THE END OF DANNY'S GARDEN
the cost of writing an online blog
I got a job offer this week — thank you, thank you, hold the applause. It’s a great opportunity: remote, with solid pay, creative autonomy, and room to grow.
Only one issue. They asked me to delete the blog.
Fuck.
That’s right, this blog, the one you’re reading at this very moment. The one that blew up last summer when I wrote an unrequited love letter for a childhood friend, then imploded when I (over)shared my perverse sexual predilections.
My altar to openness and honesty. Public receptacle for thoughts and desires most private and intimate. The passion project I call ‘Danny’s Garden’.1
Now it’s on the chopping block.
How did my prospective employers even find the blog? I told them. Yeah, I figured it would come out eventually and tried to get ahead of it. Offer letter in hand, I said hey, by the way, I do this thing... and they saw the ‘thing’ was stroking it to AI-generated anime tiddies.
And that’s how we ended up here.
So now we face a conundrum: what’s more important? The blog or the bag?
The answer is not so clear.
Despite my childlike nature2 and youthful good looks,3 I am 27 going on 30. And as much as I fantasize about the broke-ass bohemian lifestyle, I’ll likely end up married with kids within a decade — meaning I need the money.
God, I need the money. I want to send my kids to college. I want to spoil my beautiful wife. I want to buy my mom a house.
And yet — this blog is my child. Birthed through the brain canal, built painstakingly word by word. It embodies my freedom, rebellion, and individuality. It’s singular, irreplaceable. It is part of who I am.
Would you cut off an arm for 100k? How about 500k? What about a million?
Money comes and goes, though for me it mostly goes. Yet here I am: 6 figures deep in grad school debt, given a golden opportunity and seriously considering throwing it away.
For a blog that makes approximately 0 dollars an hour.
It’s obvious what the right answer is. The smart answer. The choice my mom and my friends and 99% of the population would urge me to make.
But if you’re reading this right now, you already know how this story ends.
I might be making a huge mistake. I might end up old and broke and hopeless, wondering where it all went wrong, pointing to this exact moment as the last chance I had to turn my life around.
But I can’t let go of the blog. I just can’t. This is just who I am.
For better or worse, I never could’ve been anyone else.
anyone who thinks this period belongs inside the quotes can smoke a fat one.
(read: immaturity)
(read: Asian)
1. why the fuck would you tell them (this sounds like unconscious self-sabotage)
2. take the job, delete the blog, and start an new one in which you're recognizable enough but for which you have plausible deniability (i.e. them not being able to prove it's you)
Unless you’re intended to be a PR spokesman or public facing figure or something, this seems like a violation. An intrusion on who you are outside working hours. All I will say is if you take the, save what you can and get out of there in a few years. Buy a car wash or something. We shouldn’t have to go though this just to make a living.