Keyboard Shaped Waffle’ – felt leaps and bounds greater than any short that I’ve produced to date. The resounding success of this short, as well as the appreciation from the community at large surrounding it, has me toying with the idea of pushing more non-switch Shorts in the coming year. Additionally, the closing of Drop as platform later this month, as is discussed a little bit below, will see me porting some of my best short articles from that website over to here over the course of the next year.
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
2 Total Short Articles Released
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
4 Total Short Articles Released
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
7 Total Short Articles Released
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
2 Total Short Articles Released
Off-Site Content
Starting at the tail end of 2022, I was first approached by Drop to begin writing short form content on specifically switches for their guides section of the website. That soon thereafter grew to be accompanied by Kinetic Labs and Dangkeebs as well, giving me the bulk of the off-site content that I’ve written over the years. However, things have fairly radically changed even from last year. While Dangkeebs dropped off during Year 6, both Drop and Kinetic Labs have a tiny bit as well. While Kinetic Labs is still taking on articles at a slower rate, Drop altogether dropped (ha) the program and has since announced their closure as of only a few weeks ago. Thus, for the next year moving forward it is likely that off-site content will slow down quite a fair bit. The best the articles that were hosted on Drop which will be disappearing will be eventually repurposed and/or re-uploaded to the ‘Shorts’ section of this website sometime over the next year or two.
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
12 Total Short Articles Released
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
27 Total Short Articles Released
- One off release for Artisancollector.com
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
28 Total Short Articles Released
- One not included ‘That Windy City Keeb Meet’ Panel Video
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
15 Total Short Articles Released
- One notable article for SwitchOddities titled ‘A ThereminGoat x SwitchOddities TWCKM Retrospective’
- One not included presentation video from Keycon 2025 titled ‘The Data Underneath Your Fingertips’
- One not included presentation video from TWCKM 2025 titled ‘How Consistent Are Switches Anyways?’
Supplementary Content
Scorecards and the Github Repository
The scorecard system was first introduced in Year 2 and at the beginning of this year featured 355 scorecards. Ending the year with over 400 scorecards now live, the composite sheets used in viewing all of the scores against one another also received an update wherein the names of switches which had full length reviews were bolded to help distinguish them from those which only received a Scorecard.
Year 2 – (Mar. 11th, 2020 – Mar. 10th, 2021)
67 Total Scorecards Released
- 34 Linears
- 18 Tactiles
- 4 Silent Linears
- 3 Silent Tactiles
- 8 Clickies
Year 3 – (Mar. 11th, 2021 – Mar. 10th, 2022)
87 Total Scorecards Released
- 51 Linears
- 32 Tactiles
- 0 Silent Linears
- 0 Silent Tactiles
- 4 Clickies
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
69 Total Scorecards Released
- 35 Linears
- 21 Tactiles
- 5 Silent Linears
- 2 Silent Tactiles
- 6 Clickies
335,541 Total Views on GitHub
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
63 Total Scorecards Released
- 29 Linears
- 13 Tactiles
- 6 Silent Linears
- 5 Silent Tactiles
- 10 Clickies
341,719 Total Views on GitHub
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
69 Total Scorecards Released
- 35 Linears
- 16 Tactiles
- 6 Silent Linears
- 5 Silent Tactiles
- 7 Clickies
171,791 Total Views on GitHub
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
74 Total Scorecards Released
- 37 Linears
- 27 Tactiles
- 3 Silent Linears
- 3 Silent Tactiles
- 6 Clickies
68,565 Total Views on GitHub
Figure 2: Daily Scorecard Repository view count. (68,656 total for the year)
Force Curves and Github Repository
Perhaps the single largest data driven project on this website has been focused on continuing to document force curves for as many switches as possible and storing those in the Force Curve Repository hosted on GitHub. Started in May of 2022 after Drop graciously gifted me an Imada FSA-MSL-0.4 Portable Force/Displacement Tester, which is a professional piece of lab equipment for the record, it has since expanded to include over 2,400 different force curves of well over 2,000 different switches.
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
568 Total Measurements Live
47,655 Total Views on GitHub*
- *Repository started in end of May, 2022
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
1102 Total Measurements Live
- 534 New Measurements Added
95,310 Total Views on Github
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
1727 Total Measurements Live
- 625 New Measurements Added
57,153 Total Views on GitHub
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
2402 Total Measurements Live
- 675 New Measurements Added
95,310 Total Views on GitHub
Figure 3: Daily Force Curve Repository view count. (95,310 total for the year)
Composite Measurement Sheet
One of my lesser known forms of content that I have is the Composite Measurement Sheet I use to track the caliper-based measurements of stem dimensions and switch components that I display in my full length reviews. Much like with all other supplementary content, this sheet also includes many more switches than what I just review at length and this is usually updated on my ‘off weeks’ in between written reviews. This, like all of my other extraneous content, can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab of the website and links to a Google Drive containing the excel sheet with the measurements and an update log. Note: In order to properly view the box and whisker plots for comparisons between brands you must download the sheet for Excel, as Google Sheets is a piece of shit software and should be scrubbed from existence.
While this sheet and its contents remain largely identical as to when they did at this time last year, one thing worth noting is an expansion to include Co-Gain/XUDA, WEKT, K2, Yusya, and Wingtree as manufacturers as per my 2025 Manufacturer Update short article.
Year 3 – (Apr. 18th, 2021 – Mar. 10th, 2022)
100 Total Measurements Live
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
275 Total Measurements Live
- 175 New Measurements Added
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
461 Total Measurements Live
- 186 New Measurements Added
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
680 Total Measurements Live
- 219 New Measurements Added
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
946 Total Measurements Live
- 266 New Measurements Added
Artisan Addendum
Debuted on May 8th, 2023 as part of my one-off contest article submission to Artisancollector.com, the ‘Artisan Addendum’ project is a parallel Excel sheet of caliper-based measurements that aims to measure the widths of the keycap mounting posts on various MX-style switches and is available in the same spot as the Composite Measurement Sheet. While it initially started with 250 different switches measured, it has since grown over the past few years and is being regularly updated alongside the Composite Measurement Sheet regularly.
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
442 Total Measurements Live
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
717 Total Measurements Live
- 275 New Measurements Added
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
1051 Total Measurements Live
- 334 New Measurements Added
Linearity
As first covered in my non-review, full length article titled ‘On Differences in Linear Switches’, the concept of ‘Linearity’ aims to quantify differences in slope and linearity (or straightness) of various linear switches to highlight the subtle differences between them. (This is also available in the same place as the Composite Measurement Sheet and Artisan Addendum.) Only a few months ago this project has been “completed”, insofar that the backlog of all linear force curves which did not have linearity measurements have now been worked through. Whenever new force curves for linear switches are generated they automatically have the linearity calculations included as to make sure this stays up to date.
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
219 Total Measurements
Year 6 - (Mar. 11th, 2024 - Mar. 10th, 2025)
908 Total Measurements
- 689 New Measurements Added
Year 7 - (Mar. 11th, 2025 - Mar. 10th, 2026)
1596 Total Measurements
- 688 New Measurements Added
Social Media
Given that my various social media accounts were opened sometime during Year 2, there is no Year 1 statistics as seen below.
Year 2 – (Mar. 11th, 2020 – Mar. 10th, 2021)
- 1570 followers with 79 posts
- 850 followers with 413 tweets
- 20 patrons at the end of the year
Year 3 – (Mar. 11th, 2021 – Mar. 10th, 2022)
- +4172 followers with 102 new posts
- 5742 followers total with 181 posts overall
- +1374 followers with 388 new tweets
- 2224 followers total with 801 tweets overall
- +12 patrons at the end of the year
- 32 total patrons currently
Year 4 – (Mar. 11th, 2022 – Mar. 10th, 2023)
- +1173 followers with 91 new posts
- 6915 followers total with 272 posts overall
- +850 followers with 456 new tweets
- 3074 followers total with 1257 tweets overall
- +2 patrons at the end of the year
- 34 total patrons currently
Year 5 – (Mar. 11th, 2023 – Mar. 10th, 2024)
- +181 followers with 96 new posts
- 7096 followers total with 368 posts overall
- +118 followers with 385 new tweets
- 3192 followers total with 1642 tweets overall
- -3 paid patrons at the end of the year
- 45 total patrons, 31 paid currently
Year 6 – (Mar. 11th, 2024 – Mar. 10th, 2025)
- -46 followers with 92 new posts
- 7050 followers total with 460 posts overall
- -10 followers with 283 new tweets
- 3182 followers total with 1925 tweets overall
- +1 paid patrons at the end of the year
- 65 total patrons, 32 paid currently
Year 7 – (Mar. 11th, 2025 – Mar. 10th, 2026)
- -86 followers with 97 new posts
- 6964 followers total with 557 posts overall
- +24 followers with 490 new tweets
- 3206 followers total with 2415 tweets overall
- +11 paid patrons at the end of the year
- 76 total patrons, 26 paid currently
Much like with last year’s update, Patreon subscribers, Instagram followers, and general readership have all trended down for another consecutive year in a row. In parallel with the community continuing to contract from it’s COVID-era highs, social media usage and algorithms continue to change year over year and disfavor the type of photo-only content that I produce. This, alongside the now increasingly uncertain financial times in the US, leave me not all that surprised with the trend in things year over year.
Other Points of Note
Sponsors
There were no changes to the loyal, core group of sponsors who have been with me since last Meta Update and I’m excited to say that they all more or less made it through the year. I expect that some of these sponsors though, such as KeebCats UK, will be shutting down here in the coming months and will not be with us for Meta Update IX.
Sponsors/Affiliates
Mechbox UK
- A wonderful UK based operation which sells singles to switches that I’ve used above in my comparisons for collectors and the curious alike. Matt has gone out of his way to help me build out big parts of my collection, and buying something using this link supports him as well as my content!
KeebCats UK
- A switch peripheral company based out of the UK which sells everything switch adjacent you could ask for, they’ve been a huge help recently with my film and lube supply for personal builds, and they want to extend that help to you too. Use code ‘GOAT’ for 10% off your order when you check them out!
proto[Typist] Keyboards
- An all-things keyboard vendor based out of the UK, proto[Typist] is a regular stocker of everything from switches to the latest keyboard and keycap groupbuys. While I’ve bought things from the many times in the past, they also are a sponsor of my work and allow me to get some of the great switches I write about!
Divinikey
- Not only do they stock just about everything related to keyboards and switches, but they’re super friendly and ship out pretty quick too. Divinikey has been a huge help to me and my builds over the last year or two of doing reviews and they’ll definitely hook you up. Use code ‘GOAT’ for 5% off your order when you check them out!
ZealPC
- Do they really need any introduction? Zeal and crew kicked off the custom switch scene many years ago with their iconic Zealios switches and the story of switches today couldn’t be told without them. Use code ‘GOAT’ (or click the link above) for 5% off your order when you check them out!
MechMods UK
- A rising vendor based in the UK, Ryan and crew have been a pleasure to work with and have nearly everything you’d need to build your first or fourteenth keyboard. Go build your latest or greatest one right now with them by using code ‘GOAT’ at checkout for a 5% discount!
Dangkeebs
- A longtime supporter of the website and the collection, Dangkeebs has quite possibly the widest variety of switches of any vendor out there. Not only is their switch selection large, but it rotates and is constantly adding new stuff too. You’re going to need 5% off your order with my affiliate to save off the cost of all those switches!
SwitchOddities
- The brainchild of one my most adventurous proxies, SwitchOddities is a place where you can try out all the fancy, strange, and eastern-exclusive switches that I flex on my maildays with. Follow my affiliate code and use code ‘GOAT’ at checkout to save 5% on some of the most interesting switches you’ll ever try!
Cannonkeys
- Does anybody not know of Cannonkeys at this point? One of the largest vendors in North America with keyboards, switches, keycaps, and literally everything you could ever want for a keyboard always in stock and with an incredibly dedicated and loving crew. Follow my affiliate link above in their name to support both them and I when you buy yourself some switches!
Kinetic Labs
- One of the most well-rounded keyboard vendors out there, Christian and crew have been supporters of all my switch and switch-adjacent needs for some years now. I’m honored to have them as an affiliate and think you should check them out using my affiliate link above to support both them and I when you check out their awesome products!
Keebhut
- Want to try out some switch brands that fly under most vendor’s radars? Keebhut is always seeking out that next latest and greatest and has been super helpful in hooking me up with new brands over the past year. They are all about sharing that love as well, and want to give you 5% off your next order with them when you use code ‘GOAT’ at checkout!
Kailh
- No, you’re not mistaken – this is actually that Kailh that manufactures switches. As one of the longest running manufacturers in the hobby, they have a massive variety of switches available over on their website at any point in time. I’m lucky to be affiliated with them now, and so consider using my affiliate link above when ordering some Kailh switches to support me!
Keebz N Cables
- Australia and Oceania’s very own is now a part of the sponsor list here and I couldn’t be happier to add this long time supporter of the collection to it. They’ve always got an amazing selection of switches (and other keyboard parts) in stock and they want to share the love that they’ve shown me with you all too! Use code ‘thegoat’ for 5% off your first order when you visit!
Switch Collection
As of today, I’ve officially catalogued 4,005 different unique mechanical keyboard switches. Mind you, this does not still include the vast majority of the world’s largest vintage switch collection behind me which I’m still only just now starting to dig into and add to the collection. As well, all of the combinations of both the Tecsee Ice Cream and Wuque MM switch parts as seen on their respective testers below are only counted as 1 single switch each.
Figure 4: Collection family photo as of 3/11/26 with 4,005 unique, different keyboard switches.
Upcoming Year Plans
Much like in the Meta Reviews from all years prior, I hold absolutely zero promises on actually following through on any of these content ideas as the plans that I make today may not be feasible nor hold up well in a week, month, or a year down the road. In all reality, life has seemingly changed so much on me year over year lately that I have no idea what my writing conditions or situation will look like in the near future at all. If anything, this is short list of ideas and projects is more so a pipe dream of things that I think would be neat to attempt over the course of the next year.
Content
- I am still toying around with the idea of branching out into mechanical keyboard related content that is not just switches. The aforementioned ‘Keyboard Waffle Iron’ short was an incredibly fun time to write, was well received, and is a perfect example of what I have in mind for branching out into that style of content. My artisan collection has also grown quite a bit over the last few years and maybe writing a bit about some of the more novel encounters, keycaps, and stories I’ve collected along the way would make for an engaging short or two.
- Tactility. I talked about it at Keycon last year, I’ve been teasing it for well over a year now, and I genuinely do have work already done behind the scenes that would allow me to do such. With Linearity ‘completed’ this is the next big front in switch data for me to tackle and I have nothing but excuses as to why I’ve not yet sunk the time into doing such. (They’re actually great excuses as it is a genuinely heavy, complex thing to write about and execute, but that doesn’t matter to you all!)
- In addition to continuing to strive for the consistency and pace that I’ve stuck so well to over the last handful of years, I really do want to focus on enjoying the reviews more, myself. I know that that sounds cheesy as hell to read, and I do genuinely enjoy the content most weeks, but putting my interests and desires first for reviews have led to some of the best and most well-received content I’ve ever written. I think this is extra important of me to do as well considering I’m going into year six in a row of writing and I don’t want anything to become stale on me.
Personal Life Updates
If you’re a truly dedicated reader and make it through the very beginnings of my full length reviews when they hit every other weekend, then I have no doubt that you have some sense of how my life is going and some of the various changes I’ve been subjected to over the last year of time. I emphasized the ‘some’ in that sentence, though, because I recognize that I am not always super close to being coherent when rambling on at the start of those reviews. Whether that is because I’m truly losing it or because I need to keep things vague regarding the situation at hand, I’ll leave it to you to decide. Anyhow, I always like to include a few personal updates here in the Meta Update as it does very much directly impact both me and the work that I’m doing here every week.
- What could I possibly say about my real life job that I’ve not already hinted at or explicitly stated at the front end of a review? In the past 12 months I transitioned away from R&D and back into my original engineering role that I joined the company with due to staffing shortages. While this return saw a nice pay bump and return to what I initially signed up for, it also has been a significantly greater workload than when I had started. I’m now the most tenured engineer at the company that I work for and that familiarity with our processes carries not only a lot of weight, but a lot of expectations and questions from others around me. In turn this has led to me being quite busy during the work week making sure that projects get put out, fires get continued, and everyone is happy. Or is it projects are getting continued and fires are getting put out?
- In September of last year I officially purchased and moved into my first home! While this has given the writing room and all of the switch collection a more permanent residence for the time being, it is far from complete as I and the girlfriend imagine it. We’ve taken things slow thus far to really pace out exactly what we want to do with the house, but this spring we’ve got a lot of plans of what to do. Cherry trees in the side yard, a wildflower garden out front, a french drain through a fairly wet part of the backyard, all of the interior painting, trim, and doors to be replaced, and quite a long list more are all things that I’ve got dreams of doing this upcoming year. (Perhaps much like tactility at least a few of these will slide off into next year and give me some reprieve.)
- While work and the house consume a good amount of what little time there is in the day, I’ve been slowly being exposed more and more to the hobbies of my girlfriend in the form of planting and birding. Those of you who read reviews through the fall of last year will have noted my several months of bird banding adventures, but aside from that I’ve now heavily invested into bird feeders, bird call trackers, all sorts of camera equipment for her, and about as many conversations about birds as someone who isn’t a birder could possibly handle. While switches might be much more my lane, even I have to admit that it’s one of the more interesting hobbies I’ve encountered over the years and there’s quite a bit to learn from it all. Consider giving “birding” a try if you’ve never thought to actually know what those birds are you hear singing in the morning or see outside of your house or apartment every night.
Final Conclusions
At the tail end of Meta Update VII, I started out by expressing some sincere uncertainty about moving into a more stable period of my life for once. While I know that I am still young compared to the larger population at just 28 years old, the majority of my life up to the last couple of years has been marked by year over year changes in housing, employment, education, and seemingly everything in between. As a result of first starting during this tumultuous period of life, switch reviews and content have always been sort of little ‘escapes’ from the issues around me and give me something that I can wholly control and focus on independently. Naturally, as I was expecting to move into a more consistent, every-day-is-the-same part of life I had a reasonable fear that the more routinized and repetitive nature of such would make the desire for escapes as such not as great. Looking back, however, I think that the fear of life becoming redundant was absolutely hilarious on my part as life has been anything but consistent over the past year of time. While I have definitely stayed as true to the content schedule that I hoped for exiting the last Meta Update, switch reviews, force curves, and maildays have been just as much of an escape from the week-by-week stresses and panic as it was one, two, or even five years ago. Unlike those previous years, though, I really feel like I know how to make the most of that opportunity to escape, though. In turn this more dedicated focus I’ve had to hitting the weekly schedule baring extreme catastrophe has shown me that all of this still means just as much to me today as it has every year leading up to this one. Last year I pivoted hard both explicitly and implicitly around the word “consistency”, and a general focus on hitting the schedule of content despite life changing (or not changing) around me and this year I don’t have nearly as much concern about this at all. Instead, this year I want to focus on maximizing the enjoyment I get out of the content and switch reviews as a form of my escape from how everything is, as corny as that may sound. I don’t dislike any of the stuff that I wrote last year at all, for what it’s worth, though the difference between ‘liking’ something and ‘deeply enjoying’ it to the point of being overly excited about executing on ideas and concepts is quite a big one. I want to really anticipate and look forward to the projects that I have laid out this year, and in turn I hope that pushing for this vague idea of enjoyment rather than just maintaining the status quo will continue to not only allow me to appreciate the escape that content affords me, but also give me a renewed passion and interest for yet another year of writing. Don’t worry, though, as I don’t intend to switch up on the ‘tried and true’ classics that have gotten me here to this day. I just see year six as a chance to take more risks and explore more written ideas that I’ve been thinking about for some time…
Speaking of the ‘tried and true’ classics, I also want to round out the very final leg of this Meta Update by pointing out that I’m only really even able to have a concept as such because of you all, my dear readers. Readership counts ebb and flow. Attention and traffic to the website undulates as the community grows or shrinks over cycles. But the core of you who are not only reading this here, but have continued to read a good amount (but let’s be honest, not all) of the reviews are what have really given this website life over the past five years of writing. It’s not just here either – it’s on the various social media platforms I post on, it’s in the Discord communities I frequent, it’s on the Patreon with the financial support there, and it’s even in the short, brief face to face conversations I have with people at meetups. All of these things have made the website just as enjoyable to write for and continue to add to this past year as it has been over the last half decade combined. You’ve not only given me a platform to shape and form a voice of my own through my writing, but you’ve also given me a purpose and a real mission to look forward to week in and out as part of what just feels like normal life to me now. I get that ‘writing about switches’ is far from any sort of cause that would win a Nobel Prize or land me on the Today Show, but this all has been something that I’ve both been passionate about before and continually encouraged to be passionate about by all you because of the support that you’ve shown. Thank you for also allowing me to expand my own personal collection along the way of trying to support the community with what knowledge I’ve been able to cobble and scrape together during that time as well. There’s a lot still left for me to write about with switches and keyboards, and I can only hope that you’ll continue to support me in those adventures in the coming year. Despite not being able to say explicitly what I have in mind, I really do hope that focusing on the joy and things that interest me the most with switches and keyboards will make for some really deeply engaging content and articles that keep you coming back time and again. Thank you for all of those things, and so much more that I can’t articulate into any coherent sentences over five full years of writing about switches. It feels insane to even write that out, to be honest. I can’t wait to see you all back here again for Meta Update IX after just one more year of whatever neat switches and articles come our way!