137. May Recap

Originally Published on June 1st, 2025

As I write this article, it has not escaped me that the next recap article I write will be on the anniversary of when I started Fifteen Minutes of Fame. I cannot believe it. I want to do something special next month to commemorate the anniversary. But, before we get there, we have to talk about what an great month May was!

What Happened in May?

May was an incredibly productive month for Fifteen Minutes of Fame as we published new articles, new recaps, new blind reactions, and our first two spotlight articles!

The Fifteen Minutes of website doubled its views from last month, as we are currently at more that, 2,100 views, and more than 50 likes and comments on the website! We have also crossed into the double-digits with subscribers!

I am happy to say that my vinyl collection has grown as I went crazy on my first ever Bandcamp Friday. I want to know if you are going to be releasing a vinyl record. I would love to add it to my collection!

Since starting Fifteen Minutes of Fame, I have had the privilege of meeting many wonderful musicians. With a dream now realized, I can happily say that there are TWO collaborations in the works. I’m going to keep things quiet for now but be on the lookout for those and possibly more coming soon!

May Campaign

May featured 17 new publications; 9 new articles, 4 new Recaps, 2 new Spotlights, and 2 new Blind Reactions. In all, Fifteen Minutes of Fame covered 18 artists in the month of May. 

As we always strive to do, Fifteen Minutes of Fame covered artists from across the United States and throughout the rest of the world as well. We were able to feature artists from 3 new countries;  Japan, India, and Portugal. This means that Fifteen Minutes of Fame have represented artists across 29 States in the US and 19 Countries spanning across 5 Global Continents!

How We’ve Grown

Fifteen Minutes of Fame saw an increase in followers across all of their social media platforms while taking a rare dip in and engagement across the board as well. 

Instagram continues to be the primary source of growth for followers as we draw nearer and nearer to the 1,000 followers mark. It was nice to see YouTube cross over 100 subscribers. I have been hoping to see the channel grow as I continue to think of ways to make it more engaging. 

May seemed to be a bit of a lighter pull from everybody with regards to engaging in content that was published by Fifteen Minutes of Fame. Nevertheless, Instagram still had the most productive month, reaching nearly 9,000 viewers with 600 interactions among them. 

I am not too discouraged by this, as I am to blame. There was a decrease in social media content, and I will be more proactive about including the platforms in what we are doing. I’m even thinking about taking on an intern!

The Reviews

To prove my point from just above, the area where I stayed hyper-focused was on writing reviews. With the addition of Recaps and Spotlights, there were an additional 15 reviews published to the FMOF platform, which is essentially one review every other day! This is output is nearly as much as the very first month of FMOF, and more than we have done in several months to date! 

As the reviews are the foundation of Fifteen Minutes of Fame, this makes me very happy to report. And the increased activity shows here as we crossed well over the 2,000 views marker, we officially hit over 1,000 viewers, and we have doubled our total interactions from the previous month with more than 50 likes and comments so far.

Blind Reactions and Reels

This is an area where I noticeably dropped the ball this month. Frankly, I don’t know what happened. I had every intention to make these a priority. I just got so hyper-focused on writing and posting reviews, that, before I knew it, the month was over and I had produced 2 videos. That is something I hope to rectify this month, for sure!

CAN!

Another noticeable decrease in interaction came with the CAN! platform. I don’t know if I am posting anything that is really getting the attention of the users on that platform but I will be trying more ideas to produce more engaging content there.

I want to give a super huge shoutout to Viki Vanko. Where I fall short, she is right there to pick me back up. She sends me links to artists every day. She interacts with all of my posts on CAN! as well as most social media platforms. She also subscribes to and reads every article on the FMOF website. She is an inspiring person and she really keeps me motivated that this is still something that interests people. So Viki, thank you for your time. Thank you for your energy. And thank you for your passion. It is inspiring. It is contagious. It is motivating. It is selfless. You are genuinely an incredible human being and your good deeds never go unnoticed. In fact, every morning when I wake up and see a message from you, it is uplifting to me. Please continue to lead by example.

Speaking of leading, I am glad to see Neccos has had a therapeutic and constructive time away from the CAN! platform and that he is now back to doing the inspiring work that I have seen first hand for many months now. Welcome back, Daniel! We missed you and we are glad to see you return, as motivated as ever!

Neccos, in fact, shared some really cool news yesterday: a radio host in the UK has been sourcing CAN! to play music from artists on that platform! If you haven’t, be sure to give Silentmark a follow on threads, and any of his other platforms and you can even download an app to the radio show as well!

What’s Next

June Campaign

We are going to stick with the energy from April and May and continue to focus on our output with reviews for FMOF! However, in an effort to diversify the content we put out, I am going to be publishing articles on two days, officially. Think of this as a magazine publication cycle. There will be articles posted every Sunday and every Thursday. I will still be writing them as often, but rather than allocating time to publish on the site so frequently, we will stick to the schedule of publishing on these days every week. In doing this, the hope is to adequately give me more time to focus on content outside of the website: posting on social media more. Finalizing more Blind Reactions. And of course, inspiring more activity and interaction through CAN!

There will NOT be less articles, there will just be several articles posted on these days. There will typically be at least one new review and one new recap. Every Sunday will also feature a Fifteen Minutes of Fame Spotlight.

Going forward, the Spotlight reviews will feature 3-4 shorter segments that will focus on NEW RELEASES from that week. When I wrote this last Spotlight article, I had the epiphany that this would be the best resource for incorporating this segment. It may feature new artists or it may be recaps on artists already covered, depending on what is releasing that week! I’m really excited about this segment as it is an opportunity to keep everybody present in what is happening with the Fifteen Minutes of Fame-ily.

The June Campaign will be a standard campaign. We will be accepting submissions for review for any new music released on or after May 1st, as well as upcoming releases in the month of June. Blind Reaction video submission videos will be accepted for any music video released in 2025. If you have already submitted a Blind Reaction, and there has not been a Blind Reaction done for your work, please resubmit your request. 

For more information on the rules and procedures for submitting your music, please visit the Fifteen Minutes of Fame website and click the How to Submit link located at the top and the bottom of the page.

Guest Reviewer

In light of his time away, Neccos and I still have not squared away the review he will be writing but, trust me when I say we are BOTH eager to make this happen! That is still coming. 

HOWEVER, there is another guest reviewer in the works from across the pond! An educator all the way from the UK, another Daniel has agreed to write a review! Daniel Kiffie, better known by his stage name, Kiffie will be a guest-writer for a review in the month of May. Having been a featured artist in one of my first reviews, as well as a recap last month, I thought it would be great to hear how he hears music, since it has been such an honor to hear his music! Being as he is also an educator, I think this will be quite a good read and I am more than looking forward to it!

Interviews

So, there are many interviews in the works now. Some are on hold as we are trying to coordinate deadlines with releases. One will be involving more than one guest so coordinating is a little bit tricky. 

And also…

We are planning on doing a number of Live Interviews, which is incredibly exciting but also a little difficult to coordinate with locations, tour schedules, other conflicts. 

AT ANY RATE, there are many in the works so STAY tuned!
Website Launch
As it was announced in the last monthly recap, the website will be “officially” launched on July 1st, the anniversary to when Fifteen Minutes of Fame began. The launch will coincide with the planned celebration for the 1 year mark. I look forward to hearing from as many of you who are willing to tune in for what’s in store!
Final Thoughts
As we round this final corner and head for the home stretch on one year of Fifteen Minutes of Fame, I can’t help but reflect on all of the moments I have just absolutely enjoyed while writing, reviewing, discovering, viewing, and reuniting with the hundreds of artists that have been featured on our platform. 
I love doing this. It means an incredible amount to me. Writing reviews and diving into artists’ music. Doing the Blind Reactions. Buying albums. Thinking of new and creative ways to stay entertaining. Bust most of all, I’ve had the chance to build lasting and meaningful relationships with so many of you. I built this platform so artists could have access to memorable content that could possibly help them I. Their quest for discovery. I think it has meant much more to me than I realized it would as I look forward to listening and writing every single day. I love the stories. I love the backgrounds. I love the music. 
Keep playing. Keep writing. Keep singing. Work together. Believe in yourselves because I definitely believe in you.
If you’ve made it this far, make sure you “like” the article and type “School’s out for summer!” in the comments!