Here at Se Fija!, we generally stick to Latinos working in front and behind the camera, though we include web cameras and internetical stuff in general sometimes. Today we’re going to bend our own rules just al little to pay tribute to a really remarkable accomplishment:
Tomas Custer has just posted his 100,000th post at HispanicTips.com.
No, that’s not a typo: One. Hundred. Thousand. As he says in his own post (of course!) about the milestone: 2,494 days ago, almost 7 years and 10 months, he started down this path, and he’s still here, still curating. Tomas started the project way back when because–as he says himself–there was a glaring lack of Latino news in English. “Things have changed quite a bit since then,” he writes now, “with more than several big media companies starting news websites in English targeting Hispanics…but there is still nothing to compare to this service. This site is all about relevant, comprehensive and respectful curation of the news to improve our knowledge and understanding.”
HispanicTips is the ultimate “aggregator” site: Tomas reads pretty much everything, everywhere about (or of interest to) the Latino community, then posts a link with a descriptive headline, so visitors can click quickly and easily right through to read the story and judge for themselves. How he does it (and how he’s done it for so long) is a mystery to all of us, but today thousands of unique visitors make it to his barebones, no-nonsense web site every month, and we’re one of them. We admit it: we steal–ah, adapt, that’s it–liberally from Tomas’ site all the time, and we’re far from alone.
His ‘anniversary’ post has some touching and true things to say. You can read the whole of it here. But here are a few of the gems you’ll find there (and on his Facebook page, too):
“21 posts to go to the big 100,000 mark and now I feel all trepidatious. Almost 7 years of my life dedicated to HispanicTips–perhaps I should just stop at number 100,000 and be done with it or I could roll on or I could use it to start going in a different direction or…I could take a nap.”
I feel blessed that I have been able to do this for so long and still be breathing. Through persistence I ended up creating the world’s largest digital archive of Hispanic news (at least news headlines). I started this on July 3rd, 2005 and I am still very proud of it. It is unique. Independent media is a very tough place to survive but I have endured and during it all I have had some great experiences and met (virtually and in-person) some wonderful people.
This process and the evolution of this site and my style of curation has been part of about 15% of my life and although I have struggled to keep this afloat I consider myself lucky to be able to do this, to produce something useful and appreciated outside the mainstream.
As I sit here typing on my old laptop that has accompanied me to so many wonderful events, I have to smile. This is all new and wouldn’t have been possible a mere 20 years ago. I salute these keys that I have pounded upon many a times and this screen that has allowed me to see and learn about the diverse communities that some call Hispanic, Latino or other labels. I am amazed that adding a laptop and an internet connection to a human can generate such a thing as HispanicTips.
…and he ends with a gracious “thank you” to all the people who’s been part of this process for so many years–so many lifetimes, really, when measured in the mayfly lifespans of internet ventures. But the real credit goes to Tomas for this really remarkable–and incredibly valuable–feat.
So, ¡FELICIDADES! to Tomas and HispanicTips. We hope you’ll be returning the favor in, oh, 2050 or so when we reach that goal. (Let’s see…320 and counting…)
