The first fansite I ever put together was done with a site builder. It was called Greg's World, and it was made with the site builder tool on Tripod in the year 2004. At the time, I thought it was such a big accomplishment, running a site like that, and although the navigation was complex and got me in the fansite mindset, it was nothing short of, well, pathetic. I was thirteen.
Soon, I'd discovered graphic design, particularly avatars, which I used on several message boards that I posted on at the time, and I started a website with a friend of mine, Brooke, called Iconlicious where we hosted our shared archive of celebrity icons and avatars for public use. Brooke put together the first layout, and she was the one who put it all quite simply: Anyone can learn HTML. As simple as it was, I took it to heart.
Around this time, I'd just joined the Official Kendall Gaveck Street Team, a brand new, hoi polloi organization of fans who all shared the common goal of promoting then-unsigned Kendall Gaveck, a singer my age with a great voice who hailed from Scottsdale, AZ. This was the era in which everybody who was anybody in the pre-teen ameteur pop world knew about Kendall, but she still didn't have the means to release a physical album.
A contest popped up on Kendall's official website announcing a second round of a fansite content. Another friend of mine, Caitlyn, from the official Stevie Brock message board, had won the last, and it was her original Yahoo! group that had just become the Official Kendall Gaveck Street Team. I knew that with the skills I'd gleaned from running Iconlicious I could win the next fansite contest, and because the prize was a phone call from Kendall, I had to win.
Using the code from Brooke's layout, which featured a graphic header and two iFrames (one for the main content area and one for the sidebar), I recreated my own layout for the first Kendall Gaveck fansite ever to be hand-coded in HTML with original graphics and not made with a WYSIWYG site builder. The original fansite was called Sweet Misery, after the Michelle Branch song of the same name. I'm not sure why I chose it; I still really don't even understand the meaning of that song.
It was the Assistance team behind Kendall's official website that suggested I change the title to Sweet Mystery; "Mystery" was the next song Kendall was planning to release on her website. I obliged, and soon after, Sweet Mystery was officially opened. I, along with another member of the street team, Sierra, ended up winning the contest together.
In the year 2005, I was asked to become a moderator on the Official Kendall Gaveck Street Team, and at the same time, Sweet Mystery was deemed the official fansite for the time-being.
Sweet Mystery has now been running for five years and has been the official fansite for over four. The site has changed a lot over the years and will continue to metamorphose in the future. While it may not always be the official fansite, in case conflicts with Kendall's label arise, it will always be your best, most loyal source for all things Kendall.
