The Great Big Two Year No Fact Zone Birthday Post

Two years. TWO YEARS! No Fact Zone is celebrating two years of bringing you the very best in Stephen Colbert-centric coverage today, and we couldn’t be happier! In two years, we’ve brought a whole lot of Stephen to the Colbert Nation, and we’re still loving every minute of it. Here’s some stats of how much we’ve done in the past two years:

UNIQUE VISITORS - 1,253,637
PAGE VIEWS – 2,394,995
INCOMING LINKS – 2,953
POSTS – 3647

And we, the fans, have been having so much fun over the past year, with both its ups, and its downs. I’d like to bring a few of the big events to focus here to remind us how far we’ve all come, both as a community here at No Fact Zone and as a fandom. Videos and more after the cut!

If we missed your favorite fandom moment of the year, please feel free to share in the comments. One of the biggest things we’ve done in the past year, in my opinion, is built a strong core group of Zoners who care both about this site and its readers, and that makes me feel like we’ve really become a success more than anything else.

July 2007: WristSTRONG

Although Stephen fell and broke his wrist in June, the cast that went on in July brought forth the WristSTRONG campaign. Through the sales of his WristSTRONG bracelets, the Colbert Nation was able to raise over $170,000 for the Yellow Ribbon Fund. I still wear my WristSTRONG bracelet every day.

August 2007: Richard Branson water fight

On August 10th, we got a comment from Rocktimus Prime which gave No Fact Zone the best scoop it had ever gotten. Apparently, on August 7th, Richard Branson did a pre-recorded interview for The Colbert Report, and leaked the information to our blog. After the story got picked up by MediaBistro and confirmed by guest Ian Bogost, the story caught fire and was picked up by both national mainstream media as well as international mainstream media. While we were not mentioned when the story was mentioned by Stephen on the Report, we were still excited that a story that broke on our site made it onto the show.

September 2007: Colbert’s personal fandom shows up on the show

While the 2008 Emmy loss was a heartbreak, the highlight of the month for me was when Viggo Mortgensen showed up on The Colbert Report. Colbert’s fandom of Lord of the Rings is legendary, and to see Viggo show up on the set as Aragorn, handing Stephen a sword and imploring him to run for President, well, it was just happiness all over the place for the fans.

Also, September was kind of fun because No Fact Zone got to take over ColbertNation.com for a week. Power to the People!

October 2007: ‘I Am America (And So Can You!)’ and Stephen Runs for President (in South Carolina)

October came in with a bang, and a serious overload of Stephen exposure. He appeared on Letterman and Good Morning America, showed up at numerous book signing events, and basically rocked the New York Times Best-sellers list (it’s still on the list – at #18).

And to accompany this book deal, Stephen decided to run for president … in South Carolina. While his bid was quickly squashed by the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council, it was fun for the two weeks it lasted.

November 2007: The WGA Strike

The Colbert Report went dark for two months as the writers struggled for a fair and equitable resolution to their wage negotiations. We here at No Fact Zone and in the Colbert Nation did our best to support the writers with Fans4Writers, and with constant coverage of the strike. The bright side to it all is that the writers and staff of the show let us know that they heard our support, which really made us here at the site feel good. (Confidential to MsI and Kina: MFLI!)

December 2007: The WGA Strike continues to suck

January 2008: ‘Colbert Report’ returns – sans writers

Although some performers backed out of wanting to be on the show due to the strike, the fans were extremely happy to have the shows back on the air. The show struggled with no writers, but it was good to see Stephen again, and we continued to support the writers whenever possible.

February 2008: The Writers’ Strike Is Over

And Stephen survived! The writers returned in a glorious welcome back montage, and were given free pencils! That Stephen is so generous. And after coming back to the cheers and appreciation of the fans for one episode … they were off for two weeks. But they were back! And we were happy for them.

A fantastic moment in the fandom that happened this month is when the official Colbert Report site got its amazing revamp. The videos are now embeddable, easily searchable, and bigger! Thanks again, Comedy Central, for the wonderful site and wonderful videos!

March 2008: ‘The Girl Is Mine’

A half-dozen times or so on the show, a segment has happened that has made a very strong impact on the fandom, one that really socks it to us good. Most involve singing and/or dancing. In March, Stephen sang a magnificent duet with John Legend that melts our hearts to this day.

April 2008: “The Colbert Report: Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage from Chili-Delphia — The City of Brotherly Crunch.”

Legions of Philadelphia fans got to see Stephen Colbert on their home turf, and we got to see Stephen Colbert finger the crack of Liberty. My very favorite moment of the whole week, however, wasn’t Stephen related – it was the EdWords.

May 2008: Stephen vs Rain Dance-off

While Stephen Colbert may not have come in #1 in the Time 100’s Most Influential People poll, it’s not for our lack of trying. Unfortunately for Stephen, the Rain fandom’s macros were just a bit more powerful than our macros. As is often the case, however, Stephen’s loss is our gain, as we got to see the much-hyped dance-off between Stephen Colbert and Rain. RAAAAAAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! And those red pants still have me laughing.

June 2008: Who’s Honoring Stephen now? A whole lot of people

June brought a ton of cool and fun awards for Stephen, which make us quite happy. In June alone, he won a Peabody, a Webby, an Audie (ok, technically this was at the end of May), and was nominated for a Television Critic’s Award.

• Please don’t sue us – An open letter to Tony Fox, PR rep for Viacom
• Reasons why it sucks that Hulu is dropping Comedy Central programming
• No Fact Zone State of the Union address
• Time Warner Cable can gargle my mansack