The return of GREEN ENVY? (and other Celtics Life business)

The Celtics keep winning, which is a great thing. One staple of celticslife.com the past dozen year has always been GREEN ENVY post following a Celtics win. Then COVID happened and sports shut down. The majority of our staff from prior to COVID didn't return when the 2020 Bubble took place.

We were still able to have Green Envy's for the rest of that season/postseason and that last season we had them for most of the Celtics' wins. But as I'm sure you recall, the Celtics lost as much as they won last year. Through the first couple months of the season the same story was being told, but then all of a sudden the team finally started playing together, sharing the ball, and... WINNING.

Unfortunately this season we didn't have the staff for Green Envy, but I see all the tweets and comments asking when it will return. Part of that is my fault, since I kind of got burned out on advertising for new writers, spending all the time going through all the applicants, training the good ones, but then out of those only like 10% actually end up writing on the regular.

So besides some posts from Abacus Reveals and the occasional post from other writers, it's been more of a solo ship this season. But I also miss Green Envy, so I'm putting this out here right now. If you want to post the Green Envy's for the site, reach out to me at jr@celticslife.com. If you are only willing to do let's say half of them, well that would still work (and then we could try and find someone to do the other half).

If you want to write for Celtics Life and have your Celtics thoughts and analysis be viewed by a large audience, starting out on Green Envy would get you a foot in the door.

Other Celtics Life business...

FAQ:

Why are there sometimes less posts than there used to be?

It's not 2012 anymore. Back then we had a great staff and a fantastic original Content Coordinator in Mike Saver. After Mike advanced on, Mark Vandeusen took over and we continued to thrive. Unfortunately once Mark got a job at Whoop, the person who took over wasn't very good. And to be honest a lot of his staff was no good either.

Since then no one has stepped up wanting to be the content coordinator. And when I pitched posts to the staff most of the writers hired to write every day would not respond.

Part of the issue is that Celtics Life never sold to a big network. Celtics Blog sold to SB Nation. For a time being even though we’re still independent we were running neck and neck with Celtics Blog, which was quite impressive for an independent blog.

With that came jealousy. You saw the Red Army crew try to troll our site in the comments section, Shout Box, and on social media, because they loved being the #2 Celtics fan site and now they had been left in the dust. It was like a scene straight out of the movie Anchorman with Wes Mantooth apoplectic because they were "#2" or in this case #3 or lower now (and uglier versions of Vince Vaughn).

But the reason we were able to compete with a big money networks like the one that owns SB Nation was because our unique Celtics coverage was being featured on Bleacher Report, Fox Sports, and YardBarker.

Like most things in a capitalistic society, in time they all figured that they'd make more money if they only partnered with huge blogs and other networks and hired their own staffs to all have their own Celtics blogs. That's life. At the same time, while we always had to deal with unscrupulous vendors stealing our t-shirt designs and selling them on the streets of Boston, people started doing it online as well.

And then again since we live in a capitalistic society, businesses came along that enabled anyone who wanted to to make their own custom designed t-shirt. So instead of paying $20 to us a Boston company for let’s say a Grand Theft Rondo shirt, they could get it a shirt made from some national or international website for like $30. And because those companies had huge venture capital dollars they would advertise like crazy.

Back in the day if you googled Celtics shirts or a player's shirt or whatever, Celtics Life would come up prominently. But these mega network companies own google searches now.

So that was another tool that brought more Celtics fans to the site to read our writers' posts. So long story short, since we aren't averaging 1.5 million page views a month like we did back in the day, it's harder to get staff. And since life or pressing family stuff can sometimes get in the way for me as well and I can't always just work 80 hours a week on this site to make up for not having the full man power.

I'm hopeful we can get a new content coordinator and together build up a successful staff, but there are so many copy cats out there that steal ideas and are able to invest large amounts of money into promoting their social media or website posts that the landscape has just changed.

I can put out a tweet now that back in the day would have gone viral, but a network account will just post the same idea 20 minutes later and there's go viral instead. And doesn't matter if we have 100's of thousands of followers on Facebook or Twitter. BAack in the day if we posted something to Celtics Life's Facebook account, everyone who followed us would see it. Now you have to pay for the majority to see it. Twitter I believe is similar. Them's the breaks.

I mean the people that just cop our ideas are the worst and there should be a special place in hell for them, but other stuff is just the way the world goes.

So why didn't you just cash out and sell the site to some national network?

Well back when big companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google didn't punish independent blogs, we could still compete with anyone and without some corporate person saying what we could do or not do, say or not say. And it was considered selling out when Jeff Clark sold Celtics blog to the corporation that owns SB Nation. The carrot he gave his site's readers was that as part of the rebranding, SB Nation had agreed to continue having a message board on Celtics Blog.

Of course as often is the case with these deals, it was a temporary promise and after some time when the dust had settled, they simply eliminated their message board. That's what big companies and the people that sell to them often do in the end. Pretend and pay lip service, but eventually the corporate dollar is king,

What made and makes Celtics Life a solid site is it's uniqueness. If I had sold it to some company that tried to get it like ClutchPoints, FanSided or one of the others that inquired Celtics Life would have been no more.

It would have been rebranded as Celtics Nation or something else and you'd be getting content completely different than what we've given you the past 13 years. It would be all about clicks and many of the creators and writers wouldn't even be Celtics fans. We pride ourselves in being Celtics fans and not making photoshops with a player wearing #6 or #17 for example. Our readers would have noticed the change and it would have made them sick (and rightfully so).

Why are there sometimes a ton of typos in a post?

Two reasons. One, Blogger about a year or two removed their spell check from the platform. They also removed natural line breaks. So long story short you can't just type up a post elsewhere and then copy/paste here as then the formatting is all messed up and you have to spend forever fixing that. But if you type the post in here, you don't see any typos. So I type here in Blogger, and then copy/paste it elsewhere, fix the errors, and then copy/paste back here (fun times). Sometimes I forget. It's not the end of the world, even though some people like to make it out to be.

And secondly I just personally spend my time trying to provide entertaining, informative, unique Celtics content. I was never someone growing up that chose what to read based on how amazing the grammar and spelling was. I wanted to be informed, entertained, or read something unique.

When people snidely ask "Don't you have editors?" the answer is No we don't. I wear enough hats at the moments and honestly you should be able to live with a "hear" in place of a "here." If we add some different writers or Blogger brings back their spell check, I'm sure there will be less errors. I do try my best to check for errors by doing the multiple copy/paste thing, but again sometimes I forget.

Why are you censoring the comment section?

Unlike other sites, we've always allowed people a lot of freedom to say what they want. When we have issues with idiot racists, homophobes, or anti-Semites spamming the site with vile stuff we've occasionally had to put in a censor for a word in the Shout Box for example.

But if you can't talk Celtics or basketball without using the word that begins with an F and ends with a T which is widely considered the biggest slur to gay people for example then oh well. Find another website. The fact we even had to censor that word because morons were still using it was sad.

But in the past few years, most of the mods aren't even affiliated with the site anymore. If you are posting a comment and it's not appearing (or getting taken down), that's because Disqus has changed how they work. They automatically flag comments they think should be. And I'm not going to spend 24/7 going on Disqus to then un-flag those comments. Because I've looked and most of them are stupid antagonistic comments where someone is just getting their kicks talking sh#t to strangers on the internet.

You know what I do when I see a stupid tweet, post, or comment (on someone else's stuff). I ignore it, register in my brain that this might be a place I want to avoid in the future, and carry on. Social Media used to be a lot of fun, but now it's full of arses who just want to complain and fight. It's because the algorithms for social media show that this negativity gets more engagement. So these huge media networks then make more ad revenue. And we all see so much more trash and think it's the norm.

No, going on the internet, and typing "You're a clown" or "You're an idiot" or much worse should not be the norm. Whether you think Marcus Smart is the best player in the NBA or you think he sucks, it's not either opinion that's the problem. The problem is all the people from Group A or B calling anyone who doesn't agree with them "clowns" or "idiots."

So if you want to volunteer to be a mod and go through the flagged comments, let me know. But if a decent amount of your comments are getting flagged, then it's likely because Disqus thinks you're a troll or exhibiting troll like behavior. I'm not censoring anything. This site has always prided itself on being objective and not some fan boy site or some negative voice like many on Boston sports radio.

We welcome differing opinions. You think Grant Williams should get cut, that's fine. Think he's an "untouchable" fine as well. And we don't care if you love or hate Trump or Biden either. We don't spend time virtue signaling either. Any complaint about censoring is ridiculous.

Any advice for interacting in the comment section, SHOUT BOX, website, or social media?

Yes. Spend more time saying something positive about posts, tweets, or comments that you like than being "that guy" that needs to spend their time trying to insult strangers on the internet. If you don't like a post, a writer, or a topic, just don't read that post, writer, or topic! Instead of taking the time to comment negatively on that post, use that time to comment positively on one you like.

I never was into the show FRIENDS. I didn't spend my time though complaining about the show and calling everyone idiots and clowns. I just watched something else (or played basketball).

Just because social media and comment sections have taken a turn for the worse in the past few years, does not mean that YOU, as in you the daily Celtics Life reader/follower need to mimic this rottenness. I expect more out of our daily readers/followers and for the most part you all do much better than what I see on Twitter and Facebook, which is good.

But just remember that you follow sports and the Celtics for enjoyment and as a distraction from the harsh realities of what can sometimes be one's daily life. Don't waste your free time trying to argue or worse fight with strangers online. Whether you think the Celtics will win this year's championship or get bounced in the first round, you should be free to have that opinion and state it.

Reality is we're all rooting for the same team. People are different. Let them be. No need to make anything toxic by complaining over some other fan's opposing sports view.

p.s. Most of you are great. And you are appreciated.


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