Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you’re all getting to enjoy a little quiet time with the ones you love. Wow – it’s been quite awhile since I’ve last written a piece like this. I used to do it quite often. When we were runnin’ up and and down these roads, makin’ towns and makin’ content, I always enjoyed sharing the behind the scenes stuff with everyone because y’all were always such a big part of the success of SoBros Network. It really is the friends you make along the way. But frankly, life has been quite hectic for the last year.
Nonetheless, I wanted to catch everyone up to speed and provide an update on SoBros Network. You might’ve noticed that in the last year or so, the flow of the content stream has slowed down tremendously. Nowadays, I’m writing in a month what I used to write in a day. You might’ve noticed I haven’t posted any underwear pics to sell men’s grooming products. You might’ve noticed that we haven’t made a new shirt to sell in quite some time either. I’ve had conversations with those closest to me, but I never said anything publicly because I don’t want this to be some big sad thing.
This past year, I’ve made the difficult decision to de-monetize SoBros Network. Basically, it just means we’re no longer in business. We’re not trying to make money. Instead, SoBros Network is just a personal blog. It’s not going anywhere per se. It’s just taking a backseat to other ventures. I like the idea of this site hanging around and serving as a sort of sounding board for whoever wants to write something and put it into the world. I like the idea of this site still being here when I eat a really good meal in Nashville and want to write about it, when I want to test out some new comedy stuff, or if any of y’all have something to say.
Ultimately, things change with time. At this point, SoBros Network has been around for over 12 years. That’s kind of wild in its own right. I’ve always been transparent with you guys about this stuff. Now, is no different. So, I’ll share bluntly that we just stopped making money. The ad deals dried up. I was making shirts, but we weren’t selling them. Algorithms changed. No one on social media saw our stuff. It grew difficult to pay the bills every month. I had designed the business so that overhead would be low, and for a solid five years or so, we were really humming along. All it took was one ad deal and selling a handful of t-shirts every month in order for us to make a profit. Nice and easy. But, when those deals run up and the t-shirts stop selling, it was money out of my own pocket that had to compensate for the difference. After about a year straight of pouring money into the SoBros piggy bank and saying, “we’ll get back,” I realized we probably weren’t going to get back without some serious influx of capital. Where was that going to come from? I don’t know. Hope isn’t a strategy.
But, there was another contributing factor to this decision. I also simply got tired of working so fucking much. At 26 years old in 2013, I was writing my ass off. At one point, I was sleeping about three to four hours every night just trying to write. In 2018, I was writing eight posts a day! That was on top of making shirts, shipping order, recording podcasts, recording videos, and running business ops (marketing, sales calls/emails, site health, analytics, etc.). I loved it. I do look back on those first 10 years with some regret – I do think I should’ve taken more time to relax, to travel, and to explore personal interests. But, for the most part, the thrill of chasing the dream was exhilarating.
I simply cannot work like that anymore. The lack of sleep and free time has taken its toll on me. In 2024, I began to feel like I physically could not keep up anymore. I’ve gotten fatter. More gray hairs have sprouted out of my chin. My hairline runs further from my forehead each day. And, I’m just tired, boss! I stay completely run down through football season and the rest of the year isn’t much better. My mother tells me it’s because I stay so busy, and she’s right. So, I started feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted on a daily basis over something that wasn’t making enough money to stay afloat. I asked myself, “why am I killing myself over this?” As much as I tried to push these feelings down and keep pushing through, the work weighed on me like an anchor.
How did we get here? Well, I think it’s a couple things. For one, I do think the style of popular content has changed. I don’t know how many people are reading blogs anymore. Could we have adapted better to Reels and Tik Tok? Sure. But, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do wasn’t popular anymore. When faced with the decision to evolve and sacrifice my own personal desires, I chose not to evolve. That’s when I knew something in me was wonky. My feelings had change – in hindsight, I think that moment was when I subconsciously threw in the towel. I more or less accepted that what I wanted to do wasn’t going to satisfy an algorithm and so, people would discover SoBros Network at a much lower rate than they did 10 years ago. It was also harder to show up in social media feeds without significant ad dollars that we’ve already established SoBros Network didn’t have.
But, the other thing is much more spiritual and philosophical. I always felt like my will was strong enough to keep this engine running…that as long as I kept working, things would keep growing. But, the truth is that SoBros Network quite literally peaked from a numbers standpoint from 2018 to 2022. I’ve seen it coming for three years now. It started growing more and more difficult to write an article that would catch fire and register thousands of page views. Brands that we advertised chose not to renew deals. Brands that would at least answer emails about prospective deals stopped writing altogether. I felt like we stopped getting those random posts on social media like “you guys should read SoBros Network! These guys rock!” It was as if the word of mouth was slowing down. The final nail in the coffin for me was when I produced a new shirt, and a month later, we hadn’t sold a single one. It made me question how much people were paying attention anymore. Quite frankly, I wondered how many people still cared.
Do things naturally run their course? I think so. And, I think that’s partly what happened in the case of SoBros Network. No, I don’t think it evolved the way it needed to in the last two years. While it had its moment in the sun, it no longer had a method of survival that was sustainable for my health and well-being. It was essentially on life support. There’s no reason to keep something alive when it’s suffering, even if that ‘something’ is an idea…a philosophy…or a degenerate digital media company.
Like some cosmic sign from the universe pulling me in a certain direction, I got a job at 104.5 The Zone here in Nashville earlier this year. I’d listened to the station for the better part of the last 20 years of my life. I once told a friend that I loved the idea of being on the radio and “wanted to be one of the voices people heard while driving through this city.” It was a dream come true. The timing of these things falling into place felt like a sign I simply couldn’t ignore. I felt like I owed it to myself and all of the people who believed in me and helped get me to this point to go all in on Football & Other F Words and Titans Talkback…to see how far we could take this thing. So, that was it. That was the shift that happened within me earlier this year.
All of this is not to say that SoBros Network is dead. Obviously, there’s still a new post or two every week on this site. But, you’ll find my written work spread across this site more sparingly. I’m doing more for Nashville Movie Dispatch (where you’ll also find all of Brandon’s work moving forward) and Stacking The Inbox. So, it’s really not a goodbye. The site will still be here, and it’ll probably be here as long as I’m alive. Sometimes, things do just need to evolve and change. Hell, maybe some billionaire that loves Nashville and wants to launch a media company will come in and see this outlet as something worth investing in and it’ll all come back one day. Nothing is off the table and you truly never know what’s going to happen in this business. But, for now, it’s time to focus my efforts more intently elsewhere.
So, with all of that said, I’m taking a little time off here at the holidays…some REAL time off…something I haven’t done in the entire going-on-13 years of SoBros Network. I’ve scheduled some compositions to post over the next six weeks. But, I’m out of here…straight walking away and posting a sign on the door that reads “be back on January 12th.” You’ll obviously still hear me on Football & Other F Words on Thursday nights and Titans Talkback on Sundays. But, I’m going to rest, read some books, write some poetry, try some new recipes, and do my best to get my wind back (oh yeah – I didn’t even mention the infection that put me in the hospital for four days and took me eight weeks to recover from).
Thank you all for your support of SoBros Network for all of these years. I hope if you’re reading this that you feel some sort of pride in helping things run for as long as they did. I hope our work has meant something to you, and that you understand how appreciative I am to have had so many people helping me push this thing uphill for so long. The team’s accomplishments are something I am deeply proud of myself aside from the fact that we’ve just had some really cool people make some really cool stuff on this site. I’m not where I’m at today without y’all. So with love, I say “let’s see where this thing goes.”
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
Elsewhere on the SoBros Network: Check out Stacking The Inbox for premium coverage of the Tennessee Titans and NFL Draft. Subscribe to Nashville Movie Dispatch for all of our movie content. We get weird on Phone It In, the history podcast that explores legendary tales, important historical figures, and events.
