The Journey Thus Far

Milestone Friday! Well. We can call it that because when I pasted the link wherever you got it from, I was, for the 200^th time sharing a link to the content of this blog. I obviously did not author with some crazy humans like the Venomous Hope coming onto my podium and accusing me of being a weed smoker. And then there was that time I punched the blog open and allowed an influx of opinions on the termination of pregnancy bill. All in all, the blog has seen a lot of articles from different writers who have flowed with and propelled the vision.

I, last week mentioned that the blog started out as a pulpit but due to metamorphosis of sorts it ended up as a bleeding towel for wiping different sorts of opinions oozing from my punctured brain. What developed from that swollen brain was a blog with different articles on health, sports, music, life, rumors, politics and my favorite topic of romance and relationships which people have dubbed “the Richie Online Love Curriculum”.

I have on a couple of times attempted to make a vote on what people’s favorite article was on Richie Online. Those attempts have been met with a rather rude voter apathy but from the few who managed to voice out, people fell in love with the Chronicles of a Traveler. That came in as a surprise as this was just a tired man’s reflection of the poverty he had seen travelling across the southern and central Malawi in the name of helping World Vision International in their monitoring and evaluation efforts. This would later come to prove one Nkhwachi Mhango’s point. In his opinion (and I might have mentioned this before), my articles come out interesting when I am writing more of what is on my mind than commenting on the topical issues around. Fair point, I think.

I have had varied audiences on Richie Online depending on the way of advertising. You have to understand that this blog started out in 2012, three years before WhatsApp became a thing (or before I joined WhatsApp). By then, the best way of throwing the wisdom to the masses was through Facebook. Tagging was a thing then, but before the confidence kicked in, I could not just tag forty plus people in a post with the Richie Online link on it. Perhaps the other thought was just that others couldn’t understand the content. Then there came WhatsApp and it came with the feature of a broadcast list. I got trigger happy and immediately added 200 of the 1000 plus contacts on the Richie Online broadcast; shortly before being told off by a few. Somehow, others managed to ask me on how they could get on the list and the readership stabilized at around two hundred. A few lost phones and contacts later, I found myself committed to only half that number, but here we are.

On the dashboard or admin panel of the blogger website where I post the articles, I am privileged to see data on when I had the most views and which article had the most views or comments. From a quick peep, Richie Online enjoyed the most readership in 2017 with articles getting an average of 250 views compared to the later day 60 to 70. The interesting thing I noted is that the least viewed article is one titled the Intolerability of Intolerance with only 12 views! What a waste of good wisdom by the readership. The most viewed article, however, with a whooping 1400+ views is none other than the 21st Century Paradox of Sex. Now that says about you readers and who you have in your circles. I might get back to that later.

Through the years of writing on this blog, I have tried to be neutral about pretty much everything. What I have learnt while at it is that neutrality and impartiality are somehow abstract concepts and it is very hard to be neutral. This has been demonstrated by the “attacks” I have made on the ruling elite which led to warning from well-wishers within the readership and the backing of the same which led to heavily critical responses from the likes of Joram Nyirongo (one unreasonable guy who writes a column called Mufupika’s Calabash in the Sunday Times). His point? I was being too soft on el presidente, hence I am blue blooded.

If you were to ask me as to what I have been doing with this blog, what I would tell you is that I have been blowing off steam. On the other hand, when I was not venting out anger and stepping on people’s toes what I was doing was to share some opinions on what I thought life ought to be lived like. Now this was not me prescribing a certain set of rules for everyone to go by like I was doing with hydrochlorothiazide pills in my doctor days. It was me dishing out facts and throwing out my opinions from the facts hence the motto of this blog, fact-based opinions. Ndi inayake basi.

The fact that this blog has been a therapeutic tool cannot be overemphasized. Following the loss of one person I was very close to, I dropped an article and the few people who had been following what had been going on quickly picked up the grief in the article and told me they hoped writing about the ordeal helped with my healing. It did. Perhaps, however, what these people did not recognize is how much of my troubled life was reflected in all the articles that came in the Richie Online Love Curriculum and Valentine’s Day Supplements. One human somehow caught me after his perusal of what is one of my personal favorites on the blog; relationship politics. While others came to me to ask if I was writing with reference to the events happening in their lives, this guy messaged me wondering why I had put my whole life story into such an article. Such is the beauty of having this blog; it just has this ability to have a unique sort of bidirectional conversation.

Away from all those things I have been doing, the blog has been a good awareness and advocacy platform. Guest writers like Counsel Alex Kamangila, activist and “loud mouth” Pemphero Mphande, Gray Stuff, the Venomous Hope, Tadala Rambiki, Harry Chikasamba, Edward “TNO” Chikhwenda and many others tackled and shed light on issues in a way never done before; a way I couldn’t have done better. A big thank you everyone who put a pen to paper and gave something to the Richie Online community. It feels good to sit back on some Frida

I would like to finish by expressing gratitude to all of the faithful readers. Every time I write, I know that there is a whole host of people who will go through the article without fail. Further to that, I know that every time I do not write there would be a gang of people asking me as to why there is no food on the Richie Online Friday table. Once the article has been shared, there are those fault finders who always come out pointing the grammatical errors in the article and there are those who share an article of their own relating to a similar subject. Your input has been instrumental in keeping the blog alive. And then there are some of you who share my articles on your statuses with the burning fire emoji. There wouldn’t have been a better way of expressing your support and appreciation for the effort that goes into this. Musainire alawansi tikamaliza apa.

We have reached a 200 and I do not think I will stop this thing anytime soon. I will continue spitting whatever gets to wander in this troubled brain, stepping on toes whenever necessary. Unsolicited life tips will continue coming and I will continue to target people whose traits I do not like... in a diplomatic way hopefully. I will have more crazy guest writers coming in and the controversial topics will keep coming. Know why? I feel like I owe it to you, the people who made me push to a 200.

And… can we do a Richie Online chat tonight? Kukhala makombola.

If you are interested, mail me. I will send you the coordinates.

Thanks for being part of Richie Online.

And the other thing.... Can you stop calling me Richie Online when we meet in the streets? Zikomo