Today I wanted to get a few things off my chest in regards to this blog.
You know, every so often, I'll set back and look at the stats to this blog, looking over the numbers of visitors and then compare them to the number of direct followers I have here, and not just the number of people in my Google+ circle.
For those keeping score at home, I have exactly 24 Google+ followers to only 9 direct followers of this blog.
Yeah, that low.
Doesn't make sense either as you'd think the people in my circle would either choose to follow this blog or at the very least recommend it.
But no, they don't.
Then there's the 9 followers I have. I guess I should be thankful I even have that amount considering there's hardly any feedback, good or bad, on most of my posts barring the occasional ones by long-time friends and follow bloggers....all two of them, since most of the people that I, for what seems like a lifetime ago, used to interact with on a regular basis (many of which are still listed as this blog's followers) have seemingly lost interest in blogging and are doing other things, or had to quit due to work.
I get that. Life happens while you're busy making plans, and all that, but still, I miss them.
You may know them as RandomNerd/Vanslammy, Omega Agent1, LJ Panther, Dan from Itsadansworld.com and the King of Thessaly, of which still has an active Twitter account, but chooses not to talk to me either anymore. Don't know why, as we've never had any problems that I was aware of. But whatever.
Used to use have a regular commenter and friend, Karl S. Disley on here, or whatever he calls himself these days, since I discovered last year that wasn't his real name and he was using a family relative's picture as his own. Yeah real creepy right?
I won't bore you with the details, but he turned out tot be a real creepy fuck who didn't have any problems talking shit to me through e-mails, claiming he had conversations with my now dead father about me, and threatening my ex (who I was still friends with at the time) by saying he'd distribute pictures of her young barely one year-old daughter to all the pedophile sites and chat rooms he knew of.
Yeah, real nice guy that one.
So yeah, I miss the old gang, even though Googum and Shlomo still comment on here from time to time. Still not the same, but nothing ever is in life.
Anyhoo, getting back to the hard data for this site, here's some numbers for any of you still reading at this point:
Pageviews today
|
111
|
Pageviews yesterday
|
90
|
Pageviews last month
|
4,477
|
Pageviews all time history
|
318,594
|
Followers
|
I will say, that's still an impressive number of all-time views though over the course of this blog's 11 year existence, yes 11 years, even though I wasn't all that active in the first two, then dropped out for a few years and came back to blog regularly in 2011. But you still get the point.
We've been here before you and I. We've gone over my frustrations at the extreme lack of feedback and comments, as well as the low number of followers.
I get it. You can't please everyone, and I'm also competing against other blogs, most, admittedly more popular and hip to current events than mine.
I get that. I do.
I made peace with that to an extant, and just figured regardless, that I was doing this and continuing to do this primarily as an outlet for my creativity and a means to mostly entertain myself.
But an honest to Harmabe audience would be nice though. You know, so I can gauge just how funny or unfunny my skits are, and whether or not certain areas need to be improved upon or not.
I mean, I don't know if you guys have noticed or not, but I'm allowing myself to be more raunchier and dirtier, as far as the humor goes. I mean haven't we all wondered what over favorite superheroes or villains do when they're not on? A guy like the Penguin or Hobgoblin has certain sexual needs like the rest of us, so do they also have to deal with sexually unsatisfying relationships or have to pay for sex? Don't like to drink and get drunk like the rest of us? Aren't there plenty of occasions and opportunities where they act just as dysfunctional as the rest of us, if not more so?
That's what interests me, and what I've tried to get across in my skits lately.
That and add a Mad/Cracked magazine approach/view on those same beloved and hated comic characters.
I believe I'm getting better, or at least I think I am, but there's no regular feedback. I even pimp and advertise this blog on Twitter and still nothing. So I'm left feeling like this is all happening in a vacuum, away from the rest of the world. Maybe it is. Maybe Blogger's not the platform I should be using anymore.
Kind of feels that way sometimes.
I mean shit, LiveJournal used to be a thing, and now it's long since been abandoned as blog-like website. And look at all those other social media sites and apps Blogger has to compete with on a daily basis. Speaking of, how much of a raw deal are people getting from Photobucket these days?
Fuck, no more free storage for you son, you have to pay for that now, or else risk losing all your photos in what amounts to nothing more than a high-priced ransom scheme. Fuck that I say, let 'em keep whatever you don't save directly to your own personal computer.
All this to say, enjoy me while you still have me folks.
I can do the same thing on Facebook if I want (even though I tire of that place due to the ultra-strict rules and restrictions they so Orwellianly enforce) Or maybe WordPress.....That's another Blogger alternative, even though Blogger.com is touted as being "Google's most popular blogging tool."
Maybe so, but you couldn't tell that from viewing the numbers on this blog.
I know, I know, it sounds like I'm whining and complaining, going on like some butt-hurt egomaniac with delusions of grandeur.
But I'm not. I'm just trying to matter.
I figure once I'm finally done with this thing, I'll at least still leave it up, so it can be re-discovered later on and hopefully enjoyed in its entirety more then than now. We'll see.
But until then, I'm going to keep on keeping on, and continue to challenge and entertain myself.
Like actor Terry Crews said in the Adam Sandler remake of the movie The Longest Yard, "It ain't easy being cheesy."
Well said Terry, well said.
8 comments:
Well if that post doesn't warrant a comment, what does?
You're still in my feed reader and I pop over to read most posts; I'm lazy as hell at commenting, though, even while I share some of your worries over at my site around whether I'm working in a vacuum.
Blogging's changed since Facebook became ubiquitous - most of the world seems to think if something isn't on FB, then it doesn't exist. I loathe FB and won't use it; the majority of my friends aren't interested in comics so wouldn't pay any attention if I did put something up on FB, so I'm not losing anything.
Interesting to see you're using G+ however as I kinda thought that had died off!
Take comfort in your stats - they're not bad at all - and keep on making people ask WTF?
Gary from Crisis on Earth-Prime
Likewise I'm just as guilty about that too on yours and other posts I've read in the past that were really good but was too damn lazy to post. At least we're honest about it, and after all, isn't that the first step in those 12 step programs, acknowledging you have a problem? ;)
See I know I'm not alone in wondering about this stuff, but it doesn't seem like something us fellow bloggers really address publicly on our blogs unless we're already on our way out, musing this question at loud, while we turn the lights out and close down the shop.
I've talked about this before on this blog, and especially to my friends/fellow bloggers Googum and Shlomo.
The answers vary as to why, but yeah, I'd have to agree with you that Facebook has a big part to play. Like you said, if it doesn't exist on FB, it doesn't exist. That's a sad but very true statement, that also applies other other forms of social media like Twitter(which I use to advertise this blog) and Instagram.
Now I myself do use Facebook since I have two groups on there that I follow and love dearly, plus some family and friends, otherwise I'd have peaced out that bitch a long time ago. At one time I did start to promote this blog there, as I've seen other bloggers like Dan for Itsadansworld and Ross from Super Team Family do, but I quickly stopped that, perhaps prematurely after not seeing any positive results.
Now I do have friends on there who are very much into comics, and perhaps I should reach out to them exclusively, maybe I will, I don't know. I do know that since I've posting my skits there for friends and family friends to see, they've been well-received. So If I ever decide to hang it up here, I'd at least still be doing that.
Yeah I'm not sure just effective Google plus really is these days either. All I know is automatically appears on there, especially since I have a google account.
It's not really something I pay attention too much.
I definitely appreciate you taking the time to comment and for the kind, supportive words.
I thought you were done yourself with the blogging thing awhile back, but I'll make damn sure from here on out to check it out and see what you're up to.
Thank You Gary.
dale, these occasional melancholy posts of yours really crack me it would be a damn shame if not too many people out there read it. Can't really add anything to what I've told you before about this issue. Fuck it man, just post whatever and when ever you feel like it and don't give it as a second thought this is after all just a hobby it's not like you're struggling to keep a business you invested a shit load of money into afloat.
Very true man, very true, and thank Harambe it's not a business or else I'd have gone bankrupt years ago.
And again, it's not like I come from a place of ego or insecurity, even though I know it sounds like EXACTLY like that. it's not, I just wish I had more regular feedback and interaction, other words it just feels like I'm talking to myself, and I already do that, so need to do that in blog form;)
I guess the next step is just to say whatever, and openly mock the fact my material doesn't get the eyeballs I wish it had. Short of paying and maintaining my own domain site, cause that shit ain't happening, that's what it'd probably come down to, and even then, there's no guarantee there'd be better results.
As always, I definitely appreciate your dose of perspective man. You help keep me straight sometimes, ha ha.
Actually on second thoughts I do have something to add. So I've gone through long periods of time with out posting on either the Rom or the Suicide Squad blog for whatever reason and yes at times it was at least in part because of a lack of audience participation. But then something just happens or otherwise falls into
my lap. Like a movie I just saw, a series I just watched a season of, some cool and unique fan art, a trip to Seattle, a story in a back issue relevant to today's politics or an Easter egg I discover by chance in a Wizard back issue. So then I just post it more because I wanna get it out there and although I enjoy some feed back I just really want it out there in cyberspace. Kinda like a song that's been written but never recorded just play it and get it out there even if only a handle full of people ever hear it. Maybe that means I'll publish a posting for each week of the month or no postings for the next couple of months. So there you go whatever man I just do it when I feel like it and don't when I got nothing to really say or share no matter how long that goes on for and in between all that I just get on with life.
Well said. And really that's how it should be, but at times this shit gets to me, thus why I even bother to say anything about it. after this last rant, I'm done complaining, since it's pointless.
It would be nice to have tons of readers, but I do what I do mostly to amuse myself. And as a hedge against senility, since I'm afraid of forgetting it.
"Kinda like a song that's been written but never recorded just play it and get it out there even if only a handle full of people ever hear it."
"It would be nice to have tons of readers, but I do what I do mostly to amuse myself."
Totally agree with both these comments - I blog and annotate decades old DC events because I enjoy it, and for no other reason than that.
Post a Comment