Hi there, welcome to the new The Fox Is Black. It's been ages but I'm so very excited to see you. For those of you who are new here, I'm Bobby Aaron Solomon, the founder/editor/writer/designer/curator around here. Back in 2007 I started The Fox Is Black as a way to share my point of view about the things I loved, the things I discovered through the Internet that I didn't see in my day-to-day life in the suburbs of Northern California. After running the blog for nearly 12 years though, I became burned out, and honestly it felt more like a job than something to be passionate about.

Now it’s 2021, so what's changed? Ha. Well, I've certainly aged, slowly nearing 40 (even if some don't count last year's birthday). We've experienced a global pandemic, which has certainly given me plenty of time to analyze (over-analyze) how I would like to earn a living in the future. And culturally, we're starting to see a shift toward supporting creatives for their hard work, rather than feeling like they need to give it away for free in order to one day get paid.

Substack to me seems like an opportunity to rebuild TFIB from the ground up. I'd like to revisit my bag of tricks (wallpapers, mixtapes, contests) as well as trying some new things as well (more video, interviews, perhaps a proper podcast, we shall see). With support from a small but dedicated audience I think building a fulfilling, inspiring little universe is possible. And after spending nearly a year in quarantine we all need a little inspiration in our lives.

For the time being this Substack is a bit of an experiment. I'm looking at sharing things twice or three times a week currently, Monday and Wednesdays, perhaps Friday as well. It's been a while since I've ridden this bike so I'm going to spend time getting the hang of it once again. In order to do that I'll be focusing on two "mottos" I've tried to engrain into myself and those around me.

"Work smarter not harder."
"Less talking more doing."

Hope you enjoy the ride <3