💌 Shit I care about??? You!!💌
🪄A year in SYSCA🪄
So my angels - we’ve made it! We have come to the end of another year and it feels like it’s been the biggest/ hardest/ happiest/ most rewarding year of my entire life - and that is quite seriously all thanks to you. Without you reading, there is no me writing! Without you listening, there is no us talking! Without you liking, there is no me posting! And you know me, I like to get a lil emosh, espesh at the end or beginning of things, so I wanted to run through some of SYSCAs big moments this year, so hopefully you feel good about what you’ve allowed us to do.
The 🪐SYSCA universe🪐 expanded
I don’t know if you all know this, but building a media company is REALLY hard, and while we have our core team of besties (Rubes, Liv, and I) it has certainly taken a village to keep us happy/ thriving/ existing. One of my FAVOURITE things we did this year was expand the universe and introduce you to some new characters. As a way of thanking them (and refreshing your memory), we’ve got:
🔔Bel 🔔 who “Chimes In” every Thursday with her whimsical musings on life/ love/ being a worn-out woman, and everything in between. She’s a crowd favourite.
🏀Slam Dunc🏀 who is the DJ and Dad of the group. Dunc is freakishly smart about media/ tech/ pop music and has pretty hot takes on most things.
🍷Squish🍷 (who you all know) is my brother and co-host of The Shit Show! He’s been told he has an ‘attractive voice’ and he talks to us a lot about space, Formula 1, and the economy.
🌞London Laura🌞 is our chief of romanticising literally everything - she will definitely ask you all what your love language is at some stage.
We also have other people who help us with 📈business📉 and 🎨creative🎨 things in our day-to-day lives (who you don’t get to meet but we literally wouldn’t be able to function without them.) So thank you to The Spinoff for all your advice on running a cool independent media company, Daylight Creative for helping us shine our shit (and dealing with us in the office every day), and Sacha Judd for all your expertise on… most things. We love you all so much.
The 🪐SYSCA Universe🪐 also includes some famous friends (aka people who follow us on Instagram but have no idea we exist)
🕵️♀️Transparency alert: I’m putting these here so you think I’m cool.
Ariana Grande, Madonna, Bella Hadid, Blake Lively, Chrissy Teigen, Dan Levy, Joe Rogan (lol), Liza Koshy, FINNEAS (actual bestie, listen to our interview with him here), Lorde (another bestie, and another interview here), Vanessa Hudgens, Chloe Grace Moretz, Cory Booker, Cara Delevigne, Awkwafina, Busy Phillips, Gemma Styles (two degrees of separation from Harry Styles eh??), Jessica Alba, Benee (another interview!!), Ashley Graham, Daisy Edgar-Jones, The Daily Show, Kaitlyn Denver, Shay Mitchell, Anna Sophia Robb, Pandora Sykes, Maddie Cline, Jesse Williams, Halle Berry, Tess Holliday, Celeste Barber, Claudia Selewski, Ross from The 1975 (huge for me.)
And we lost some famous friends (aka people who unfollowed us)
🕵️♀️Transparency alert: I’m putting these here so you know I’m not cool.
Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Reese Witherspoon, Joy Crookes.
And the 🪐 universe🪐 is looking really fucking dope
One of the biggest things we did this year (I say we… I mean Liv and the fucking magicians at Daylight Creative) was our re-brand. We went from a cute insta who use canva, to a cute insta/ newsletter/ podcast with a SICK IDENTITY and even gifs!! (We also still use canva but now we have brilliantly designed assets to import.)
We’ve also got a new website coming in the new year (Liv and Daylight have been BUSY), so keep your eyes peeled for that 👀
We got to make our (and your) fandom dreams come true 🤩
My whole life (teenage til now) has been driven by fandom, and the fact that it’s literally become my job to make sure we aren’t being shit on for being fans of stuff still blows my little mind every day. This year we leaned EVEN FURTHER into our Big Fangirl Energy by doing some really sick things for all of you (and for us.) Naturally, the biggest thing we did was host two listening parties for Harry’s House with Sony Music!! We literally did a partnership for Harry Styles. And it was amazing. He sent over his list of requests, the Sony Music team made it happen, and we got to host/ cry/ laugh/ dance with a bunch of Harries (except for when we all got Covid and had to zoom in for the Sydney one…) Honestly a dream come true, and I hope we get to do more of that!!
Putting Harry aside, we also got to interview Finneas which was the sickest thing ever. We’ve been insta-pals with Finneas (and by that I mean we’ve dm’ed back and forth about his love for NZ and given him and Claudia recs for what they should do while they’re here) but getting to meet him in the flesh (and have him compliment my outfit and memes) was EVERYTHING.
I also loved hearing his answers to our mundane poll questions.
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And then… The 1975. My Matty Healy obsesh came towards the end of the year when I did a segment on him calling out Triple J for Culture Vulture and… it’s stuck. I’ve deep-dived into basically everything there is to know about this band that is legit now my fave band in the world, and my obsesh has been validated (and kindly perpetuated) by all of you!!! Some highlights:
FINDING OUT ROSS FOLLOWS US ON INSTAGRAM
Getting to give out tickets to The 1975’s upcoming NZ shows for our newsy audience
Getting to interview Isabella (the gal who kissed Matty on stage during Robbers) and finding out she’s a long-time SYSCA follower
Getting tickets for both their NZ shows MYSELF
Turning our TikTok into a Matty Healy shitpost account
Being interviewed by a journo and publication I ADORE about the collective horniess over Matty Healy (out soon, I’ll let you know)
The opportunities that fandom has brought to SYSCA make me incredibly proud of all the stans out there and hopefully re-iterate what we’re always saying: THAT YOU CAN BE INTERESTED IN MULTIPLE THINGS AT ONCE (like the news AND Harry Styles) and that the skills you learn in your fandom days will come in handy, I promise.
We talked and talked and talked 🎙
And you listened and listened and listened.
It was a big year for our podcasts!!! The news and pop culture space got... heavy this year, but after doing this for a few years, I feel like we got braver, and tackled some of the more gnarly stuff. Over on The Shit Show, Squish really slayed on the explainers - my favourite eps being 'Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, Explained' and 'Andrew Tate, Explained,' and on Culture Vulture Liv seemed to tackle incredibly knotty topic after incredibly knotty topic - my favourite eps being 'Making Sense of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard,' and of COURSE 'Can we separate the art and the artist?'
The pods were also loved by you!!! Culture Vulture was New Zealand's 'listeners choice' and was in the top 1% of podcasts listened to globally, and The Shit Show is NZ's third best current affairs show (how about that for a tagline) and in the top 5% of pods listened to globally!!! Can't wait to talk more shit next year!
We went international (and national) 🌏
The world really said it was 🪐opening back up🪐 and we really took advantage of it!! Rubes and I spent some time working in Sydney, we went to Bali to cover Instagram's creator week, I went to Texas and San Francisco to be part of some cool future-of-work stuff over there, and we embarked on our two-week SYSCA road-trip across New Zealand to meet you all!!! It's for sure been the year of the working holiday, and I couldn't be more grateful to have a job that lets us do this 🥺
And you kept us employed 📈
This year we also launched our ✨SYSCA Supporters✨ program and adopted the messaging 'normalise paying for the media you love.' The further we get into this thing, the more we realise JUST HOW HARD it is to be a media company in 2022. When we all get all our media for 🤩free🤩 we pay for it in other ways (it's click-baity, or it's kinda... false, or it's just not entertaining/ nice to consume.)
Seeing you all start to rally around the idea that good media is worth money (and costs money to make) has made my heart ABSOLUTELY SOAR, and the best part about it is that those of you who are SYSCA supporters are making sure we can stay free and accessible for those who can't afford it. You keep our SYSCA universe employed, you keep us working hard, and you keep this shit free. And we love you so much for it.
We have some amazing things planned for our SYSCA supporters in 2022 (more Bel... more concert tickets...) so please, as a Christmas gift to us, or just because you value our work, consider becoming a SYSCA Supporter 💌💌
All of this is to say, thank you 🥺
From me, your trusted newsy writer and bona fide bestie, the biggest thank you imaginable. For giving me a purpose. For giving me a job. For letting me professionally fangirl. For letting me make low-stakes errors every day. For forgiving me when I'm hungover. For liking/ commenting/ sharing/ engaging with every little silly thing we do. For all your email replies. For all your content shares! For putting up with my newfound Matty Healy obsesh. For putting up with my never-going-away Harry Styles obsesh. For getting through the hard news with me. For letting me have my 'good news only' days. For letting this small big life be my small big life. For over 60,000 besties. I'll be seeing you next year 💌
The newsy will return on the 9th of Jan my babies xx
Merry Christmas SYSCA whānau. This 45yo WOW is looking forward to phoenixing in 2023. All thanks to you! Arohanui ❤
I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING!
🥺 Damn this was beautiful, and made me so fuckin happy while reading it. I'm happy I get to be a part of what makes you happy, Luce!