Some Random Thoughts on Murmurs.com Turning 15
Fifteen years ago, a 17 year old me sat down at a computer, pulled up a site and registered a domain name.
Reckoning.com was taken
Murmur.com was taken
Fables.com was taken
Murmurs.com was not.
I registered the domain name and used Microsoft Frontpage to put up a site.
By November of 1996 it looked like this.
Fifteen years is a long time to be committed to anything, much less a fan site. The person I was at 17 is not the person I am now. However, at least in terms of hobbies, being an R.E.M. fan has stayed the same. I still run Murmurs, maybe not with the same level of commitment I did 10 years ago, but its still something I pay for, maintain, post on occasionally and keep going.
But looking back on fifteen years is interesting in the frame of the site.
Fifteen years ago:
- I had just met Michael for the first time after a Patti Smith show (I sat behind him). That is what prompted me to do the site.
- R.E.M. did not have an official website. Warner Bros. Records did, at http://wbr.com/rem but the band did not have remhq.com launched until 1999′s tour
- All music was bought on CD’s. There were no MP3 players, there were no Mp3′s period.
- All my news for Murmurs.com I got through buying magazines, surfing sites, reading newspapers and tips from fans
Thinking back on this, running the site all those years ago was like running a news organization. I played more of a journalist. Now it’s easier for me to scrape the Google News feed for mentions of Michael or the band, syndicate tweets and be down with it. Some of the fun is gone, but sometimes progress negates fun.
Half my life has been tied to this site, and at times I sacrificed things in the sake of keeping it going. Was it worth it? Yes. I have made great friends and I hope it has contributed to peoples lives. It lead to me becoming friends with the band, and every day I’ve admire their generosity, integrity and graciousness.
Sometimes it is easy to look back and imagine a life without Murmurs. To some degree, not having it as a burden in parts of my life would be great. But with so much of myself tied up into its existence I don’t know if in the end it would have been worth it. I’m proud of what it is, and I’m hopeful I can continue to make it something special. I’ll always work to make it something worth being tied to the band R.E.M., and always fall woefully short, but that is OK.
In the end, the act of being a fan is a difficult thing to reconcile with the act of being an individual. When you transcend the notion of idle fanaticism toward something as engaged as running a fan site, it becomes even more difficult to reconcile your role as an individual with your role as the voice of the collective Fan.
With Murmurs now at 15, R.E.M at 31 and me now at 32, I think I’ve figured that out. Not entirely, but enough to get by.
Peter Buck once described R.E.M. as “Part lies, part heart, part truth and part garbage.”
I’ve always thought that is an accurate description of Murmurs, in the best way possible.