95. February Recap

Originally Published on February 28th

Not for nothing, February may have been one of my favorite months doing Fifteen Minutes of Fame. I was excited to see artists coming together to nominate each other for the chance to be reviewed but I had no idea it would be as moving as it was! I am going to find a way to incorporate this more often. For starters, I am going to dedicate one review per month to the February posts to ensure I get to as many of them as I can. Thank you all for being the community I thought you were. 

February, as always, is a short month. With the volatility of our nation’s politics, ethics, working in a position with a financial company as the well-being of our national economy hangs in the balance, and moral standards behaving as if they were planets in a solar system that suddenly just lost gravity, snow storms, a loss of a dear family member, and sharing time while being hard at work on recording my second ever full-length studio album, it is safe to say that I am being pulled in several different directions. 

But I’m not stopping. If anything, I’m even more motivated. Why? Because there is a lot of dark happening right now and Fifteen Minutes is a beacon of light for me. I hope it is for you too. 

What Happened in February?

Two months into 2025, Fifteen Minutes of Fame had one of our most eventful months to date. For the first time ever, we accepted submissions for ANY release in the history of the artists’ catalogs. The only caveat; artists could not submit their own work. We had to spread the love by referring independent artists we know and love. And man, did the Fifteen Minutes of Fame-ily community show up! The posts requesting referrals received more than 2,000 overall views, and referrals that went into the hundreds! 

We have added 8 reviews and 4 blind reactions! That’s nearly one piece of new content every two days, which isn’t too terrible, considering all of the distractions that have been going on. 

To this point, I haven’t been including the artists who I’ve done blind reactions for with our artist reach map. That is ridiculous. I’ve decided to fix that horrible mistake as of this month. As it turns out, it didn’t change much. But, it did add a country to our list, and we can now officially say our full lineup of artists are represented!

Including the addition of our blind reaction artists, we have added Sudan along with the addition of the state of Arizona. So, we are now at 27 States in the US, and we are now in 15 countries across 4 continents. That is so exciting! I am always on the lookout to extent our reach, so if you all know of an artist from a country or state that’s not represented, make sure you have them submit music!

How We Have Grown

As we approach a very realistic timeline for the launch of the Fifteen Minutes of Fame official website, and as Fifteen Minutes of Fame begins the very exciting partnership with Collaborative Artist Network, (CAN), there is an ongoing potential for growth for Fifteen Minutes of Fame. To this point, we have exclusively relied on numerous social media networks, and that has been great, and we will continue to grow and interact in social media. As a precaution for how reliable social media will be for us, however, I am thrilled to be working towards establishing these home bases for everybody. 

With that being said, social media is still a place where Fifteen Minutes of Fame continues to thrive as our community grows across every platform we operate on. 

After seeing a little drop in our reach from the holiday hiatus at the end of 2024, our reach has started to make its way back up. Fifteen Minutes of Fame had a reach of more than 10,000 viewers across all platforms with Threads being responsible for nearly 6,000 of them!

Engagement has also made a recovery from January’s drop as there was roughly 1,000 interactions with posts responding to artists’ reviews, blind reactions, and other FMOF content! Threads once again, is responsible for the bulk of the engagement, with nearly 400 of the engaged content coming from that platform.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame’s family had a little bit of growth added in this short month as well. At the end of February, there are currently 3,383 followers across all social media platforms. In less than a year, that is significant as our message of positivity and inclusion continues to reach artists, listeners, and other people who want to change the culture of social media. Instagram showed the biggest growth in followers, as there are now 861 supporting FMOF on that platform. It’s also noteworthy to mention Blue Sky, as I’m not putting as much content out on that platform but it is starting to grow to a point where I need to focus more on individuals who are looking for us there. 

What About the Blogs and Blind Reactions?

I thought you’d never ask! After an astonishing December, there was an evident and expected decline in the number of viewers who visited our blog in January. However, January still outperformed previous months leading up to November. I’m happy to say, February has the Fifteen Minutes of Fame blog trending upward! In February, there were 4,317 readers, which is more than 800 more than we had in January- on only 8 new published reviews! That is outstanding! 

This number has us dangerously close to the milestone of 30,000 views, as we now currently sit at 28,811. I am proud of these artists. I am humbled by this response. It’s still less than a year. I didn’t think there would be any way there would even be 10,000 readers after a year of publishing these reviews. Of course I hoped, but with little to no prior social media presence, the reason is clear; there is a desire within our undiscovered community for a change. 
In February, there were just 4 blind reactions published. YouTube continues to be one of the slowest growing platforms but I have faith we will catch our audience there! I need to be more assertive at finding ways to make Fifteen Minutes of Fame attractive to potential viewers. That’s on me and I will work on doing that. 
So many people are spinning their wheels. Artists are trying to find their way at co-existing as musicians and full-time content creators, while having to manage their lives in the “real world.” People are tired of being distracted by mainstream music and the volatile culture surrounding the biggest names in the music industry. It’s becoming less about the music and more about who was at the “Diddy parties” or who wasn’t, who said this about that artist, and other nonsensical distractions.
Fifteen Minutes of Fame is a culture of real musicians, with real talent, living in the real world. I attest, the one reason we continue to be successful is that there is something for every single human being to relate to in our community. That is as real as it gets!

What’s Next?

Now that we have the first two months under way, it’s time to get rolling back into the more traditional operations that we have been accustomed to. That being said, an entire month has gone by with no new music submissions, as there were no traditional submissions from the month of February. So, as we roll into March, I‘ve got a couple of ideas on how to transition back to our normal system:

March Review/Blind Reactions Campaign:

First thing, I will be COMBINING the campaign announcements for Reviews and Blind Reactions. Hopefully, this will simplify the process for artists who are trying to find information to submit music to Fifteen Minutes of Fame. 

Second, music and music videos for the ENTIRE YEAR of 2025 will be accepted for review. Instead of reviews going back just one month, to make up for February’s exception, we will be goi g back two months. In addition, we will still be accepting reviews for upcoming releases for singles, EP’s, and LP’s.

To bring balance to the Blind Reactions, I am doing a cutoff for new submissions for music videos to also have been released at any point in 2025. I will still be going back to try to address older submissions, but as those original posts get further and further behind us, that task is becoming more difficult to address.

100th ARTICLE

I have no idea what I am going to do yet. But I’m going to think of something fun to celebrate this MILESTONE!!!

Introducing a GUEST REVIEWER!!!

That’s right! For the first time ever since launching Fifteen Minutes of Fame, there will be a published review by an author not named Jeff Thomas. I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, so I’m very excited to do this. As a way of promoting the partnership with CAN, I have asked Dan Grigson, aka Neccos for Breakfast to pen this guest review! I am super stoked about this!

The Fifth and Long-Awaited Interview

It has been 3 months since we published the last interview with Kathi Deakin. It is definitely time to get the ball rolling on artist interviews! Expect to see that posting this month! 

CAN Partnership Launch

This month, you can expect to see Fifteen Minutes of Fame introduced to the CAN platform! This has been something Dan and I have been discussing at length. There will be a lot of information going out about what this will look like. Make sure you are looking for videos, posts, and other content detailing this launch! 

Fifteen Minutes of Fame Website 

You guys, I am so excited as we are nearing the point where we will be making an announcement as far as launch dates, and details surrounding what this website will look like. Thank you so much for your patience. I can’t wait to get this platform to you guys. It’s going to be Well worth the wait.

Spotify Playlists

I am finally getting my footing around the playlist situation… it took a little bit of time but I think we are in a place that is going to make this more appealing to everybody. Right now, there are 3 Spotify playlists that feature Fifteen Minutes of Fame artists.

2024 Best of Fifteen Minutes of Fame features every artist reviewed by FMOF last year. Please go add this to your playlist on Spotify! Typically, the song that was reviewed is the featured song. If it is an album or EP release, I usually take discretion by picking my favorite song from the work.

2025 Best of Fifteen Minutes of Fame features every artist reviewed by FMOF this year. Please go add this to your playlist on Spotify! Typically, the song that was reviewed is the featured song. If it is an album or EP release, I usually take discretion by picking my favorite song from the work.

FMOF New Music Weekly features new releases from all Fifteen Minutes of Fame alumni, and artists who haven’t yet been reviewed but are still active members of our community. Songs featured on this Playlist will stay for a period of 1-2 months, depending on the size of the playlist. I want to curate something people want to listen to and give each artist a fair chance at getting spun. Please go add this to your playlist on Spotify! 

I’ve made the decision to drop the Apple Music playlist as the only follower has been me for quite some time. I know people listen to Apple Music and I can appreciate that. It just doesn’t seem to be a platform that our community interacts with. The upside is, is if that changes, I will be happy to revisit curating a playlist for the platforms. I think I may still do the 2024 and 2025 playlists as they will not change so frequently. However, the New Releases will be discontinued, effective immediately.

Final Thoughts

Fifteen Minutes of Fame continues to be one of my favorite things to do in the world. The relationships, the music, and reaching people who are looking for communities like ours. As our community and platform continue to grow and develop, I want to make sure I am not hindering this process in any way. So, here is what I am asking of each one of you.

Please don’t be afraid to offer up any feedback you might have. I’m not oblivious to social media but I also know enough to know I don’t know enough about it. I’m sure I actually probably don’t even know what I don’t know!!! 

I need to know what is working and what isn’t. Where I need to be more present. What, if anything, should garner less attention. 

The foundation of Fifteen Minutes of Fame are the reviews we do for artists. With that being said, I want to know your feed as it relates to our content. What would you like to see change in our reviews? 

What do you think about the blind reactions and the artist interviews? What would you like to see change about this content?

How is the content flow on social media? Is there something you would like to see more of? Less of? Is there something we can be doing differently?

If you all have ANY feedback, please get a conversation going in the comments on this blog! This is VERY IMPORTANT as it imperative we maintain our relevance for the artists we proudly represent and the community we want to appeal to. 

We do continue to be growing as a community, but the inflation has noticeably decreased since October when we were growing at a more rapid pace. There could be a number of things that are taking place. My theory is the uncertain control social media has on content. Algorithms control what we see and what we do not. That’s how it’s supposed to work anyway. We know with platforms like Meta, that might not be the case. I will continue to focus on putting FMOF content in front of the people who want to see it.

That’s all I got! As always, thanks for reading, thanks for listening, just thank you! 

Survey Word: if you have read to this point, type the word Leprechaun in the comment thread of this post.