io9 was launched on 2 January, 2008. Let’s look back at how it has celebrated its birthdays.

2008: io9 celebrated its birth the way we all do, by explaining what it is and by giving Wired interviews. And by giving the first version of the io9 Manifesto

Earth is full of people who want to sell you cheap ways of seeing the future. They tell you tomorrow will be more of the same, with shinier toys. Or that work as we know it is about to end. io9 is the visionary watchdog who calls those charlatans on their shit. We’re going to show you a new world that’s shockingly different from what you’re used to. And it’s not always going to be a shiny happy place.

2007: Let’s start this story more accurately. Before io9 launched in early 2008, it was growing in utero starting on 29 September 2007. But you will notice those aren’t the “earliest” articles of io9. One of the fun things about the Kinja publishing apparatus is that articles can be given a “published” date that is earlier than it was actually published. This means that io9 has “hidden” articles with publication dates of 2006, 2005, 2004… But let’s not count those as having really been posted at those times. Many of the late September-early October articles are part of a “Must See” list so if you ever wanted to know what science fiction film and tv io9’s founders think should be seen, there’s a quick list for you. There’s a similar “Must Read” list but those weren’t given an easy-to-link-to-tag so never mind.

2009: io9 mentioned that it was a year old and gave a nice retrospective on where it had gone in its first year.

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2010: Not much. The 2nd was a Saturday, you know how the place is on weekends. The next day saw a really good entry in the series “Blogging the Hugos” wherein Hugo-awarded books were given an essay. Avatar was still making piles and piles of money. An article about a “in 10 years from now” article from The Independent oddly doesn’t mention its prediction that the US President in 2020 would be a loud-mouthed, politically-inexperienced older white guy with a bad record of treating women. (The Independent was referring to the at-the-time Governor of California, of course.)

2011: On its third birthday io9 hoped that the Higgs Boson would be discovered that year; it probably was, although CERN didn’t announce the discovery until July of 2012. Lightspeed Magazine had one of their monthly features of original SF/F content. A superhero comic book movie’s toys were shown off.

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2012: For its fourth birthday io9 gave a 2011 review. It talked about fecal matter dropped by wombats. It covered the SF/F tv that was happening that week in a series called “What to Watch” and/or “Tv this weekMorning Spoilers.

2013: On its fifth birthday, io9 talked about a fossil lizard named after Barack Obama. The Walking Dead season 3 trailer was worth writing an article about. An installment of the “Postal Apocalypse” series happened. Morning Spoilers. Later in the month the Editor-in-Chief of io9 wrote up a really good article about the first 5.5 years of io9. Highly recommended read for anyone interested in the 2007-2013 history of the website.

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2014: On its sixth birthday, io9 did an installment of its “Comment of the Day” series. It asked which remake missed the point of the original. An installment of “Bookshelf Injection”, io9’s monthly SF/F book release articles, was posted. A pretty dang good article from the Observation Deck was shared. Morning Spoilers.

2015: On its seventh birthday io9 presented the math equation Giant Gummy Bear + Liquid Nitrogen + Shotgun = Magic. Some really nice surface imagery of Mars. A nice comment of the day about dirty-sounding words. A really strong article on the future of women on Earth was published. A pretty dang good article from the Observation Deck was shared. Morning Spoilers.

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2016: On its eighth birthday io9 pointed out that 2 January is also National Science Fiction Day which is aligned with Isaac Asimov’s birthday. An Open Channel asked what the community had for geeky New Year’s resolutions. The Winds of Winter was announced as not being expected for 2016 release. Cool space stuff was shared from Gizmodo. It was Saturday so there were no Morning Spoilers.

2017: Let’s find out! I’m going to assume there will be Morning Spoilers because it’s a Monday.
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