Junk Food Nation, allow myself to introduce…myself.  I’m Eric, and I’m your friendly neighborhood Junk Food Guy.

Hi

Today is June 24, 2012, and that means that this blog is officially one year old.  One year.  Almost 365 daily blog posts about junk food, fast food, gourmet snacks, healthy snacks, my life and opinions, your daily gossip, sports, news, and of course, awkwardness.

When I sat down to write this blog one year ago, it originally was because my buddy Rob had told me about the 7-Select S’mores Ice Cream Sandwiches, and I couldn’t find a goddamn place on the internet to learn more about it. I figured that there were plenty of things out there that people wanted to know more about, but had no resource to tap into. *I* would be that resource, I thought.

I’d never blogged before.  I’m not really a writer.  All I had at my disposal was some general support from friends and family and a little bit of programming knowledge from my junior year of college.  The only advice came from Actor Sis, who told me, “Blogging is about consistency. Your audience will come to expect content, and you have to give it to them.”

So, my first decision before I began was frequency.  Once a month?  Unhelpful.  Once a week?  Surely I had more to say than that.  Daily.  It had to be daily.  There was plenty of junk food to review in the world. When I told my friends about my intentions, support was tepid at best.  My closest friends later admitted they didn’t think I could do it.  “Daily?” they asked. “Won’t you run out of things to talk about?”

This blog began awkwardly, like most things in my life.  A bag of Doritos here, an ice cream there.  My readership was minuscule. One day in August, NO ONE read my blog post.  I was crushed.  “He only writes about things I’ve already had,” said one of the Junk Food Gal’s friends.  “That’s boring.” I had to evolve.

I started contacting companies, started buying crazy things, started really hitting up Facebook, Twitter, other social networks.  And, thanks to you all, my work began to pay off.  My readership grew a little, then a lot, then exploded. I started working with other food blogs.  I began to establish relationships with a bunch of companies.

You, the readers, and I started to interact even more.  I love conversing with all of you in the comments, on Facebook, on Twitter.  Today, Junkfoodguy.com gets about 1000 unique visitors a day across more than 25 countries culminating in around 650,000 hits monthly.  We (and I say “we” because you make this blog as much as I do) are just getting started.

I guess that’s why I felt like, going forward, it was important for you to see who I was – it’s silly to remain some anonymous blogger like Spiderman or Batman…who aren’t bloggers but you get my point.  This isn’t Gossip Girl. If I’ve learned anything while writing my blog, it’s that food is about community.  It’s about sharing. So, again, hello. I’m Eric. Nice to meet you.

Don’t mind me, just blending up some gravy

I’ve been asked a lot of questions in the past year regarding my blog: “What do you consider junk food?” “Are you putting on a ton of weight?” “Aren’t you bored?” One of the questions I always get asked is “Why are you doing this?” And when I really sit down to think about it, I guess I really just thought it’d be fun. Fun to see if I could create SOMETHING where there was once NOTHING.  And after one year, I’d say that I, you, WE have created SOMETHING.  And this “something” isn’t done yet.

So there you have it, Junk Food Nation. Junkfoodguy.com is one year old. Here’s to the future.

Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy