-or- like flies to, well, you know
A blog along these lines has been kicking around upstairs for a bit. I thank iamheather for providing the catalyst for its creation with her article you can read here
JoeUser is a great blog site. I have had other blogs, but they just never interested me in the way JU did since I started blogging here. Why? I suppose because, deep down inside of me there is a bit of a drama queen (er, king?) that enjoys attention. Not a lot, I have always preferred to be a steady one, chugging along and remaining constant rather than exhibiting explosive, dramatic behavior. But I enjoy attention now and then. Who doesn't?
I actually have two Blogspot blogs. One that was sort of a general purpose blog and one that was for me to drop some of my creative writing. I posted there a few times but felt like I was screaming into the storm. Sure, I wrote some (what I feel to be) decent articles, but in the drone of electrical impulses that comprise the net they were lost just as quickly as they were posted. Each blog is quite effectively insulated from the next, and knowing the URL or stumbling across it by accident is often the only way to find it.
That just doesn't work for drama queens.
Those who are going to put on a show and prance off to set up shop elsewhere love the attention. No, they crave it. I would go so far as to say they need it. It is an addiction for them, and they simply aren't going to get that at any other blog site. Sure, there are services like Blog Explosion, but they don't do anything that even remotely comes close to the exposure you get here at JU with the top articles, featured articles, forums, recent activity in the sidebar, new articles in the sidebar, and syndication to sites like Politicalmachine.com and Wincustomize.com (that is the only reason one of my recent articles now has over 50 replies, that is a record for me and only happened because my article was syndicated to Wincustomize). That doesn't even take into account the easy of browsing the directory of blog sites and users from the sidebar.
All this comes together to equal blog readership unparalleled by that of any other site (unless it is one of those blogs that has been around and received a lot of attention and notoriety). I mean, seriously, look at some regular Joe Schmoe like me. I haven't even been doing this for a year, have only written slightly over 150 articles, yet have a respectable amount of comments, a fair number of other blogs that link to mine, and actually what I would call some "regular" readers (and I really do appreciate all of them, and enjoy their writing as well). This kind of attention simply is not existent at any other blog site I have seen.
It leads to a level of blog success that attracts those drama queens. In fact, I think the enhanced readership offered here can lead to the drama at times, for those who are already prone to acting up. Of course, it is also a boon for us who try to be regular users. And so I think we just have to put up with a certain level of theatrics. It is a necessary evil to the amazing amount of readership we have offered to us here.
I love the fact that I can write something and know someone read it (by seeing how many times it was selected) and perhaps even thought enough to leave a comment. There is no way I would have stuck around as long as I have, or enjoyed myself as much as I do, if I didn't think, no, if I didn't know that there are people reading what I write. So we can bear the drama, because while it may drive us nuts and make us more than a little sick, it is a part of the visibility each of us has here.
Thanks to all who have and do read what I write here. I try to do the same for you, and I think we can all enjoy our time here and avoid becoming casualties to over-exposure.