The 5Why Story (So Far)

Some 365 days ago, along with a handful of wonderfully talented young writers and minds, 5Why was launched into the realms of uncertainty. Into a market of possibilities, ideas and potential.

But little do many people know, this journey begun way before that. My own personal creative juices began back around 2010, when along with my cousin Adrian, we launched sports website ‘Injury Time’. At that moment in my life, I had my heart set on getting into sports journalism, and I saw Injury Time as pipeline to help me develop a portfolio of content to apply for jobs in the field.

I had grand plans. A magazine I wondered, possibly a line of sporting wear, heck even my own brand of football boots. Perhaps all slightly ambitious.

I noticed a lot of young people who had really interesting things to say, views and ideas that were brilliant – and at the very least worth discussing.

However, with plenty of sporting competitors around, it soon became apparent that – unfortunately – Injury Time would probably be nothing more than a bit of fun and experience. But an important step.

After hanging up the boots with Injury Time, I took a step back to focus on university, which I had only recently started. And quite frankly, university is what spurred on the initial 5Why passion.

I noticed a lot of young people who had really interesting things to say, views and ideas that were brilliant – and at the very least worth discussing.  What also struck me though, was that such young people also often strayed away from controversial discussions and debates, almost in fear of offending someone. At the same time, and rather counter-intuitively, Gen Y was getting a bashing in the media as a lazy generation – branded as kids who were expectant and spoilt.

The combined sentiment riled me ever so slightly, and I thought – hang on a minute, there could potentially be a little opportunity here.

So one night I jumped onto Zuckerberg & Co.com and started a group page – simply entitled: ‘Gen Y Project’. I remember inviting a bunch of friends from university and one or two other mates who I thought might be interested in expressing themselves as a young person in a modern society regarding things they cared about and/or topics they wanted to discuss.

There was a mixed response, not unexpected, especially with the uncertainty regarding it. However, I was keen from the beginning and eventually people started to buy into this idea of writing about things that mattered to them, on topics that created discussion and to show the wider public that Gen Y was more than just an excessively privileged bunch of misfits (that were raised by the people who were making such statements #justsayin).

With support developing I thought, ‘why not just do it?’ And I did. Writers began to ink their fingers, an editorial team was established and long discussions over what the site would be called finally concluded.

For those who still haven’t endured the excitement of yours truly explaining the meaning behind 5Why over dinner or drinks, well I guess you’ll just have to wait for that moment. Don’t worry it’s a great conversation starter!

We started with only a group of about 20 or so interested people, and now, one year and many sleepless nights later, we have over 80 contributors.

Not only do we have a quite simply brilliant editorial team – my sincere thanks to editors Hannah Gay, Jessica Patane and Patrick Shumack – but a handful of wonderful teams as well, including:

• 5Why Entire Contributors Team
• 5Why AV Team
• 5Why Creative and Marketing Team
• 5Why News and Politics Team
• 5Why Gaming Team
• 5Why Arts Team

Our contributors are based primarily in New South Wales, but we also now have 5Whyers across Australia including Victoria and Queensland – with also some in the United States of America writing for us!

And we’ve had more than just writing in the past year too, with the introduction of the 5Why Podcast and 5Why TV expanding into audio visual aspects of content as well. We’ve also had a complete website re-design with much thanks to Peter Gray for leading the charge on that front.

We have also managed to establish content syndication partnerships with Hijacked and Elite Daily – a pretty huge milestone for us and something to be pretty proud of.

It’s been an absolutely insane journey thus far; leading what I truly believe is a group of hard working Gen Yers across multiple facets of 5Why. All of our teams are volunteers and give up their own time to make this project a reality and the first 365 days have been an absolute pleasure.

To all those young people out there potentially reading, I leave you with this. Create something. Chase what makes you think differently. Let passion drive you to success. Look for the talent within the person, not the person with the talent.

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” – Harvey Fierstein

#defineyourself #5whyturns1