Ahoy, ever-faithful blog readers.

I’m about to embark on my 15th year contributing to this blog, which seems wild. This thing started as a 365-day project where I intended to write a haiku every day for a year with the hopes of keeping my creative spark alive. Over time, it eventually took the form of a food blog, a fitness blog, a photography blog, an essay blog … and then whatever it is right now.

If you’ve been a long-time reader (some of you are! And thank you!), you may notice that my blog is no longer plagued by ads. This is because I have upgraded to a higher-tier of paid service with WordPress. Are you impressed?

Well, don’t be. 

I never cared that WordPress inserted ads into my blog. I have been using the mostly free version (I had only paid to have a custom domain) and I understand that dynamic ad insertion is part of that agreement. WordPress has to pay the bills and I didn’t care if they used my blog to serve some of those impressions.

And then last week, while referencing something in an old blog post, I noticed that WordPress had inserted an ad for custom pickleball paddles featuring the blood-soaked face of our president-elect. I was immediately grossed out by seeing the fat-shit rapist’s face on my website, so I frantically searched for a “hide this ad” option or a report feature, but alas, there was none. I took a screenshot and reported it to WordPress.

Their response? “You should pay to upgrade to ad-free.”

I let them know this made me feel like I was part of a digital hostage situation and I would rather eat shit and die than ever let that man’s face be on my site.

Their response: “Them’s the breaks” (paraphrased).

I asked around for WordPress alternatives but came up with nothing that satisfied me in the same way as this platform. I came up with nothing that I liked as well. I was also exhausted by the idea of moving all my content to another platform because I don’t want to start over.

Anyway, WordPress, the domestic terrorist, wins this one. Enjoy the ad-free experience.

-JS