Featured Blogger: Jillian Madison of Damn You AutoCorrect
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Damn You AutoCorrect’s Jillian Madison has positioned herself as a major player in the world of hilarious blogs. In addition to Damn You AutoCorrect, her hysterical sites include Parent Fails, Food Network Humor, Awkward Names, Parents Shouldn’t Text, My Rough Life, Wrong Number Texts and PopHangover, just to name a few. Each site highlights one distinctive funny theme, and Damn You AutoCorrect focuses on the weird and amusing miscommunication that occurs when someone’s cell phone accidentally auto corrects the spelling of their text messages.
- Jillian Madison of Damn You AutoCorrect
Q: When and why did you start blogging?
A: I started Pophangover, my flagship pop culture humor website, back in 1999 – and that’s before blogging even existed! Blogging’s come a long way! I had to use static HTML pages and update them constantly, and it was such a time consuming process. I actually started the site as a place to make fun of all the ridiculous things I was observing on TV and in pop culture on a daily basis. Over the past 12 years, the network has expanded to over 12 sites like AwkwardNames.com and WhyDidYouBuyMeThat.com, and I’m adding more every year.
Q: How do you think Damn You AutoCorrect stands out amongst blogs of the same genre?
A: Everyone can relate to it! We all carry cell phones around in our pockets these days. Everyone has either been autocorrected, or knows someone who has. That, and I think the content, is universally funny and relatable by people of all ages.
Q: What set of criteria do you use when choosing submissions to post?
A: DYAC gets over 500 submissions a day and I read through them all myself. Many of them are repeats, so they don’t make the cut. I only post the ones that make me laugh.
Q: What does your family think of your blogging?
A: They’ve been great about it. There were times I wanted to throw in the towel and just go get a “normal” 9-5 job, but they encouraged me to stick with it, and I’m glad they did.
Q: Which blogger most inspires you to keep blogging?
A: The honest truth is that I don’t read any blogs. It’s partly because I don’t have the time, and partly because I don’t want to become unduly influenced by anything else that’s going on in the blogosphere.
Q: How much time daily do you spend blogging?
A: A LOT. I’m currently running the Pophangover Network myself and it’s incredibly time consuming. I work at least 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week. I’m currently considering hiring a staff and/or selling off some of the Web sites (we just rejected an informal offer from Ben Huh at Cheezburger network to purchase Damn You Autocorrect, for example).
Q: How many times have you redesigned your blog since it started?
A: Not many! I find that people hate change. They get used to seeing something one way and get very upset when websites change layouts or formats. Damn You Autocorrect hasn’t changed once. Pophangover has been redesigned 4 times in the past 12 years.
Q: How much do you correspond one-on-one with readers?
A: It depends on the blog, but usually not as much as I would like. I interact with the Food Network Humor readers the most, because it’s a smaller community. I talk with the DYAC readers on our Facebook page and that’s always fun.
Q: What joys did you not expect when you started blogging? What pains?
A: This is going to sound corny, but it’s true: the biggest joy I get from blogging are the emails from people who tell me how much they laughed while reading my Web sites. I love being able to brighten someone’s day, even if it’s from the other side of a computer. The biggest pain is the constant, never-ending, forward momentum of the Internet and how demanding people can be. There’s no such thing as “a day off” on the Internet. You can’t stand still, because the juggernaut keeps going and it will roll right over you.
Q: What’s something your readers don’t know about you?
A: I have never seen one episode of The Simpsons or eaten a meatball. Seriously.