Friday, December 02, 2005

Popularity

One of the blogs I read nearly every day is Bored Housewife. I noticed yesterday that the site garnered "Blog of Note" or whatever the name is. I read Bored before this, and now that she has been so deemed, her comments shot through the roof. More than 100 comments on two consecutive posts; one comment added 25 comments in two hours. That is popularity.

Popularity can be overrated. When I started blogging – not long ago, I had like 8 people who read my blog. I really don't know how many read it, but about 8 people would comment. Two wanted pictures of my vagina (GP: yeah, I know you would say "pussy"; what can I say, I am a nerd), two wanted to "chat", one was a local stalker who I tried to avoid, and 3 were real readers. And I got to know these three guys (well, all I had were my 11 erotic stories online).

Which gets me to thinking – okay, 11 erotic stories gives me three real responders. That is, uh, a bit sad. The stories must have sucked – well, some were about sucking, I guess. But that's not the point. In a phrase, I was like the lone girl on the chess club (that is one time when being the only girl in a room is not a good thing). Think about it. No, this never happened to me; I can't play chess, but you get the point. Yeah, I like attention, but not from pimply-faced nerds on a chess team. And, no, my readers were not like that.

Anyway, now I get a few more people reading me. The attention-whore part of me likes that, but then I start losing those three that started reading my stuff. Before noticing what is happening with Bored, I actually wrote one of the three an e-mail, saying "Hope you are not dead." (He's not.)

And I look to see who is linked to my site. Latest person to link is David. The blog is David Triple Equis. The site is in Spanish and the guy is from Argentina. And I am wondering why this Argentinean would link to me. Not that I am complaining. I translated some of it – not fluent in Spanish, and it is about a christening/baptism. Part of me wishes I could say something witty in Spanish on his site, but I am unsure if my sweet sense of humor would be lost in the translation. Bats eyes.

Getting back to Bored – okay, I know she is way talented just by looking at her writing. And part of me is a shallow bitch. So I automatically want to hate her (but I can't because she is just that witty). Which makes me want to hate her more, and I freekin' can't.

And I start reading her responses. And I can't read all of them. There are just too many. And there are a lot of stupid comments as well. Nothing like what Grant brings to the table. One person points out that the plural of "you" is "ya'll". It is spelt "y'all". Lots of messages about her breasts. Even Bored says she has Ds that are perky (another reason to hate her, but I freekin' can't). One message about telling her that her formatting sucks. Another criticizing her use of the carriage return (for those too young to be able to identify a typewriter, carriage return has turned into the "enter" key but "carriage return" sounds more charming).

Now that I see what happens when you get popular, maybe popularity is not what I want to achieve. I don't want fifteen year old adolescents telling me that I have nice nips. I don't want people commenting on my cookie-cutter format. I don't want people telling me that I misspelled a word ("Likelike", in Bored's case; who cares how the street is spelled). And I don't want people telling me where to put my periods, apostrophes and prepositions. Of course, when I told someone to "fuck off," they would tell me about the preposition thingie.

Just let me write my random thoughts, hone my writing skills. I don't care if people think I am an idiot – or disagree with me. Heck, I link to prata's site and we agree about almost nothing. Heck, for my answers I can always go to Ddot.

Of course, I bet Bored Housewife eventually gets made into a Simpsons character. Perhaps all popularity is not bad!

26 comments:

Sassy said...

I'm an attention whore as well...I even installed a counter and a "Who's online" thing on mine, just so I can see how many hits I get a day.

Yes, that's a form of validation for me. :)

If it makes you feel any better, I linked you after one read. Who cares what the format is...I enjoy what you SAY.

Thomas said...

You do have nice nips, after all they're a source of sexual pleasure from what I gather from your tales.

I admire your use of a cookie cutter format (shows that you're more concerned about your content than your "whizbang features") and I'd love to caress your apostrophes. As far as your periods, I'd hope they were regular, but I'd rather hear about your hands wraped in a silk scarf behind your back being used a reins while you're being anally ridden into ecstacy.

But that could be just me.

Anonymous said...

nice lips

popularity is overated. ive never been popular...not ever in my entire life.

Leesa said...

I know the regulars here (because there are like three of y'all). If I got like 100 responses per post, it would be hard to find the three names I was familar with - to see what you thought.

sassy: I am transmitting my blog into space, not to be popular, but on the off-chance, some intelligent life is listening, I wouldn't mind being the Ambassidor to North America. As I said on Deb's Blog, intellegent life probably also knows that ambassidors get a healthy clothing allowance, male and female sex slaves, and normally become more efficient when vacationing at their Camp David retreat (with their sex slave staff).

thomas: Sounds like you need another love session with wifey.

vid x: yeah, if I became popular, my boss would probably find out and he would demand blowjobs. Then I could catch him on tape, propositioning me, I would file a law suit, win millions, lay on the couch, develop a fat ass (and cardiovascular disease), and I would not want a fat ass.

MOAB said...

Leesa, I feel bad for Bored....poor thing, I mean yeah, being a blog of note is cool, but uggggh...so many comments. Glad it's not me. I like my blog to be like that notebook in jr. high that my friends and I passed around to write each other notes in class...that way we were all in the loop, even if we didn't get to see each other all day long ('cause a lot can happen in between homeroom and lunch)

MZPEACH said...

Popularity doesn't appeal to me either. I like the attention, but too much brings unwanted guests.

I commented on Bored Housewife Blog before, her breasts are the bomb. And take it from me. I would love it if my breasts sat that far up without a bra..lol. She is blessed.

I only use the P-word (doesn't seem appropriate to spell out right now) sometimes. You can't use it every time you are talking about your vagina. Nooo. The word isn't that attactrative. Like in that particular sentence, I would not have wrote the p-word either. It didn't fit.

It only fits in some cases. For example:
I just want to eat your vagina.
I just want to eat your coochie.
I just want to eat your cunt ( I'm black and truth is it's rare for a black man to say cunt, never seen it).
I just want to eat your pussy.
Maybe it's me, but the p-word sounds better.

Prata said...

@monica:
Well it's funny to have chosen a public forum in which to have the desire to keep things minimal. I mean after all..it's the internet hehe.

@Leesa:
And I'm planning on linking to you since I mentioned you in a post. I am always slow to look at links..I used to web develop and I just really hate doin' *ml anymore.

General question. Why is it that people who place things in a public forum geek out (get unhappy) when someone offers actual constructive criticism. I had that happen to me one. I made a suggestion to someone about creative writing (nothing a lit. professor wouldn't say on a technical thing) and the person blew up about how day I come to their site and say anything about anything. I found it rather humorous..but why is that exactly?

Prata said...

@georgiapeach
Oh that's so true! It's rare for me to use "the P word". I don't like that word, it just doesn't do it for me. Even in my writing I tend to stay away from that particular word. I've been experimenting with it.

I've never heard any of my friends of any ethnic background use the word cunt though. Personally, I like the word cunt. It's much "cleaner" than "the P word". I have no idea why that is to me though lol. As a matter of fact, I prefer a lot of words to "the P word". Cunt, slit, hole (have to be specific with that one though), and a host of others depending on exactly what is happening in the scene. I think it very much depends on the tone. Tone is important when you're picking your words. I tend to pick my words based upon rhythm and tone with whatever I happen to be writing at any given time.

Leesa said...

goddess: thanks; you should check out Ddot; he is a king.

monica: I know what you mean; that was sort of the point of my piece today.

storm: thanks.

GP: Yeah, I know you want to eat me, sweets. That was the point of your comment, right? Loved your blog today.

prata: you ought to check out Monica's blog - has a different feel to it. And thanks for the link - hopefully I will get more people who it will be hard for me to figure out (if there are others like you). And as far as the comments for Bored (not your comments but the ones on her blog), most of the criticism was not constructive. Technically, I know my writing sort of sucks. IMHO, I think storm and deb are very talented writers. Of course, anyone I link to is interesting to me.

Grant said...

Oh, boy. Leesa mentioned me by name. I can, like, die happy now. :-) (so much for intelligent commenting)

I love a little personal attention, so I like getting comments even though I only get a few from regulars. One thing I've noticed is that I and others I know tend to get more comments when we post something vacuous insted of insightful. Once, as a test, I blogged one of my better posts and received only a couple of comments. The next day I posted "Green is pretty" and set a personal commenting record. So cheer up if nobody pays attention to you. Maybe it means they feel intimidated by your blog presence.

BTW, I hope you're not counting me as your local stalker, because Atlanta's not really that close. :p

Edge said...

I don't envy BH, I prefer to be read by far fewer than 70 plus people. It takes the intimacy out of it.

Ddot the King said...

Leesa as much as I'm always trying to get to a hundred comments I think you're right in saying I would just surf through most of them looking for the four or five regulars...including you of course.

With that being said I am an internet phenomenon and so I have to deal with being the most popular man on Earth. Ahhh the life of a King. LOL

MOAB said...

@ Prata-
I chose a blog because a friend of mine had one and I had to sign up for one one of my own so I could leave her a comment....truth be told I have 3-4 unused blogs on lots of different blog-list things, that I had to create to leave comments. So all you old hands at this can laugh at me, as I'm sure there is a way around this. I had a very public blog early this fall, the first time I had been introduced to blogging really, on a local paper's website (www.dmjuice.com) and really didn't like it...too public...but through that I made a friend (Erin) and it was her comments section that started me.....


How's that for a convoluted answer to a reletively simple question?

Leesa said...

grant: you make the most interesting comments on many blogs; I am just lucky that you stop by mine once in a while. I did have someone who used to stalk me in Savannah (he was trying to figure out exactly where I worked; he came close, and I sort of had to change things to screw with his analysis of the situation). I hope he doesn't read this.

edge: well said.

sjblogger: Yeah, I notice that her blog has changed a bit; still rooting for her because she is talented.

ddot: I feel honored that you would look for my name. Funny thing is that there were a few blogs that I would read - but I never comment on them (or rarely) because they already have a Leesa who comments. You had one post that may have gotten close to 100. I think there were 70 when I read it (which is great, considering there was nothing else driving traffic, other than the issue).

Muse said...

Im not sure who found who first in our case, but, Im glad we have. Im not sure if I were popular, if I could remain the same. I noticed when my other blogs began getting read by many people I shut them down. For me, comments are great, but a slippery slope because I begin to need them and thats not what Im doing this for.

I like to keep my circle small, butthen, I dont write as well as Lisa and I write alot of way more personal stuff.

Prata said...

@Leesa
Had a gander at Monica's log AND she stopped by a left a comment for me. lol Neato keen! If there are others like me? hehehe I don't know about that...I...like everyone else in the world am a unique and beautiful snowflake. Isn't _that_ paradoxical.

I can see where that would be annoying though, 100 (random number) adolescents leaving "you suck" type comments on the blog. Even I would find that a little bothersome.

@Monica
Wonderful answer! Thanks for satisfying my curiousity..^_^

MZPEACH said...

Omgoodness...lol

Bored Housewife said...

Hm...this is all very interesting. To clarify, out of the nearly-300 comments I've gotten in the past two days, only about ten of them were negative, so it's really not a big deal. I am rather shocked that several of you think I've changed my style, since it's only been 2 days--do 2 posts which are slightly different from what I wrote last week count as changing my style? Yes, I've addressed the issue at hand, and at most it has jump-started me to get back into my more eccentric groove--a groove I felt like I was missing for a while there. So, it may seem "changed" to you, but it's really just more of the same old me. I hope that clarifies it.

Also, I'm glad you reminded me of that LikeLike highway thing--that guy's a dork. I actually misspelled it on purpose, because it was the tale of my friend's ventures into bi-sexuality--and I wanted to make sure people would read it as Lickey Lickey, but I threw on a slightly Hawaiian flair. Oh well. Apparently my application for a poetic license wasn't accepted. ;)

And one more (sorry, I normally try not to get so involved in someone else's comments, but I figured it would be ok, since we're all talking about me. hehe): I don't blog for the attention. I blog because it's fun, and a great outlet, and a great way to "meet" other interesting people. That said, sure this feels great--it's a moment in the sun, a somewhat faulty bit of recognition for my efforts at something I love. So I'll soak it up for the few days I have it, and maybe write a few posts that aren't quite as candid or sexy or whatever it is that's different, but I am an ever-changing sorta girl anyway, so I'll be "back to normal" soon, and even that might not seem the same to you, but I still feel the same to me, so I'm ok.

...ok, I lied...one more: I absolutely love that you addressed this issue and always enjoy your writing, so I hope I didn't come off sounding bitchy or offensive or anything like that. big x's and o's--

Leesa said...

And the rest of the story.
I responded as follows to Lisa in her blog: "Lisa: Thanks for posting such a long answer on my blog. Hope you didn't think I was trying to slam you. And you got it right with the changing thing, looks like this post is what I am used to. I know, you write for you, not me or anyone else here.

Again, not slamming you. Just saying I would not want this many comments to go through - with my type of personality, I could not process all of these comments.

But you deserve your time in the limelight - perhaps some day you will be signing books at the local B&N, sipping on overpriced coffee, thinking, "That Leesa bitch was wrong. Popularity rocks.""

Lisa actually responded back to me (when I went to get my response, I saw hers - good thing, because I probably would not have seen it otherwise):
"Haha--NEVER, Leesa! And thanks for not getting offended...I feel like I may have vented in your comments, just because I needed to vent. So, thanks."

Anonymous said...

ACK I don't want that many comments in my blog... and good Lord people would go nuts in my blog that are "particular" about punctuation LOL

MOAB said...

Prata- I'm all about satisfying other's curiosities
~wink~

Leesa---you're a fantastic hostess...your blog has everything a great party needs, a good mix of people, great conversation, and a gracious hostess who dosen't have to be the center of attention (read:sorry for blognapping)

I don't want to be popular, I just want everyone to like me (two wholy different things)
Monica

Angela said...

Hey this is my first time here. Wanted to say I think your pretty damn witty. And as far as having loads of comments, my thought is aren't these folks who have lots of commmenters having to always come up with something to keep attention and not being real anymore?. Seems to me to be to much pressure. And what if some days your just not feeling witty but feel the pressure to perform so to speak. Stay you it's a good thing. :) I'm just sayin !

Greg - Cowboy in the Jungle said...

I like your blog and your writing style. As an old (33?)maried man I really have no need/use for the erotic stories, but I agree they are well written.

I like to see the more "every day girl" side of you. Yes you have readers, but not all of us want to see your vagina (I have one of my own that I keep on my wife). I'd encourage you to branch out and exploe ALL aspects of your life.

Leesa said...

rose: my thoughts exactly.

monica: I actually encourage folks to see the blogs of the people who are here. I sort of joke about not going to certain blogs - but when I tell people not to go because the blogger is witty, interesting, whatever, I hope they realize I am kidding.

greg: my blog started out as one thing and is something else now. If you look at my last ten or so entries, there is not a lot about my vagina on there. Sometimes I am a bit crude - and I can't (won't) change that. But I think I have addressed other issues - but I am not sure I will ever tell people what I am cooking for dinner (unless it is Storm's hawk.

Deb said...

It frustrates me to think that people blog for popularity.

People blog for different reasons. For me, I blog because I love to write, and it's a way of expression for me. I love reading other people's blogs as well---especially yours. You're very well written, and you extremely interesting. Sometimes I don't comment on certain topics, because I feel awkward about 'risque' stories--however, this does not mean I do not enjoy them---because I do.

Sometimes I get like only 8 comments or so. Other blogs, I can get up to 65. Yeah--leave it to the religious and political debates to gather those comments, but they're all yelling at one another. Fun!

The critiquing thing--- well, I've seent his on Stephanie Klein's blog. She's now written books due to her blog as well as making a TV appearance tonight on the Cooking Network at 8pm est. Her comments are getting more critical now that she is in the limelight. Some people say, "You know, I liked your old stuff better, and now you are fake." ---This is because she is now a professional writer, and her agent probably warns her of what type of material to put on the blog. She used to tell some wild stories herself.

People will critique you no matter what. Some people comment insincerely---and THAT bugs me. You can totally tell that they scanned your post, and commented---just for the mere sake (or hope) of getting a comment back on their blog.

Blog Etiquette

Sucks. Totally ruins the experience of blogging sometimes. Keep writing, keep being "you"...don't change your style, or your carriage returns, because everyone will still be reading---including myself.

Thanks for the great read.

burton mackenzie said...

This is your only post I have read, but I've gotta say that your 11 erotic stories appear to gather more readers than my stories about math and stuff. Go figure. ;-)