One Year of Eklectish: A Letter to Our Contributors and Followers

One year ago on January 17th, 2021, in the depths of a covid-induced lockdown, our team finally launched Eklectish. The idea had been circulating in our minds since the spring of 2020. Knowing all kinds of diverse and interesting people in our own lives, and growing weary of seeing the same tired and cynical content carefully curated from the algorithms of our social media overlords, we wanted to see if we could break through with something different. The expression ‘build it, and they will come’, came to mind. We wanted to see if, by building a platform for compelling voices to express themselves, these incredible people we knew would come write, come podcast, and come share their unique points of view that would otherwise go unheard.

A year later, a lot has remained unchanged - for example, as we write this letter from our home base in Toronto, we are once again in the depths of a covid-induced lockdown. But looking back on the past year, we have been deeply gratified to see that our experiment has been bearing fruit. Old friends, colleagues, young up-and-coming people we admire, and perhaps most importantly, many brilliant people we had the privilege to meet through this project, have come out of the woodwork in an incredible way.

Eklectish is thrilled to provide a platform for all kinds of diverse people, content, and subjects. We have been fortunate enough to have thoughtful writers, poets, podcasters, students, professionals, and more from across the globe contribute fantastic pieces. We have gotten to enjoy some phenomenal monthly contributions from dedicated writers focusing on their specific passions. Eklectish has also featured all kinds of unique articles, on topics as broad and important as systemic racism, or as obscure and trivial as the designs of NHL goalie masks. Personally, we also are compelled to contribute far less interesting pieces ourselves once in a while, and for that we apologize profusely. We still have a long way to go - and admittedly we have not always progressed on a straight line - but it has been a pleasure to see how far things have come since we first launched one year ago. To everyone who has contributed, lending your time and effort simply for the chance to share your opinion or expertise with the rest of us, we cannot thank you enough, and look forward to seeing what comes next. For anyone else who feels they have something to say, or has been on the fence about reaching out, our door is always open.

To our followers, readers, and listeners: the Eklectish team has had so much fun engaging with you, putting thought-provoking things out into the world, and hearing your feedback. We started out with a (very) small pool of readers and listeners, and it has been amazing to watch this pool grow slowly but surely. Thank you for following us, reading and sharing what our writers have to say, listening to the podcasts on Eklectish, and for sticking with us throughout a crazy year. Our mission from all of this, plastered liberally on our social media feeds and website, is to help you re-engage with the internet. We may not have hit that lofty goal yet, but we hope that Eklectish has at least helped you enjoy the internet a little more - breaking up the monotony of the usual feed to learn something new, get a great movie, music, or restaurant recommendation, or see a new perspective on an issue. We truly hope you have enjoyed what we had to offer over the past year, and the best is still to come.