Belgium's national news site nieuws.be interviewed KNOTORYUS for their 'Blogger of the week' section. It's in Dutch, but you can read the English translation right here.
Thanks to the new media twitterati: Hannes Coudenys.
Who or what is KNOTORYUS?
The creative agency revolving 'round Stefaan Pauwels & Dominique Nzeyimana.
KNOTORYUS.com is who we be/what we do.
What do you write about?
You couldn’t ketchup even if we handed you the tomatoes.
How long have you been blogging?
Stefaan has been blogging for 7 years now, but those are his dirty little secrets. KNOTORYUS has been blogging for two and a half years (it started at notoriouscopywriters.com) mostly 2 or 3 posts a day. which adds up to about 2000 or 2200 posts, or so my mac dashboard informs me.
Why do you write in English?
The rest of the world is pretty rusty when it comes to reading in Dutch. Also, swearwords sound way better in English.
Do you sweat the technique behind the blog?
Tying your shoes: ok. Yo momma tying your shoes: not ok. It's the same when it comes to blogging. Knowledge & DIY all the way.
Do you reads lots of other blogs?
In Dutch : MonoBrow. Hands down the top dog of the Dutch blogosphere. Often imitated, never never (that's a double-never) equalled. Plus, this kid is member of a pingpong society.
Honourable mention: Bloodyhornycrew. For being the first to inform you when Diplo will be coming to Leuven. Crucial.
The girls at MISSBEHAVE & MOBliving are the sisters one of us never had and the other would like to do some time. Of course, there's the classics for the daily rounds: CoolCats, The Fader, Mad Decent, etc.
I do have a long list of Belgians who should be blogging:
Alice of A.L.I.C.E. Gallery in Brussels, for example. She gets the coolest collabos, knows what's up and looks fab. Sometimes, that's all you need.
Our mate Fré works for the UN, is a serious crate digger and Liam Gallagher’s long lost twin. His one-liners deserve a wider audience.
And then there's zen-master Youssouf, who's in our daughter's kindergarten class. He should at least be Twittering.
Do you have a favourite news site?
Even before we started writing for DSM (De Standaard Magazine) , standaard.be was a regular stopover for us. Headlines come to us more and more via Twitter. We follow Nieuws.be on there, too.
Which website would you like to be linked by?
A year ago we would have said Colette and Coolcats –Ed Banger Records-boss Busy P's blog-, but they already have.
Kanye’s blog would be nice. Or maybe atwitter-link by Oprah... or The Dalai Lama, which is basically the same thing.
Which is your most succesful blogpost?
We were one of the first to post the dates of the Justice world tour. That got us a pretty big and loyal following. The same happened in the fashion crowd when we were the first to spot a certain YSL sweater. Every post mentioning KNOTORYUS, Justice, Soulwax, high fashion or Lil’ Wayne is clicked to shreds. Now you know our Top 5 search terms.
What, in your opinion, was your worst post ever?
Ehrm... *starts scratching butt*
What has been your favourite response to your blog?
Busy P calling us ‘ici’. That means 'here'. Awesome. Colette when they let us know they thought our designs were good enough to deserve a spot on their bookshelves. Trés cool.
Has your daily life improved because of your blog?
Our blog is hardcore KNOTORYUS. Even though we can tone it down for professional work and a wider audience, our clients do know who they're dealing with, which makes it easier on all of us. Product managers at the labels & brand PR’s tend to reach out to us because we know how to reach their target audience. So yeah, we get a lot of free stuff. Only about 20% of what we get actually makes it to KNOTORYUS.com. We're pretty selective. Fair is fair.
We do get free tickets to concerts, but we pay for the gigs of bands we really dig. We love getting promo copies in the mail, but if we like what we're hearing we do tend to buy the real deal in the shops.
Interviews with designers or bands are also easier to get because they can instantly get a feel for who we are.
The blog also attracted some of the bigger brands to work with us. We ghostblog for several agencies.
Do your co-workers, parents, friends, family know you're a blogger?
Of course they do. There's even an extended KNOTORYUS-fam.
Have you ever been censored (or self-censored)?
Never instigate fucked-upness. And we try not to use the words Go, Dick, Eat & A in one sentence. Illegally leaking music is a no-no here. unless the label or artist asks us, of course. But I guess that makes it legal again, so everybody's happy in the end.
How many visitors does your blog have?
We reach about as much people as the more popular high-end Belgian monthly mags. With one big difference: apart from our Belgian early adopters; we also reach the cool kids in the US, UK, Holland, Canada, Japan and Russia.
*Cough* Advertisers: you know where it's at. *Cough*
