One year of (almost) non-stop Bruinou.com…

There’s nothing like a birthday to make one reflect on the past year and ponder the promise and challenges of the year that lies ahead. Depending on how the previous year transpired, the year ahead could be dreaded or highly anticipated. Thankfully, the Bruinou.com one-year birthday is something that falls in the latter category as this past year has more than exceeded our expectations in many ways.

The many site stalwarts out there who have witnessed Bruinou.com evolve from an atrocious looking; hobbyist style website designed in notepad to the interesting; thriving, feature-rich, premium online destination it is today would all wholeheartedly agree, that it has taken a lot more than 1 year to reach this perch. In fact, Bruinou.com has been around in varied forms of existence (and non-existence) for almost 5 years now. The first 4 years, while by far the toughest and most challenging in terms of winning public support, getting decent traffic levels as well as sourcing content, proved to be the most difficult. You’d think that after so long, things would’ve gotten easier…well, they have’nt. Keeping Bruinou.com alive is an intensely challenging, thankless, yet rewarding labour of love for the team and I.

Being at the helm of Bruinou.com since inception, one is afforded the opportunity to meet and interact with some of the coolest and most fun people in SA (and abroad). I’ve often imagined Bruinou.com to be this port in unchartered waters where many a sailor pulls in for fresh supplies and a break from their mundane voyage through life. Once at port Bruinou.com, they find a strange, bustling community of weird and wonderful inhabitants. As they disembark their ship and make for the local “spot” (read forum/chatroom), they soon discover that there exists a wealth of informational supplies which would be able to sustain and harness them on the next leg of their arduous voyage through life. Some choose to stick around and make themselves part of the scenery, others, as soon as they have acquired what they’re after, set-off, never to be heard from again.

I could go on for hours naming the many familiar strangers and aliases I’ve bumped into online, but what purpose would that serve other than to remind them that their online presence and brief interactions will forever be remembered. I think the most important part of Bruinou.com for me, is that it not only allows me to be on the cutting-edge of South African mixed-race theory, but it allows me to witness first hand, the awesome effects of social networking and the significance of online communities. With South Africa’s pathetic Internet penetration levels and Telkom’s continued, government sanctioned sodomising of the South African public with their exorbitant Internet access charges; reaching the level of online activity which Bruinou.com has achieved, has been a victory in itself. It’s reassuring for me to know, that even operators of websites that target “white” audiences, who by their very nature have vastly greater spending power and disposable income, also battle with acquiring and retaining users as South Africa is far behind the rest of the world as far as public Internet access is concerned.

There is 1 issue which the Bruinou.com team is increasingly perplexed by. Why is it that Bruinou.com is given such a wide, fearful berth from Coloureds in the Western Cape? One would think that with their significant Coloured population, they would join Bruinou.com en-masse, at the very least, to show their support for South Africa’s largest, most positive, progressive online community about Coloureds. While we try to steer clear of regionalizing the Coloured identity and further segmenting our fragile society, it is disheartening to think that we have not properly cracked the nod in Cape Town. All we have are theories as to why Bruinou.com is so awkwardly eschewed by the Cape Town masses…unfortunately, none of which I am able to share with you right now.

It’s very tough trying to be/do too many things at once. On the one hand, we have a fledgling business community in Coloured circles who feel that Bruinou.com should take a more serious and pro-active stance in stimulating and encouraging networking amongst the Coloured business community. Granted, there is definitely merit in this request and something we would love to be involved in…but is Bruinou.com really the appropriate forum or platform for this type of thing?
On the other hand, you have your more militant armchair revolutionaries who demand we take a more political and socially active stance. Again, there is merit in this, but do you really think that Bruinou.com is equipped to handle the ravages of politics? For starters, the Bruinou.com team is fairly young (the oldest bhullie here is 32), which means, we have no real struggle credentials (the most fundamentally crucial factor for success in SA political circles). When it comes to the struggle for greater recognition of Coloured identity in the South African diaspora however, well, that’s another story…we’re hardened veterans.

One of the biggest misconceptions though is that for some reason, many people harbour the erroneous view that Bruinou.com is raking in some mega-cash and is some well funded, lucrative initiative providing employment to many. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bruinou.com is STILL funded completely out of pocket, with our events helping supplement the running costs of the site. Because of Bruinou.com’s racial baggage (it’s a site aimed at South Africa’s Coloured people), we are having a very tough time trying to convince prospective advertisers that Bruinou.com is a credible advertising venue. The overtly racial name itself, Bruinou.com, while earning us points for brazen originality, is not earning us points in advertiser circles as advertisers seem to fear some kind of social reprisals if they associate their brand with ours. With advertisers not feeling us like they should, we’re in a particularly precarious predicament as we try to unravel the mysteries of Coloured identity pretty much on our own. Of course that just makes for an even more exciting and challenging year ahead and one I’m certain will yield even greater successes. As you already know, your continued support and feedback is intrinsically linked to the success of Bruinou.com.

Our birthday celebrations kickoff with our first birthday bash in Durban on 26 April 2006, so do make an effort to pull in. You can join me at the bar where I’ll be celebrating and unashamedly playing the quintessential Coloured stereotype 😉