The Guided Tour

This website is 2 1/2  years old (Happy Birthday To Us!), and we are picking up new members every day, so we decided it was time to give you a little history of MacManiacs.org along with a guided tour.  

It’s not a long history, and it’s not full of dates and boring stuff and there won’t be a quiz on it later. It’s the history of this website, and it’s actually kind of interesting whether you are a MacManiac or not.  Granted this is a website which focuses primarily on Tristan MacManus, but if you’ve ever had a look around, you would notice that we mix it up a lot.  We’ve interviewed Tristan many times, but we’ve also taken it in a different direction in order to get a lot of different perspectives.  You may think we talk a lot about Tristan, and we do.  Okay, we admit it.  We talk about him a lot, but we also talk about lots of other things.  Our website forum is rapidly closing in on 440,000 views and we can easily hit 1,000 a day when we are feeling particularly chatty.  Or when there is a Tristan MacManus sighting.  We learned a long time ago that sometimes you have to get creative.,and we definitely can do that.  So let’s talk history and let's talk getting around on MacManiacs.org without needed a GPS.

Sometime in the fall of 2011, the ABC message boards were taken over by a lot of people who wanted to talk about Tristan MacManus.  There was something about him that made us all very, very talkative, and we just couldn’t shut up. The problem, however, was that those message boards were a little crazy and a lot brutal and mostly not very nice.  People were downright mean.  So an idea was born to create a website where supporters of Tristan could get together and talk about Tristan’s accomplishments, and the idea was to have it up and running before Season 14 began.

Honestly, we had no idea whatsoever what we were getting into, and yes, there were some rough patches along the way.  We had to figure out what we wanted to do, how to do it, what pages were necessary, what wasn’t, who was going to do what, and then how to make it make sense.  As the process began, we contacted Tristan in the fall of 2011 and he said that we could proceed.  Hmm…. Blame this madness all on him.

It would take pages and pages to explain how we did it all, and we would also bore you to tears. The bottom line is that in a time span that covered a few weeks, several people worked night and day to get the site up and running, and when we launched in late November, 2011, things started to happen immediately.  We began with the basics; Our forum, MacManiaLand, was the focus, but there was a lot of interest in our gallery.  Because we are meticulous about crediting photos, that was a very long and painstaking process to get it set up and to make additions to it.  At that time we also had a video page which has since been discontinued and replaced by links pages, and the page of brief and very silly biographies of our website administrators has since been replaced by something else.  We like to change things around but we don't change just to say we did.  We do what needs to be done to keep things fun and lively.  The one constant has been our blog, MacMusings, which has been in place since Day 1, and every  week or so, we find something new to ramble on about – sometimes the topics are silly, sometimes they are sentimental, and often they are dead serious.  More about that as you go on the guided tour.

The focus of our website has shifted a little and we’ve switched things around, made additions and deletions as necessary, and done whatever we can to promote Tristan as an artist, but we’ve also made regular changes to keep things fresh and reasonably interesting.

Let's start with our interviews, which currently are not in one central location (explanation will follow later).  We love interviews, and we do lots of them. In addition to the 20 or so that we’ve done with Tristan since July, 2012, we’ve also interviewed the following:  Tahyna Tozzi-MacManus, Nikki Lorenzo, Sasha Farber, Emma Slater, Henry Byalikov, Gina Carbone of Wetpaint, Risa Kaplowitz of Princeton Dance and Theatre, Andy Steinhauser of LA Talk Radio, and Jason Leppert of Popular Cruising.  It doesn’t stop there.  We’ve done more and there are more in the works now, so yes, we like to do fun things by talking with a variety of people with a variety of experiences.  We’ve even interviewed some MacManiacs because we are nosy like that.  All interviews are archived within our forum, but we are working on another central location where you can read the hundreds of pages of questions and answers from various fun people.

Now how about a website tour?

Home Page
The home page is just that – a bunch of information about the site that is an overview of what we do. There’s a registration tab on the home page pulldown menu and for those planning to use the website on a regular basis, we ask that you register.  Currently no pages are password protected except for the forum (separate registration), but we occasionally do lock some pages and the only way to access them at that point is by registering so that you receive the password.  A pain in the ass, for sure, but occasionally we get a few troublemakers who like to “borrow” some of our stuff, so we lock things up for a while.

Home Page: http://www.macmaniacs.org/
     Registration: http://www.macmaniacs.org/registration.html

Special Features
New to the site is our Special Features page.  Initially it was the DublinDown330 page which was used exclusively for Tristan's Grassroot Soccer fundraiser in Princeton in January, 2013. After that, we used it as a central location for interviews, but it eventually contained so many that it was not user-friendly.  We wanted a place to focus on special interviews or people so we changed it.  Currently Special Features has a main page which includes interviews with Tahyna Tozzi-MacManus who talks about her film project OREN.  Tahyna's feature is immediately followed by two interviews with Jason Leppert of Popular Cruising.  Both Tahyna and Jason also wrote short blogs after their interviews, and those are posted as well.  The sub-page (on the Special Features pulldown menu) is now “Spotlight” and featured here are two special individuals: Nikki Lorenzo, a brilliant artist who had  the very good taste to use Tristan in her “Work That Charm” and “Be My Man” music videos. and Andy Steinhauser, an amazing talent who is the host of The Story With Andy Steinhauser on LA Talk Radio.

Special Features: http://www.macmaniacs.org/special-feature.html
     Spotlight:  http://www.macmaniacs.org/spotlight.html

Updates
Currently our Updates page (formerly Weekly Updates) receives the most views of any page on the site other than the forum.  It has news, the most recent photos (which constantly switch in and out), links to the Tristan support team, links to current features, etc.  We recently added a sub-page that focuses on Tristan’s scheduled appearances.

Updates:  http://www.macmaniacs.org/updates.html
     Appearances: http://www.macmaniacs.org/appearances.html

MacManiaLand
Moving on to the cleverly titled forum, MacManiaLand.  We’re still not sure where that came from – probably from one of those middle of the night brainstorming sessions as we were planning the site.  We’ve been talking non-stop since the site launched, and we change things around often.  A couple of times a year, we do our “light show” meaning you could potentially go blind as we experiment with different color combinations to get something new and visually appealing.  More often than not, we make you a little nauseous before we get it just right.  Bubble gum pink and olive green stand out as one especially revolting combo.  Fortunately, we fixed it before anyone suffered retinal damage.  To join our forum, a registration is required, and you can easily register in seconds. Once you receive a confirmation email from our server, Nabble, you're ready to read and post.  

MacManiaLand:  http://www.macmaniacs.org/macmanialand.html

MacMusings
That’s our blog.  Since the day this website was launched, we’ve always found something to say, and we never seem to be short on topics.  This may not be a blog in the traditional sense, but it’s a place where a couple of us from the site get to talk about whatever we want to. Sometimes it’s Tristan.  Occasionally it’s the ridiculousness of DWTS.  Every now and then we have guest writers who choose what to write.  When we remember, we post our interviews there as well.  We’re a little behind on that so we plan to go back and fix it and make sure all of our interviews are archived there (in addition to on the forum where each one is available).  Usually MacMusings is password protected, but recently we opened it up because we have stuff to say and we want anybody who wants to read it to have access.  Now you may not agree with us on some things, and that’s okay, but since it’s a blog and not a news article which requires double-checking the facts, we can do what we want.  The posts are archived by month, and trust us, it would take days to get through them all because we love to talk.

MacMusings:  http://www.macmaniacs.org/macmusings.html

Gallery
Our Gallery is pretty darn special.  The photos are arranged chronologically with the most recent first.  The original gallery has photos from the early days until August 2013, and Gallery 2 picks it up then and continues to the present day.  Occasionally photos are on the Updates page a few days before they make it to the gallery, but that’s just how we roll.

Gallery:   http://www.macmaniacs.org/gallery.html
Gallery 2:  http://www.macmaniacs.org/gallery-2.html

More (links)
Finally, under the “More” tab, you will find a wealth of goodies.  We have links.  Lots and lots of links.  Sure we could just post stuff and embed stuff but it’s easier this way.  Everything is catalogued by date, and we add to it constantly.  As we dig up old articles, photo collections, and videos, we simply post the links.  There are 3 pages:  1) Performance video.  Here you will find links to just about any of Tristan’s performances that are available on video. 2) Interviews.  These are links to interviews with Tristan in any form, whether written or on radio or television.  This does not yet include this website’s interviews with Tristan as those are posted on our forum and will remain there permanently.  We are in the process of also getting those all onto our blog page as a separate very special treat and at that time we will link each interview directly to the blog.  3) Miscellaneous.  You will find tons of links here, and this page is in three parts:  Assorted video (all kinds of special clips that just might not always qualify as interviews or performing – promos, AfterBuzzTV, deleted scenes, GMA clips, etc.), Photos/Photo Collections (links to lots of photos of Tristan from many different sources – Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Zimbio, etc.) and Articles.  See? Other people like to write about Tristan too.

Links: Performance Video http://www.macmaniacs.org/links-performance-video.html
Links: Interviews http://www.macmaniacs.org/links-interviews.html
Links: Miscellaneous: http://www.macmaniacs.org/links-miscellaneous.html
**Just added April 15, 2014 - Interview with Dancing With the Teachers/Stand Up to Cancer
http://www.macmaniacs.org/dwttsu2c.html

And there you have it.  MacManiacs.org is a very busy and always evolving place.  We couldn’t have done it without all of you, and we hope you will check back often and join in the fun.  

While you're at it, check us out here too. All are great ways to show your support for Tristan.

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/T_MacManusFocus
Backup Twitter:  https://twitter.com/TheMacManiacs
Team Twitter:  https://twitter.com/TristansTeam
Facebook Fan Page:  https://www.facebook.com/TristanMacManusFanPage
Tristan's Fan Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/tmacmanusfocus/
Tristan's Fan Instagram: http://instagram.com/t_macmanusfocus
Additional Support Twitters:
    https://twitter.com/TMacManusFans
    https://twitter.com/TristansBedhead
    https://twitter.com/TweetForTristan
    https://twitter.com/TeamMacManus
    https://twitter.com/BestOfTristan
    https://twitter.com/Totally_Tristan
    https://twitter.com/VoteTristanDWTS
    https://twitter.com/ProTristanDWTS
    https://twitter.com/TristanDWTS_S19