As we near the end of our first year as semi-professional enthusiasts, we summon Google Analytics, our enfeebled memories and an inflated sense of pride to present to you The Enthusiast’s Biggest Stories Of 2009.

It’s not necessarily what we thought was the most important. It was chosen by the wider internet. And if we know anything, we know that the click-through is the most valuable commodity on earth.

Take a trip down memory lane, to a simpler time when profane ringtones, sexist music polls, irritating laser eye correction ads, parody rappers, unemployed admen and Michael Jackson consumed our thoughts.

And thanks to everyone who has clicked on, weighed in, and helped out during the first year of The Enthusiast. We could’ve done it without you, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

1. Review: Hahn Extra Dry, ‘In The Spirit Of Good Taste’

This was our most popular yarn because easily amused people everywhere descended on the site to see where they could download the “I’m A Tits-And-Ass Man” ringtone. This ad campaign was a genuine case of viral marketing working because the content was funny and original, rather than a cynical manipulation of shock value as we recently saw with Saatchi & Saatchi’s live pitch for the Toyota Yaris. In the article, I hoped the ringtone would extend the campaign into the real world, creating an imagined community of tits-and-ass men. As we saw, it totally did. (MC)

2. My Chimerical Romanticism: Part One

While this two-part interview should have received zero hits due to its impossibly convoluted duelling-pun title, emo analysis struck a chord with readers. Good thing too, because I was equally fascinated talking to cultural bowerbird Craig Schuftan (best known from his triple j ‘Culture Club’ segments) about his 2009 book Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! The book is even more digressive than our chat, which hit on Weezer, Wordsworth, Robert Hughes, the Cure and much more. I’m also chuffed that Part Two of the interview was number 13 on the list of the year’s top stories, which means that after over 2000 words of chat, people still wanted more! (AT)

3. Interview: Shane Skillz

I could hardly believe my eyes when inimitable parody rapper Shane Skillz replied to my interview request. This was the first interview he ever conducted and remains our most searched-for term (apart from countless misspellings of the word ‘enthusiast’). Some took issue with my unnecessarily highfalutin tone, but youse cunts can suck a fuck. Shane Skillz remains the greatest artist to emerge from Australia’s nascent rap scene, even now that I know his true identity (I’ll never tell). (AT)

4. St Jerome’s Laneway Festival Infuriates Punters

This was one of the first and most comprehensive news stories published on the debacle of Melbourne’s Laneway Festival ‘09, so it became a reference for much discussion both here and elsewhere online. Some music-forum coolsie chats criticised us for quoting them without permission, but this story was actually quite complex to assemble and was our first proper experience of timely newsgathering using social media. We saw the story breaking on the evening it happened, and worked quickly to include both traditional interviews with festivalgoers, and quotes from public forums including Twitter. Our multimedia components were also sourced (and permission sought) online. (MC)

5. Hottest 100 Reveals Chicks Can’t Play Music

This was an emotive and hotly debated issue, and much of our traffic came from people leaving comments and then returning to continue the discussion. But I was proud that this story was more complex than just an explosion of feminist rage: it considered the wider gender issues at triple j and in the music industry in general, and brought up ideas of how polls operate as public declarations of taste that may not reflect people’s actual listening habits. (MC)

6. Triple M Does Not Rock

I spent a long time sweding up that pic of the Triple M mascot Dr Dan, can I just say. This was another story that brought up the emotive issues of taste in music. Clearly Triple M was a station that used to attract a loyal audience but has since lost its way. After Pete and Myf got the arse, Eddie McGuire stepped in with the new sports-oriented “Hot Breakfast” show. The Broadie Ham and his companions have arrested the slump, gaining 0.7 points in the latest ratings survey for a 4.3 per cent share of the breakfast audience, but Triple M still had its worst ever total audience share of 3.9 per cent. An optimistic McGuire reckons things will get better once the footy season starts. We’ll see. (MC)

7. The Internet VS Medownick

When I first thought about addressing the impossibly irritating “dancing eyes” commercial for Medownick laser eye correction, I never once considered the sheer amount of internet rage that could be directed at what was, in retrospect, a pretty innocuous TV spot. Nor would I have predicted the strange back and forth I had with “George” from Medownick. But this article tapped into a deep well of hate and isn’t that what The Enthusiast has been about all year? Well, no. (AT)

8. The Plastic Surgeons Of Food Porn

You can’t blame contributor Leigh Price for my smutty title or clumsy swede, but he can take all the credit for this fascinating article on food stylists in the advertising industry. He showed that food stylists don’t lie half as much as we suspect they do (no mashed potato “ice cream”, no smoky “steam”) and that roast turkeys are as hard to present well on the magazine cover as they are on your Christmas table. Thanks to the insider guff, this story became a talking point on international foodie blogs. (AT)

9. Get Ready For A Sack Attack

For a pair of unemployed Mad Men, Ben Birchall and Shane Dawson were pretty busy. After they started up their website chronicling their search for ad-agency jobs, many media outlets seemed to want in on the joke — including us. However, it worked out well for them, because they got a freelance gig after less than a month and have been in regular work since. Ben has also put his media savvy to good use — he’s just been announced as a new breakfast presenter on Melbourne community radio station Triple R. Very kindly, Ben also suggested us to the station as summer radio hosts — so listen out for us every Tuesday night at 7pm. (MC)

10. Saying The Unsayable, Part 1: Non-Verbal Vocalisations
What a sad train wreck Michael Jackson’s death was, unleashing a frenzy of public grieving and prurient speculation. But one bittersweet aspect of the King Of Pop’s demise was that we revisited a time when Jackson’s sheer talent could convince the world – as his final album title never quite did – that he was invincible. This four-part series was probably the most dense and intellectual story we published this year — indeed, it was adapted from an academic paper. But its popularity proves one of the things we’ve always believed, and that we started The Enthusiast to demonstrate: online pop-culture writing doesn’t have to be bite-sized, gossipy or snarky. It can be thoughtful, serious and expansive too. (MC)