The TLDR: Yes, we are officially a year old today 💃🏽 💃🏽 💃🏽, and it has been an amazing 12 months—spent in the best (as in, your) company, of course! We’re taking you on an amusing anniversary journey—which ends with an excellent list of our birthday month plans. Yes, our birthday takes an entire month to celebrate!
There was the first great lockdown, triggered by a virus that no one really understood. We’d just learned about ‘social distancing’ and ‘thali bajaoing’, and fumbling with facemasks and hand sanitisers. And in the midst of this madness, on June 1, splainer was born.
Why did we call this baby splainer? Because splainer.in was available on GoDaddy, of course. Needs must and mercifully the name had something to do with what we actually do. On a slightly more earnest note, here’s a good one-minute recap of why we even exist:
Here are five things you are most likely to hear us say on a daily basis:
5:00 pm: ‘Chee, there’s no news!’ News cycles are feast or famine. We have way too many items in ‘Headlines That Matter’ one day—and scramble to make up the numbers the next. We live day to day in a state of great suspense:)
11:30 pm: ‘F*** we don’t have a big story!’ Yes, it’s true. At least once a week, we pull the lead explainer out of thin air at the crack of dawn.
9:15 am: ‘We’re running late!’ Every morning is a race to the finish no matter how early we wake up to get the edition done. We’re writing and editing until the very last minute.
9:30 am: ‘Let me in!!!’ We do the last bit of publishing on a team Zoom call, and at least one of us will lose Wifi—and get shut right out of the meeting. Solution: Send frantic messages on WhatsApp.
10:30 am: ‘I win!’ True story: Every morning, the team bets on exactly what time we will actually publish. And whoever picks the closest time gets to do the easiest stuff for our Insta.
Bonus: Here’s a mood diary of the splainer team!
To be honest, most of the past 12 months have been a bit of a blur. But here are bits that are the stuff of excellent memories.
The dog christening: Full disclosure: the real reason we slapped a dog on the navigation button (on your right) is because no one—literally no one—noticed the pancake menu we had at first. So we figured you’ll surely pay attention if a dog starts following you around the page… and voilà!
Many of you soon decided ‘dog’ needed a name. Our initial choices were Khabri, Fetch, Anchor and Bhaskerville. You voted, and a super-cute mutt called Khabri became our mascot! Think we may be the only news product in the world that has puppies spread across our website lol! FYI: Khabri’s mood calendar for 2021.
The mad Diwali sale: We initially planned to offer a big festival discount to new subscribers—which is what wise businesses do to scale. We linked it to your referral code, and asked you to share it with friends and family. Soon enough, some of our subscribers wrote in to ask why they were being left out. So we offered that 40% discount to everyone… and were blown away by the insane rush that ensued. Moral of this story: our people really, really love a sale! FYI: Our biz adviser does not, lol!
#BhaskersSoWhite: In a year when almost no one had watched Oscar nominees, we decided to do our very own award show: Indians pick the best of Hollywood—instead of a bunch of mostly white guys. Diversity rules! Excellent idea except we ended up with a lineup of winners who were more lily-white than the actual Oscar winners 😂 . But an excellent time was had by all. Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek of us “prettying up” ourselves for the final ‘awards show’ lol:
The love letters: Over the months, many of our readers have written to let us know how much we mean to them—and that’s the favourite part of our job. This one made us a little teary-eyed:
This one made us laugh:
“In Japan, apparently you can hire a boyfriend to feel less lonely in a busy world. Similarly, I purchased splainer to feel less overwhelmed by the news, during what is already a difficult year. It reminds me of that smart, funny, worldly friend we all have and love, who gives you a reality check when you most need it :)”
This tweet filled us with delight: “Person I matched with on Hinge gifted me a
@splainerin subscription. And I got my first newsletter this morning. Love how they’ve broken news down for non-readers. Simple and to the point!”
And this one was just priceless: “I cancelled my Indian Express.” 😂 😂
The recommendations: Believe it or not, one of the most stressful parts of our job is finding high quality sanity breaks to entertain you each day (oh, the irony!). So we want to give a big shout out to Sowmya Swaminathan, Kruthika Ravi Kumar and Sindhu Nair for sending in excellent suggestions that make our life so much easier! We also truly appreciate everyone who writes in with comments and clarifications on our news stories. You all make us smarter!
Here’s what we have lined up for this month:
Coming up next: A weekend edition written by excellent guest contributors.
Here’s what we really, really want for our birthday:
Toast or Roast: We’d be delighted if you send in a 15-20 second video/audio clip that either tells us why you love splainer: I love splainer because… Or it could be a clip that totally makes fun of us: splainer is soooo annoying because… Just something that’s fun for all of us! Email us at talktous@splainer.in or reply on our WhatsApp broadcast group:)
Gift a sub: The best gift for splainer is to gift us to someone you like! And each one of them helps! (Just hit ‘gift a friend’ on the subscribe page)
Refer a friend: We’ve done very well in our first year, but we are nowhere near the top of this mountain. Our big goal in year #2 is to grow, grow, grow! Each time you share that referral link and say ‘I love splainer’, a new baby sub is born somewhere in the world!
Become a founding member: When we first started, our founding members helped us build a website, pay salaries and hosting fees etc. Thanks to their support, we now make enough revenue to take care of our daily bills. But we’re still a small company without big-time investors. And we need that bit extra to keep growing—whether in terms of tech development or new content. Please consider becoming a founding member—or (as some of our founding members have already done) renewing your support this year.
The bottomline: The past year has been difficult and often dark for all of us. But what got us through is our personal relationship with each one of you. It’s what got us out of bed on the hardest mornings—because we knew you were waiting for your daily splainer! And it’s what keeps us going even today. So thank you for being with us through it all! And here’s to a wonderful year ahead—filled with wonder, delight and success—for all of us!
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