The End.

Once upon a time, I was a storyteller. It was my favorite thing. Once upon a time, I was a voracious reader. Once upon a time, I was wanted to be a writer. It’s actually part of the reason why I loved Kdramas so much. Kdramas were like romance novels come to life. There was a beginning, a middle, an end. We met, we fell in love, we broke up, we had our happily ever after, we moved on to the next show. I loved watching a show and then picking it apart, taking up the hood, and peeking around to see how all the parts worked together from a story, a character… from a writer’s point of view. This whole experience, watching, creating the site, then the podcast, then the other site… it has also been a story, a journey and like any good story… we’ve come to the end.

(Hopefully, before we reached that dreaded second season where everyone loses interest and just continues to watch to see how bad it gets.)

I’ve had so much fun here. We’ve had so many fun experiences together. Me and the site. Me and you. I know there are some of you out there who have been with me since the beginning, since Kchat Jjigae was once Crazy for Kdrama, which continually blows my mind. Often I sat at the computer, struggling over a post, and wondered ‘who even cares? Is there anyone even listening?’ Those days I’d have to stop and remind myself, I was writing for me, because I wanted to talk about the shows, the music I was interested in, it didn’t matter if anyone paid attention… but there were people listening, reading, actually paying attention.

Astounding.

Honestly, my feelings over the last month since prepping for this, the end, the farewell tour, were mixed. I forgot just how much work it was to get long posts out every single day. I absolutely gave my last month up to the site at the expense of… most everything else. It was hard. But on the other hand? It was fun! I remember how much fun just talking about shows was. Going through all the shows I’ve watched over the last decade was so interesting to me as a person. Choosing who to focus on for the last music posts, or the last khotties… watching a good show (Happiness) and thinking “I should write a post!” it was a glimpse of past me, and part of me is not ready to give that up. Honestly, outside this site? I worry. Who am I outside Kchat? What makes me special outside of this? It was always my special fact. Hi, I’m Stephanie and I run a site on Korean entertainment. I wrote posts for other websites, articles for magazines. I got to speak at conferences where people wanted to hear what I had to say. Now I’m back to…Just Stephanie. Weird. And a little scary. That part of me whispers into my ear, “Just keep going, you can do it, you want to do it…. you like it…”

But this is just me at the climax of the story. All things working to this point and our hero and heroine have to jump past their fears and hopefully into their happy ending.

I’ve had some questions. Will the site stay up? Yes? Currently, the site is awkwardly hosted, however, I will continue to keep the domain and the security company so the site will remain up as long as it’s hosted. As soon as this post is created, I’ll keep a copy of the site, so I’ll have it in case something goes sideways.

Will you still be able to listen to old episodes of the podcast? Yep! I’ll continue with the subscription so old episodes will be available to you!

Will I still be on social media? Absolutely! I’ll keep the Kchat Instagram as it’s always been a mix of my personal and the site’s Instagram. Feel free to follow me at Stephanie @KchatJjigae. My goal is to actually also be more active on the Kchat Facebook page. (Because you know I can’t quit completely!)

With that though? We’ve come to our ending. Thank you for a crazy decade. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to what I (and the people who have written for the site over the years) have had to say. Thank you to those of you who took the time out of your life to contribute to this site, for being part of this. Thank you to Jami McFeeley for saying “Of course, you have to go out with a bang!”, she was correct. As usual. Thank you, my friends. It’s been amazing.

Love and Backhugs,
Stephanie