Green Phoenix - 2020 in Review

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!

And good riddance to hot garbage, I say. This year was a trying time for all of us and it is my sincere hope that my articles might have done something to provide entertainment or education for my readership.

As we enter 2021 with, hopefully, brighter expectations than 2020, I would like to take a quick analytical look-back on 2020 in terms of my articles and viewership. Though this year was far from ordinary, perhaps there remains things that I can improve upon and aid in making 2021 a better year than the shit-show we were given in 2020.

***

General Statistics

In 2020, I wrote a total of 40 articles over 52 weeks (accounting for the summer and December vacations, as well as the occasional missed week for sickness or delay). I started the year with my article on the then recently released Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. That article has over the course of the year received (as of the 1st of January, 2021) 97 views. As of writing this article, my 2020 articles have received 2191 views in total, with an average view per article of 55. My total views for all articles since my very first in 2019 is 5950 views, with the average now rising to 89 views per article.

Due in no small part to the COVID-19 pandemic and other personal issues, Emerald Rangers wasn't able to engage in the level of marketing and brand expansion that I had hoped this year, but these numbers remain quite good all things considered.

Of the 40 articles I wrote in 2020:

• 18 were film reviews (Including both animated and live-action),
• 5 were reviews of television shows or anime,
• 4 were book recommendations,
• 4 were general editorials
• 5 were countdown articles, and;
• 3 were the newly created Let's Talk... editorials.

While article releases were fairly consistent throughout the year, there were several incidents where uncontrollable delays limited the release of an article for a week or two. Thankfully these weren't common and a degree of reliability that I can feel comfortable with was maintained.

2020 left us with our fair share of challenges and I do believe that this had an impact on all of my fellow writers as well, as I certainly know that my mental health took a sharp turn this past year.

***

The Best and Worst

My most-read article of all time, as of writing this article, remains my review of the original Lion King from 1994 with a mind-boggling 368 views! For 2020, the most-read article was my review of the then newly released Frozen II with a total viewership of 171. This seems to indicate that my reviews which are in some manner tied to a new release seem to perform much better than my so-called "nostalgic" reviews. My "poorest" review is my most recent Christmas special, as is to be expected so I do not yet know what its overall comparative viewership will end up being.

In examining notable outlier articles, that is articles with have disproportionately fewer views than its preceding or succeeding articles, my editorial on Why I Like Alternate History? is notably unpopular at 28 views compared to its predecessor and successor articles in the mid-50s as of writing this article.

I may have to experiment with my literary recommendations and other editorials to coincide them with new releases, though given the pandemic's impact on the film industry this year, perhaps there was nothing we could do about it. I do have a few new film reviews in the works for 2021, especially with increased access to streaming.

***

Conclusions

So I had many ambitions and desires for improvement last January that, obviosuly, were unable to be fully implemented. Chief among these was a desire to review more recent film releases. The lack of theatrical films definately put a damper on that. I do have plans to review more streaming content, since these are likely what we will all be dealing with more the next half year at least.

I also announced my intentions on changing up the structures of my film and television reviews to have  a more stream-of-consciousness feel to them. That will begin next week and continue for the forseeable future.

All in all, I am quite happy with the work that I have put out this last in spite of the challenges to daily life that the year has presented to us. Next week I shall begin the year in earnest with another film review.