Personal Finance Digest, as seen in the New York Times

In case you missed it, the New York Times published an article about the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The article contained a link to a video from yours truly in this critical passage:

There are the unboxing videos posted on YouTube: People exulting in receiving the precious new metallic rectangle, lovingly unwrapping it, boasting to the world of their ownership of it. (One video features a cat ripping the package open.)

Why yes, that is my cat video linked in the New York Times, thank you for noticing! The reporter, Stacy Cowley, just emailed me out of the blue last week and asked if she could interview me for a piece on the CSR. I don’t know for sure, but I think she might have found me via the video as that was the focus of her initial email. I noticed after the fact that my video was the #7 ranked video for ‘Chase Sapphire Reserve’, so to my surprise and delight it turns out I’m something of a video SEO savant. Who knew?

(Though as Matt pointed out today, I had neglected to include a link to this blog in the video description. But that’s how savants roll, Matt. Erratic geniuses, we are.)

Stacy was very nice and we chatted for 15 minutes. There was no grilling like what you see in the movies, just a friendly chat about credit cards. (It probably helps that I’m not running for office; guys posting cat videos on the internet tend to get softer questioning.) Nothing came of it other than the cat video getting linked, but it was still a fun experience, and now I get to add “AS FEATURED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES!” after everything I say.

After a few thousand views, the cat video–the one that rocketed this blog into the public spotlight–now has 4 likes and 11 dislikes. But that’s okay–I don’t expect the public, even urban sophisticates such as the typical NYT reader, to get an avant-garde personal finance artiste like myself. Maybe in 10 or 20 years the public will finally understand the deep symbolism of the cat sniffing catnip from the CSR welcome package. Maybe they’ll see that those stupid cat puns aren’t so stupid after all. And maybe Chase will finally lift that damn 5/24 rule. I can wait.

On a serious note: yes, it seems to have been a random stroke of luck that got me (well, my cat video) into the New York Times. But that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t decided to put a video out there just for the hell of it. And that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t started this blog way back when. All of which is to say, you’re a lot more likely to have good things happen if you try new things and put yourself in positions where good things can happen.

Just don’t start another damn credit card / points & miles blog. We have enough of those now, thanks. And most of them aren’t even FEATURED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES.