CAS freshman Danny Blake is unique. After moving to New York City from his suburban home in Greenwich, Conn., Blake was struck by the passion, vibrancy and frenetic energy the city has to offer. His blog, dannyblake.tumblr.com, serves as a catalog of his thoughts, feelings and musings on being a little student in a big city.
Blake’s inspiration for the blog came while he was sitting alone in Washington Square Park eating a bagel before his next class started, when he suddenly remembered a conversation with his roommate from that morning.
“He was talking about how excited he was that ‘Game of Thrones’ was going to air soon, and he was making it sound really cool, so I decided to watch it,” Blake said.
Blake loved the show and wanted to share his feelings about it with his friends, but he didn’t know how to do so until he discovered Tumblr.
“I started the blog to just kind of, you know, talk about how hot Daenerys is and post funny articles that I read,” Blake said.
Since starting the blog last month, Blake has accumulated a stunning 20 followers, mostly consisting of friends from his class and his dorm. In addition to his thoughts on HBO shows and the food at the Palladium food court, Blake likes to spice things up by sharing gifs — brief animations of pictures or scenes that repeat in a loop — of his favorite animal: cats.
“I think cats are just hilarious,” Blake said. “My mom has a cat, and he’s always doing crazy stuff like walking on my keyboard and getting distracted by balls of string, so whenever I see a cat doing something funny on the Internet I put it on my blog.”
“I had no idea how to feel about television or cute animals until I read Danny’s blog,” said Steinhardt freshman Mindy Jacobs, a friend of Blake. “I was really on the fence about the whole dog-cat rivalry, and then Danny posted this amazing video of a cat meowing that sounded like ‘hello,’ and I was convinced.”
In a sea of boring Twitter accounts and Facebook updates, Blake’s blog truly stands out in the crowd.
A version of this article appeared in the Monday, April 1 print edition. June Colburn is living with a terrible roommate in apartment 23. Email her at [email protected].
