This one might be sappy, and there’s a good chance that the SoBros team themselves are the only ones that actually read it, but I don’t care. Let me be sentimental and proud and shit for a minute as I look back on some of our accomplishments from the year, and give you guys a sort of peek behind the curtain here at SoBros Network.
I’ll spare you guys all the ‘unprecedented times’ shit and just say this – 2020 rocked us in a myriad of ways. I won’t complain too much, because by and large, we were still able to do what we do best – create #content. But, we didn’t have the team outings we usually do. We weren’t able to host events like we usually do. And, on the business side of things, we couldn’t set up a table and sell our stuff anywhere this year. In 2019, 60% of our annual revenue came from shows/festivals/gatherings. SIXTY PERCENT! We definitely lost out on that in 2020.
Despite that, we still managed to do alright for ourselves. And, even in a year when things were weird as hell, we still had some solid victories that I hope the entire SoBros Network team feels as proud of as I do. And, I hope all of you guys, “SoBros Nation,” (until we can think of a better nickname for the SoBros faithful) will celebrate with us as we close out this year and set our sights on 2021.
Thank you guys for all of your support this year – let’s hit the highlights!
Our Top 10 Moments of 2020
10. The Bussin’ with the Boys shout out – Yeah, they won our ‘Spirit of Nashville’ Award for 2019, so they got the shiny disco ball trophy. Hell, that’s who y’all voted for. They didn’t have to give us the shout out that they did, but they did, and that was pretty damn cool. Seeing a SoBros sticker on the bus will never get old.
9. 250,000 uniques – We hit a major milestone back over the summer when we reached 250,000 unique visitors to SoBros Network dot com. That’s right – a quarter of a million people (and probably a few robots) have visited this very website since we launched it in late 2015. That’s kinda mind-blowing. I can’t even picture that many people.
8. Quarantine Jams – The arrival and subsequent onslaught of the coronavirus back in March brought with it a plethora of weird content opportunities. I wanted to make sure that we kept things light to jive with our brand, so we got a little creative – I started doing the food truck watch and started reviewing food trucks since we couldn’t go to restaurants. But, we gotta give a special shoutout to Steven McCash, whose feature Quarantine Jams brought us a brand new playlist EVERY DAY for 42 consecutive days. I don’t know how that dude did it, but that shit is impressive.
7. Applebee’s – I have to give a shout out to Applebee’s this year. We decided to go on Brandon’s birthday back in September, and I decided to write a review of it because I can’t take all the Applebee’s shade that’s always up in my timeline from you young fucks that don’t know no better. The owner of that Applebee’s actually reached out to me, told me my review was “hilarious,” and comped me what is the equivalent of nearly three quality meals at Applebee’s. YUGE win!
6. Buffalo Wild Wings sharing Brittany’s piece – Way way back in February when the world was good and whole, Brittany wrote a review of Buffalo Wild Wings’ Down South Margarita – which is a margarita made with Mountain Dew and served with a slim jim. Hell yeah. Anyway, that piece sort of cornered the internet market – we quickly became the top result on Google for the search term ‘down south margarita.’ But, the kicker was when my fiancé got a phone call from a friend in New Jersey who just happened to stumble upon the review on Facebook because BUFFALO WILD WINGS SHARED IT TO THEIR PAGE! To this day, it remains our second most-read post of the year, and that review has been read 8,661 times.
5. Film Festivals – This line of work doesn’t typically pay well, but it does offer some added rewards in the form of experiences. For our resident film critic, that includes access to film festivals. We were worried that without the crowds, there would be no festivals to go to this year. Instead, most festivals went virtual, and we ended up being accepted into several – Atlanta, Nashville, and the YETI Film Tour here in Nashville. In addition to that, we had coverage for Chattanooga (shout out to Brittany for that, too!), SXSW, AND the New York Film Festival. It ended up being a banner year for our film festival coverage – but I’m hoping to get back to the in-person fun in 2021!
4. Pageview Records – Early on in the pandemic, I didn’t know what we were going to do. I didn’t know how we were going to make money. I didn’t know how we were going to survive in an internet climate dominated by headlines about the coronavirus. I thought for sure that 2020 was going to be a big time down year for us. But, in April, we actually saw a record month – 42,000 pageviews in a month, including 10,000 pageviews in a day. I remember watching the NFL Draft as that number just kept going up, and then drinking a glass of whiskey with a tear in my eye.
3. The Dennis Kelly interview – Yeah. Tennessee Titans right tackle joined me on an episode of Checks and Championships this year – we talked about his journey as a wrestling fan, and the big man even walked me through the play during the AFC Championship on which he caught a touchdown.
That was a real name, and a real signal boost to SoBros Network, and the episode became our most downloaded in SoBros history. I’ll always be grateful for that opportunity….now, let me tell you guys how that happened because I think it speaks to Dennis’ character pretty well.
We wrote about Dennis back in 2017, named him the blog’s official favorite Titan, and since then, our shtick has sort of been “the Dennis Kelly guys.” People used to tag the SoBros account any time he was on the field. Sounds weird as fuck, I know, but I always thought it was pretty funny.
So, we’ve had some exchanges on social media off and on for a couple of years. We’re pregaming for the AEW show at Municipal Auditorium last November…literally taking shots of Tequila and White Claw (hell yeah – recipe for disaster), and I get a notification that TDK likes the photo. I check out his profile and realize my man’s gearing up to go to AEW, too.
I just decided to shoot my shot – I DM’ed him and said I’d love to talk about his love for wrestling.
Crickets.
I’m not really thinking anything of it. Doing what I do, you have to be a shooter. I’ve shot a million shots in the seven years I’ve been doing this. 98 times out of 100, you’re going to be rejected. So, no big deal.
The Titans go on this epic postseason run all the way to the AFC Championship. Dennis catches a touchdown in it. People are starting to tag us in all the clips again. And, that’s that. I had completely forgotten that I had even DM’ed the dude at this point!
A couple of weeks after the AFC Championship, I get a notification. My DMs lit up on Twitter. It was Dennis – he was following up, telling me he was focused on the season and then the season kept going, but now that it was over, he was game to hop on the show with me. So, cool – we’re on!
I try getting him on Skype, but it’s not working. We tried over and over to make it work before he decided to just give me his personal cell number. I call him up, and the dude has plugged his phone in to the charger, and is sitting in some random corner of his house that has service just to knock this episode out. I was blown away. All of this for a degenerate blogger that he owes nothing to. We talked for over an hour, and it ended up being some of the best work I’ve ever done. That was another one of those moments when I started getting texts from friends saying, “damn dude – you did it.”
That’s the type of dude Touchdown Dennis Kelly is – and he’s welcome back any fucking time he wants.
2. Charity work – I hate to be that guy. I don’t want to be that guy. But, I want to shout out this team for the charity work it has done. I learned pretty early on in my business career that regardless of intent, there’s always a business benefit to donating to charity. That’s always felt a little icky to me, so I don’t like to just emblazon our charity efforts all over social media. Sure, I would like to make a living running SoBros Network. But, the heart of what we do here is built around community and being there for each other – and I’m proud to have a team of people who represent that spirit well.
We weren’t able to get out and do the actual charity work that we normally do throughout the year. My hope is that 2021 will be safer and will allow us to get back to that. But, we were still able to drum up $600 to donate to our friends at Steven Whitehouse and Friends, Nashville tornado relief, and The Joy Clinic out in Lebanon, TN. Outside of the SoBros team that pitched in, I’d like to extend a thanks to our friends Joe Baltz, Jonathan Drake, and Debbie and Mike Vick who helped support our efforts this year.
It’s a goal of mine to get that $600 mark up much, much higher in 2021. Since we started organizing our charity efforts in 2018, we’ve raised $2,598 for organizations such as the Nashville Humane Association, Room In the Inn, the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program, in addition to the ones listed above. Over 30 people have pitched in on these efforts.
I know it’s just a drop in the bucket, and I do have much more ambitious goals with this facet of SoBros Network. But, it’s some of the greatest, most important work we’ll do and I’m incredibly proud of the way this SoBros team leaps in all hands on deck when called upon to give back to the community.
1. Best of Nashville 2020 – I’ve always had a sort of ‘meh’ attitude towards awards like the Nashville Scene’s ‘Best of Nashville’ Awards. Always thought that it’d be nice to get a little recognition, but y’know, it’s not imperative to the success and health of our business.
But, I’m willing to concede that I might’ve been just a tad wrong (I know…I never say it…) about the scope of being named in these awards. In case you missed it, SoBros Network was voted the third best blog in Nashville by the Nashville Scene’s readers poll, and yours truly was named the second best columnist in town, too. We weren’t mentioned once, but twice!
I remember waking up that morning, scrolling through Twitter as I normally do, and seeing a couple of friends tweeting about the Best of Nashville Awards. I hadn’t thought much of it, so I got through my morning routine. I fired up the laptop and thought, “yeah, I’ll check those out and see who won.” I was stunned to see that ‘SoBros Network’ finished third in the vote for Best Blog. I informed the team and wished so bad that the state of the world was such that we could all get together and celebrate (that celebration will happen one day, mind you).
Later on, when I had a little more time to dig through the awards and read everything, I stumbled upon ‘Stoney Keeley’ as the runner-up on Best Columnist. My jaw dropped. I started getting notifications and text messages from friends of the brand, loved ones, and well-wishers.
I had spent all of this time telling people not to get their hopes up. I spent all this time saying, “yeah, it’d be nice, but we don’t need it guys.” And, all of that went away that morning. If I’m being completely transparent with you guys, it didn’t matter what I thought about the Best of Nashville Awards – what mattered was what that looked like to the people that support us.
It was a huge win for us. It felt good to get that recognition after working to build this website and this company for seven years of my life now. But, it was moving to feel the outpouring of support that came along with it. It really felt like WE did something together.
That whole experience was undoubtedly the highlight of my year. I’ve never been prouder of this brand and the people who make it what it is.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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