Swungover Turns 4!

The little rascal has had quite an exciting year! (Hence the smoking.)

And as its proud parent, it’s important for me that Swungover grow naturally — that I don’t try to stifle it or over-control it.

It’s a curious kid, after all: sometimes very serious, sometimes wonderfully whimsical, sometimes impressively productive, and sometimes un-so.

And so I try to let it all happen, enjoy what unfolds, and otherwise just try to keep it from hurting itself seriously.

And I was very pleased with the result. (Except for the smoking.)

Let’s take a stroll down selective-memory lane…

Year-in-Review, 2013

An article on the history of Germany’s swing kids, Swingjugend: The Real Swing Kids, inspired a companion post arguing that those German swing youth are our modern scene’s closest relatives.

Then, we discussed the complex relationship between formal instruction and individual expression in Meditatin’: Education & Individuality and what this relationship means for our modern scene.

We did only a couple of interviews this year; however, if one gets to do an hour-long Interview with Norma Miller, Lindy Hop Legend, who needs more?

For the International Lindy Hop Championships this year, we offered 23 Ways To Look At A Competition, most of which were the result of personal experience on our part.

An article offering advice on how to get your barber/stylist to do a vintage men’s haircut was shared on Reddit, which garnered the post 140,000 views over its first two days — which is roughly 130,000 more than any other Swungover post has ever gotten in two days. (Attempts to share Savoy Style vs. Hollywood Style: A Fight to the Death (Hopefully?) on Reddit have not been as successful.)

This year, we introduced Swing 101, a series for dancers new to dancing and the swing scene. The first four parts were So, You’ve Just Started Swing Dancing…, Beginning Your Swing Dance Education, 8 Ways You Can Get Better At Swing Dancing, and Etiquette & Floorcraft (which featured the incredible Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy himself as guest editor).

And as a companion to Swing 101, we began Swing History 101. In partnership with Yehoodi, we began making a video series of it, which so far has included The Birth of Lindy Hop (1900s-1929) and The Dark Ages (1929-1937).

And, just for gits and shiggles, we made a few promotional videos, our two favorites being a Telemundo overdub for Swingin’ in the Rain and a new hip hop video for Lindy Focus.

Finally, this year Swungover*recognized editor Chelsea Lee as a Font of Awesomeness, and provided her with a trophy befitting of such an honor: a vintage 1942 1st place young farmers trophy for sheep maintenance.

Chelsea not only helps fix ambiguous sentences and misspelled words; she helps focus, shape, and inspire what they become. And all for the mere price of Anthropologie gift cards. We’re very glad to have her be a part of Swungover. (By the way, she didn’t edit this section, because it’s a surprise.)

Coming in 2014…

As I mentioned earlier, I’m trying to respect the young tyke’s drive to go out into the world and explore, to follow its fancy.

Besides, in the past, attempts to predict how Swungover would grow in the future have always led to comically-off predictions that are in-print and will forever haunt me. (see last year’s year-in-review)

Sure, this method of blog management can mean that certain series take quite a while to finish. And some of them may not ever be finished. But the cool thing is, I’m excited to see what will happen myself. And that’s actually a wonderful feeling for a parent to have.

A wonderful new year to all of our readers, and thank you for all the inspiration and great feedback.
—Sentence written by Bobby White, edited by Chelsea Lee.