As the festive season draws into full swing, I thought that I might do the shiok sendiri thing and write my first proper year-end editor’s note after taking over from Wern Shen earlier this year. December is always a very bittersweet month for myself and for many of you out there. Time together with closest friends and family, spending all your money on gifts for those closest friends and family, eating like the world was going to end, realising you have no money to buy new pants that fit because you spent all your monty on said gifts and of course spending some quality time with yourself and reflecting on the year gone by. On a personal note, this year was very exciting for me, albeit terrifying in many ways. Taking over from my mentor Wern left me questioning my ability to fill his shoes (which are size 11 btw.), but with the help of the amazing team I have the privilege of working with, as well as guidance from many of my fellow editors, peers, management and of course the community, it’s become more of a labour of love than just a job that pays the bills. It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle. And what a lifestyle it is.

This year has been one heck of a year for us at Lowyat.NET and it’s due in no small part to you, our loyal readers. With a new site layout that is constantly being improved thanks to your comments and suggestions (we believe in rapid iteration!), we can only go forward and up in 2013 and I’m very happy that all of you are there for the ride. We changed our editorial direction in 2012 by throwing lots of things on a wall and see what sticks (aka the “see how” approach) and hope to evolve even further come 2013; There have been some kinks along the way and while there is no magic formula to this, we hope that we can give you news that you want to read as well as articles that you can ponder over. In terms of presence, we have grown on Facebook by a gargantuan 37,727 likes from the same time-ish last year as well as met some great people speaking to you in the comments section. This year also marked the 10th year that Lowyat.NET has been in existence and we have an amazing collaboration with Streetwear giants The Swagger Salon to bring the 10th Anniversary T-Shirts to you (stay tuned to the frontpage for more about those!).

We are into our last week of 2012 and looking forward to 2013 I have but one hope for us at Lowyat.NET and that is for our already vibrant community to welcome even more people to our already dysfunctional extended family. We are going to continue bringing you the best content we can, news as quickly as we can, amazing giveaways and contests as well as super random things we can all have a laugh at. Thank you for standing strong as the community that makes it exciting to get out of bed each day and the reason why I love my job.

Here’s to the year the world was meant to end, here’s each and every one of you who has been there for us and here’s to the kick ass time we are going to have together in 2013.

Happy Holidays

Lucas