Aweseome.
Before I respond to this thread, please help me with this itch that's been bothering me for about a decade now. Can you talk a little bit about why and how the servers have stayed up all this time? I'm just so god damned curious. Did you hold onto it for nostalgic reasons or did you just happen to pay like a ten year lease the last time you payed for the server? Really, I think about this more often than you'd think
I've kept paying for it, it's about $400 a year. It's a mix of nostalgia and the fact you guys have still been using it, and this site and all of you were such a huge part of my childhood and teen years that I just felt like I owe it to you guys and the memories we all have to keep it up and patch up bugs etc etc.
That said, I saw you posted in the other thread about re-launching HitEmUp.com but wanting to do it with purpose. I'll respond to that as well. The updated forum software is a no-brainer. I'll keep coming back to this site once in a while due to the people here, and if it starts flourishing again I'll probably return more often. Has nothing to do with layout / software. Back when UBB had the coolest smileys, it was important, but today I don't think it matters so much as long as it's user friendly. Social features are also very important. Profiles, message feeds, shoutboxes, achievements and statistics. Facebook and twitter integration would be vital if you were re-launching HitEmUp right? Have you registered a facebook page, instagram page, etc. on all big networks? And I'm assuming when you're talking about "moving forward" you're thinking about HitEmUp.com?
For me the moving forward conversation is separate because with HitEmUp.com Jon and I have to agree on what to do and how to do it. I think right now, HitEmUp, if it had purpose, is something I could dedicate time to -- I personally would like us to solve Tupac's murder, that's really the only thing left for me. I don't really care about the latest projects etc, but I would like to honor his memory somehow.
With StreetHop, unless someone else wanted to update the main site, I see it potentially just moving to a forum. To someone else's point on here I read, the last news story is about Chris Brown. Which kills me a little. But I don't really know what to do with it, and can't do it myself. But I
can keep this up for you guys.
Have you kept up to date with what has happened with his estate and the rights to his music, with death row, and all that? Because if you can somehow establish contact with his estate and get some candid information about what the fuck is going on you'll be the hottest 2pac site on the internet. Hitemup.com and its forum used to be names in the scene, so maybe on account of that you could manage to work something out? I don't know but that would be my first suggestion. 2pac.com is his official site, try and check it out. Maybe something with them? HitEmUp could be the official forum for his estate or something? They would probably want to get involved, so some kind of deal would have to be worked out, but yeah. My first suggestion is that. You need a red telephone hooked up to Tom Whalley's desk.
I still speak with Noble and have caught up with him a couple times over the year. I still speak with a lot of the artists, but it's just more on a friend level now. Fatal dying really killed it for me, there were a lot of personal things around that. Im not sure if people are aware but Fatal and I had a huge falling out towards the end of the site being active and we'd just started talking again before the accident. He wasn't able to get a VISA to come here and we chatted about some other stuff, and then he died.
The Estate as far as I know, and it's probably wrong, is now under the control of Afeni's husband. In my opinion, I don't necessarily want to agree with everything any man or woman does. I think there was a huge shift in the community to be the official this and official that and mouth piece for this person or that person, which never really sat well for me. I am a grown ass man, I have my own issues to deal with and have been through things, good and bad, over the last couple of years you guys wouldn't even believe. I put my energy into myself and my loved ones, I don't want to have to be biased towards someone else I may not necessarily agree with all of the time, even if they are my friends or I respect other things they have done or do.
All of that is the lens I apply to getting HitEmUp.com back up, and I don't want to speak for Jon but I think he feels the same way, so it's just a matter of finding a way to do it right, for a purpose that has real meaning, otherwise I personally don't think it is worth it.
I think to summerize, HitEmUp.com needs to be for Pac but needs to make sense with where we are as men today, but StreetHop is for you guys and hopefully new members one day, but if they never come, as long as you all keep using it, it's worth it for me.
Hope that makes sense.
