A letter to the wonderful people who read this site

Dear the fine, fine readers of Den Of Geek.

You people? You are AMAZING! We LOVE YOU! We are absolutely not doing that annual Christmas thing where we butter you up, to try and excuse the fact that we’re not going to be around so much over the next week or two.

Actually, it’s exactly that, but we figure we should at least try and disguise it.

The basics are this, chums. After today, we’re not quite downing tools, but we are moving to a much lighter posting schedule for the next week or two. We’ll be back in earnest on January 2nd, but between now and then, just picture us slaving away on huge, potentially award-winning articles for 2018. Do not at all picture us knee deep in the wrappers for those chocolates we got from Poundland, or trying to lick the last drops out of the bottom of a wine bottle.

That would not be a fair reflection of who we are.

Moving on, we also want to use this end of year missive to say a few thank yous. Mainly, to your good selves. It’s not always been the easiest year behind the scenes of Den Of Geek, but heck, do you people get us through it. Your support, kindness, Statham love and backing of what we do means the world to us. Yeah, yeah, it all reads like the usual blah, right?

But we mean it more than you know. From the DoGMRoD crowd on Twitter (who make our 5.15am starts bearable), to the regular commenters, the occasional readers, to that man who came along to one of our events and brought us sweets, thank you so much. Whether you’ve read the site once, visited every day, bought our competitively-priced book, attended one of our events or simply spared us a few minutes of your time, thank you. There are lots of websites out there. We say this a lot, and it’s genuinely not fishing: we have no idea why you choose us, but we’re thrilled that you do.

Den Of Geek has a small army of people working on it, too. On a personal note, I really want to hail my two colleagues on matters editorial, Ryan Lambie and Louisa Mellor. These two people, folks, are both exquisite human beings, rocks of support and wonderful writers. Thank you both. A lot.

Thank you too to the contributors, who not only write for us, but care about the site, and what we try and stand for. You people make us look good. We thank you.

And then there are the people who you don’t see. Kimberley, Mike Byrne, Mike C and the US team, Elizabeth, Uyen, Jen Of Geek, Jen Of Geek US, Emma and Jerina. The people who work on technical things that we don’t understand, too: Chris Bowen and his checked shirts, Cerys Jenkins, Chris Kinch, Will Howlett, David Grayston, Marcelo Vani, Juan Colomer, Ross Howard, Chris Glasgow, Israt Choudhury, Naveed Anwar and Cristina Llamas. Thank you to you all.

Once again, 2017 has been a bumpy year for the geek community, with a tinge of unpleasantness to some debates, and an unwelcome dose of poison creeping in. We thus ask that, once again, we try and show, one person at a time, that things don’t have to be like that. That the geek community is actually fuelled by love for something rather than hate for something. That we can have raging arguments and still all get on at the end of it all. Apparently, chums, there are some people who don’t like Jason Statham films. But, somehow, we still get on. It’s a struggle, but we do.

Geekdom is surely about inclusiveness. About looking out for each other. About a passion for something, and about human beings sharing those enthusiasms. As ever, in 2018 we’re going to do our damnedest to stand on the side of those who are bullied, to try and spread kindness, and to shine a light on the best of the world rather than the worst. We also intend to buy a lot of tickets to see The Meg.

We don’t always get it right. But we do and will continue try. And we really hope you’ll join us.

Folks, thank you so much. You are really ace. And no matter where you are in life, here’s hoping that the next week or two affords you a smile at some point.

Stay awesome,

Simon BrewEditorDen Of Geek