We Have Horrible Terrible Awful News To Share With You.

There aren’t strong enough adjectives to describe the sadness Daisy and I have about sharing this news with y’all.

Hannah, our writer and Chicklet for over four years (remember when she went by Red Dawn?), is leaving us.  In fact, this is her final week writing for COTR.

Hannah is responsible for our most viral article of all time, and if you didn’t read it shortly after the 2016 presidential election, are you even a Chicks fan? Because it was epic. Read it here.

When the four of us Chicks first got together as a group – it was in Vegas.  Ashley and Daisy and I were all living in Indianapolis at that point, so we could see each other as often as we liked, but Hannah was in Florida, and although she started writing for us back in early 2015, it wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that we all got to meet in person.  Our flight from Indy arrived first, and so we first saw her as we were waiting outside the limo we’d reserved to make our 2 minute trip from the airport to our hotel super hoity-toity.  And you guys, all four of us spontaneously and simultaneously burst into tears when we finally were together for the first time.  It was just such a great moment.  This is the first picture ever taken of the four of us.

Hannah and Ashley had grown really close, even though it was a long distance friendship up to that point, and it was a true delight for me and Daisy to watch their best-friendship blossom.  Like me and Daisy, Ashley and Hannah will always have each other, no matter what happens. And Daisy and I are proud to have played a role in helping them find one another.

But none of that takes the sting away of Hannah’s imminent departure. 

I know what you’re all wondering right now.  You’re all, “WHY?  WHY IS SHE LEAVING?”  And believe it or not, y’all have been hearing the reason over and over again for about the past year and a half.

Since the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018, the shadowbanning we’ve experienced by Facebook has grown worse and worse.  As I’ve told you before, we had more people visiting our site from Facebook when we had only 40,000 followers than we do now with 1.2 million followers.  And the result of that shadowbanning and massively decreased reach is an enormous loss of revenue.  

Several weeks ago, we realized we were no longer in a position to be able to afford to pay both Hannah and Ashley for the 8-10 posts daily we had all grown accustomed to seeing from them.  We reduced the number of posts they’d write, revamped our advertising a bit, and hoped that we’d see improvement.  We had the tough conversation with both writers, knowing full well that Hannah had just bought a house, Ashley was preparing for her wedding, and that what we were telling them was like the most unwelcome news ever.  We knew and understood that they’d likely be searching for additional ways to earn money.

So it wasn’t a total surprise to learn that Hannah had decided to accept a new position.  And it wasn’t a total surprise to learn that a website with far more name recognition and funding was eager to snatch her up.  We have no doubt that she’ll flourish in her new role, but we also know that the magic that the four of us had together isn’t something that can ever be replicated.

So it’s very sad for all of us.  Had enough people opted to get to this website directly instead of relying on FB to get them here, things would probably be different. Those of you who visit daily and comment often – you have no idea how much you’re appreciated.  We need for you to be cloned like 50,000 times. But until you’re cloned, if you could share our site/posts with as many people as possible as often as possible, that would also be appreciated!

It’s amazing, frankly, that we’ve weathered the Facebook storm as well as we have, considering how many sites have shut down completely. 

And we’ll continue to weather it, the three of us.  In Hannah’s absence, Ashley will be able to write a bit more than she has for the past couple months.  And Daisy and I are doing our daily video posts (subscribe to the Mock and Daisy Show on YouTube!), are considering an additional podcast, and will probably pitch in a bit more on the writing here and there as well.

However, Ashley isn’t a robot, and needs days off just like the rest of us.  SO, we are officially letting y’all know that we’re looking for a chick intern (unpaid for now) to do some weekend writing and also fill in during vacation weeks.  If you know someone, or ARE someone, who’d love a chance to write for COTR, send an email to chicksontherightrule at gmail dot com with details about your background and tell us why you’d be a good Chicklet intern.  It’s a unique opportunity to gain experience in alternative media with a nationally recognized brand! If you have experience with WordPress that’s a plus, but we’re willing to train the right person.

But back to the main reason for this post.  Hannah’s always gonna be a Chick on the Right, whether she’s writing for the site or not.  And who knows – perhaps when y’all are cloned and/or Facebook decides to loosen its grip around our necks a little, we’ll be back in a position where we can steal her back from her new gig.

Fingers crossed! 

In the meantime, please enjoy these flashback photos.  We’re gonna miss our girl.