Hello everyone.
It's B H. You probably know me as the only guy who updates this site anymore. I am writing this article to you to let you know what happened to this site, why there hasn't been an update in 6 months, and what holds for the future of this site.
Like many petters, I was a brony when I became interested in the show. With MLP:FiM being on the Hub network, and seeing the ads for a new TV show on the Hub for a non-gender-specific "Littlest Pet Shop" TV show, I decided to start watching the show, to see if I liked it. After seeing the first 2 episodes, I loved it! After the series premiere I came to be a part of a small but growing fandom of people on Facebook who also loved the show. How I came to find them, I seem to have forgotten completely. But I do remember knowing we were a small batch, maybe 10-15 people, who were anxious for the fandom to grow as big as the bronies. I also remember, during the week between the two-episode series premiere and episode 3, Justin Gage Flatt came to the small fandom saying he wanted to start a site, like Equestria Daily, to become the central new hub of the fandom. And it would be called "The Pet Shop Insider".
I knew the success of Equestria Daily. How it had over 300,000,000 pageviews. How its readers knew the editor-in-chief by name. How Sethisto was one of the famous bronies in the fandom. How Equestria Daily was trusted as the most reliable and urgent source of news within the fandom. I wanted that. I wanted that bad.
So I decided to sign up as a writer/editor. It was me, Justin, and Kevin, running the site. I updated as much as I could, with everything from fanfictions to art to memes to episode news to new toys to celebrity Tweets to everything possibly related to the fandom. I spoke often with Kevin and Justin often. I watched as our comments grew, our pageviews got higher, our influence spread. I made sure that we got at least a few posts out there every day. I started a Facebook page in order to get more pageviews on our site. We even got Hasbro to host a contest on our site (I deeply apologize to all of our readers and to Hasbro for not following up on that. More on that below). Slowly, Justin's and Kevin's articles started to decrease. I decided to power through, making sure we got out at least 1 post per day. It wasn't good, but heck, it was something.
The worst part is, this site got to my head. There were times where I would stay up late to write articles. There were times when I would argue with other editors about how I wanted the site to run. There were times I would be writing articles in class, just so I could make sure I got some article out. There were times where I would want to comment on readers' comments, but I didn't, because I didn't want to seem like I was just some other petter, but that I was nobler than other petters. And my drive was watching the pageviews soar up into the hundreds and thousands.
It went to my head.
My schoolwork suffered.
My social life suffered.
I was struggling to write 1 article every few days, let alone a few in a day.
The e-mail backed up. I haven't checked it in months. So many wonderful artists and music-makers and writers who wanted their work shared on our site.
Why?
Because I was the only one here.
I felt like one guy on a bicycle in a power plant trying to run the electricity of an entire city. I just couldn't do it.
As finals for school came around, I just stopped writing articles. I didn't make a big announcement or anything. I just left. And didn't come back.I left for 6 months. Now the episode premiered today and I didn't even have a Discussions/Streams post to celebrate. No fan art, no fanfictions, no Season 2 news, nothing. Even this letter right here I've been putting off, but with the Season 2 premiere, I think it's time you all know the truth.
All I'm really trying to say here is, I quit.
Though it would be sad to see a nice website like this go to waste. That's why I am asking, if you are interested in becoming an editor on this site, please leave a comment below, or e-mail
us me at ThePetShopInsider@live.com (it's a load of unread e-mails in there).
I'm not holding any contest. I'm not choosing who's going to be editor-in-chief and who's going to be just an author. Anyone and everyone who wants to be a part of this site can have it. I'll let you know of everything you need to know. Then I'll leave. And any additional people that want to be an author/editor can be added by the new staff. And they can run it however they want.
Again, to see a nice website like this go to waste, would be a tragedy. Please take this site off my hands. Thank you to all the petters who gave me so many views over the past few months.
Yours truly,
B H
