The State of The HITS Address: Sweet 16 Edition

It’s been 16 years since this website launched. Yes, HiddenInTheSand.com is 16 years old as of today and the fandom hasn’t been this strong in a good while.

Yesterday was a big day in Tally Hall history, with a handful of updates that show the gears are still working and well-oiled in both the fandom and the band. I don’t want anyone missing anything, so let’s have a quick recap.

1. HITS posts the 2022 April Fools prank: a supposed demo of The Kazoo Song
2. r/place on Reddit opens back up and hundreds of Tally Hall fans band together to create a banner on the canvas
3. Tally Hall reissues their “Shirt Shirt” (or “Tee-Tee”) shirt on AnnArborTees.com
4. Coz posts more of his collection on eBay: (a signed MMMM booklet and an unsigned booklet with the rest of the CD packaging)
5. HITS updates the April Fools prank post with the reveal by user notfire and posts links to all the YouTube playlists containing songs from the ‘Kazoo Song Demo Gigaleak’

March was also a big month for the Tally Hallmanac. Since the wiki was added onto the site in 2009, I’ve struggled with understanding the mechanics and programming behind it. I essentially gave up on all that awhile ago and only focused on updating the content. But something clicked in my brain recently and I began to get it. So I went on a rampage, updating a lot of the backend and adding in many various features. I’m so happy and proud to see it flourishing the way it has been. I mean it’s really grown into its skin lately and became what I always envisioned it to be. I’d like to thank the handful of users that have been volunteering their time almost every day in the last couple months to update as much as they can find. Of course, the users that stop in and only make one or two edits here and there are just as important and many updates also lead to updates of other pages, too. So for me, at least, it’s like a self-propelled engine.

On a personal note, if you had told me 6 months ago that I’d still be around to post this update, I would have laughed in your face. I don’t know what is happening or why I’ve been granted so much more time than initially expected, but I’m happy for it and look forward to whatever else I can do for the fans until my time is up.

The servers, if you missed it, will be kept alive by some friends of mine for as long as they can keep them paid for. The properties of HITS around the web have been split up between multiple people to continue updates for as long as possible, once I’m gone, too:

• Joshface will continue with administering HITS Blogs, the Facebook Page, and possibly the Twitter
• Just Jargon will continue with uploading to HITS YouTube
• Hailey & notfire, along with Medlawar, will continue tweeting under the handles @outnthetwilight & @THauctions, respectively

The fans of Tally Hall have been so supportive of myself and HITS over the last year, it’s truly heartwarming. I thank you all.

And finally, thank you to Tally Hall. Your story is not over yet and we’ll be here to continue keeping track of it. WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!