Blog terminated for being too popular!

I recently came across a defunct blog (the Internet must already be littered with the corpses of blogs cast adrift for a variety of reasons, including death of the blogger!) which had been terminated, it would seem, for having been... wait for it... too popular (!) and taken up too much of the blogger’s time. It appeared that the blog in question had a large following (how large this was, I cannot say, as the list of followers was concealed and no indication of its size was given). The blogger gave no personal name, not even their sex, and of course no country of residence (although from the posts, Scotland would be a good candidate!). All that there was in the ‘About Me’ section was a cartoon picture of a female and this gender was reinforced by the tenor of the posts. The Blog had apparently began in June 2009 and by September 2010 it has already been shut down. Not a very long time by any Blogger’s estimation, I would think.    
 

Damn! This blog of mine is much too popular!

What aroused my curiosity most of all were the various reasons given for closing the blog: ‘...fast disappearing waistline.’; ‘...the whole time my waistline bulged.’; ‘The hours put into this anonymous diary (why anonymous, I wonder?) have to be put to something more ‘real’,’; ‘It’s time for me to wash off that face mask, get rid of the hair band and let my hair down for a while.’  The issue of being overweight was a constant theme of this blog, one post going so far as to say: “Please God, if you can’t make me thin, make my friends fat!!” More tellingly, the writer added: ‘In the beginning I begged for followers and comments, now there’s too many to respond to.’ and ‘I have outgrown this space – in more ways than one.’



It seems that the author of this particular blog was closing it down essentially on two grounds: that it was increasingly stealing her time which she could ill afford and could better spend on other activities and that the time it demanded of her (and therefore obliged her to sit at the computer) was adding to her waistline! The growing popularity of her blog had made it all the worse and things had now got out of hand for her, as she was having to devote more and more time to it, responding to the many comments it elicited. (The complaint of most of us is that no-one is reading our blog!)



And so, after about one year and four months of blogging, the author brings the curtain down on her blog for being too popular, and therefore time-consuming, and for ruining her waistline (!), although she does add as an after-thought at the end of her farewell post: “It was so much fun while it lasted and maybe one day you’ll see me disguised as another.” Remember that there’s no photo of the author, just a cartoon figure, and no details about her in her profile. She does however make one concession in this last farewell post, signing herself off as Kerry. This could of course be a made-up name, although I rather doubt it, as there was no real reason to break with her constant practice of anonymity and give a name as she made her exit.



Despite giving reasons for her having brought her blog to an end, I cannot help feeling that there might be more to this than meets the eye, that there are other factors at play here, other motives. It could even be that the blogger had already decided to start up a new blog, under a new identity, make a fresh start, gain a new and different following, change the whole ethos of her blogging. It could be. We have no way of knowing. It just seems strange to me that someone who has been blogging for just over a year, won a large following, is attracting lots of comments on her writing, has made a success of it (where many others falter and fail), is now bringing it all to a close because, supposedly, it’s preventing her from having a ‘real’ life and from losing weight!



It's time to kill off this blog!

But maybe I’m too suspicious, too distrusting, and that the author of the blog in question is sincere and honest and is genuinely giving up blogging. Maybe. Or maybe she's just giving up that particular blog and wants to start up a new one, as I've said above, and prefers to make a clean slate of it? Blogs are being started and closed all the time and for all sorts of reasons and causes. I suppose the most common reasons for abandoning a blog are death, illness, failure to attract a following, a wish to start afresh with a new ‘skin’, a new outlook, a new take on the world, and not because the blog has become too popular or that it is causing the blogger to put on weight! And yet who is to say these are not this blogger’s true reasons?

Thus closes another blog as a hundred others start up. The Blogosphere is a curious place and its very anonymity gives rise to a whole host of peculiarities, eccentricities and excesses. There is often sadness when a much-loved blog is closed down and the author melts back into the infinity and anonymity of the ether which makes up the Internet. Sometimes there may even be a feeling of betrayal on the part of the follower who has given his support to someone who now shuts shop and vanishes leaving them in a defunct blog. This is of course acute when the posts dry up, with no reason given, and followers are left guessing as to the cause. Has the author been taken seriously ill or even died? There’s no way of knowing. At least the author of the blog concerned has made a final farewell posting, given her reasons for terminating, and taken her leave in a proper and decorous manner.

I suppose the moral of this little tale (if there be one), is that even success can have its down side. Somehow I don’t think I will ever have to worry about my blog becoming too popular or my disappointing my followers, or being missed by anyone in Blogland if and when my posts dry up one day. But maybe this is a blessing in disguise? There’s no pressure to please or play to the gallery, no stress to write often and well, no strain from having to respond to lots of comments, and no urgency to, well, do anything really. Yes, maybe I’m fortunate after all...

Causa Absentiae

This is just to inform my many loyal fans out there (yes, you know who you are) and readers of my blog (me, myself and I) that the current gap in my blog posts is due to a very heavy workload (that's me opposite slogging away) which leaves me no time to enlighten and entertain my large and dedicated following. I have several ideas in the pipeline for future posts but have not yet had the opportunity to fully develop them, let alone put them on here for your edification and delectation.

So I'm just letting you all know, every man jack of you, that I will be back with another apocalyptic post very shortly and that you should be patient and not despair or worry yourselves sick over my brief absence, understandable though it is. Let's keep hope alive, shall we?

 

In the meantime I must dash, duty calls and work beckons and there's no time to lose if I'm to stay viable. My upcoming post will more than make up for the time lapse and the crushing vacuity of this post, once I've had the time to bring it to fruition, of course. And one more thing, please don't flood this site with appreciative comments, singing my praises and all that, the shock of it all would be too much for my system. After all, I've sort of got used to the unbroken silence...

To blog or not to blog, that is the question...

I’M beginning to wonder what this whole business of blogging is all really about and, more to the point, what I personally am doing it for. And whether - and this is the bottom line - anyone is actually reading my blog. And if not, if my blog is in fact my best kept secret, is it any better than the paper diary I used to keep many years back, which if I were to have left lying about the house would probably have been read by more people than my blog, which is supposed to be an online diary or journal open to thousands and thousands of potential readers, or at least that is the theory of it. The reality is often very different, it would seem.

IT'S difficult to understand how some blogs have hundreds if not thousands of so-called followers and others, like mine, just a pitiful handful; how some blogs receive a whole series of comments on each post and others, like mine again, seem to pass unnoticed and unremarked like a sigh in the desert. What makes some blogs so popular, so read, so commented on, while others languish in a sort of limbo-land of neglect and abandonment apparently unseen, unread and unremarked? It’s perhaps not as obvious a question as you might think.

I have recently looked into this matter myself, not in any extensive or systematic way, just by way of curiosity in an attempt to understand what makes a blog popular, and quite frankly it has left me more confused than ever. There are some blogs that are so shallow and insubstantial or that deal with the everyday trivialities of a person’s life, or recount a catalogue of numbing sexual conquests and alcoholic excesses and yet have a following of several hundreds or in excess of a thousand. And there are other blogs which are full of useful information, thought-provoking content, well-argued opinions, interesting images, and yet appear to languish in crushing obscurity, with few if any followers and with hardly a comment on any of the posts.

SO what’s going on? Is it to do with the blogger’s social background, networking activities,  number of contacts in general? Does his blog have a large number of followers because many of them are friends, work colleagues, relatives, business contacts, friends of friends and friends of colleagues and all the rest of it? This might explain the exponential growth of followers, a sort of mouth-to-mouth referral of the blog and a consequent accretion of more and more followers joining on recommendation. Once a blog has attracted a goodly number of followers, there seems to be a kind of snowball effect which attracts more and more like bees to honey, as new visitors assume that since the blog already has so many acolytes it must be exceptional and therefore worth following. One might compare it to a brawl in the street. A few people gather round to see what all the commotion is about and before you know it there’s a whole crowd of bystanders witnessing the event. An initial interest, generated in some manner or other, builds up momentum which leads to more and more interest.

WHATEVER the process at work, which favours some blogs and not others, and which seems to have bypassed my blog, the quality of the writing or even the content of the blog, does not really seem to be a factor, as I’ve already said. You can see the untidiest and scruffiest of blogs, full of random jottings and confusing gadgets and widgets and the like, with nothing really of any substance to say, and it may have a following of hundreds or more. Whether of course all these followers are actually reading it would be open to question as some people, especially youngsters with a strong herd instinct, will join just about anything that’s going!

NOW you may think this is all sour grapes on my part, and you would probably be right! It certainly begs the question why I write a blog and I have to admit that the answer that comes back is not a straightforward one. I certainly get pleasure out of the actual act of writing, putting my thoughts down “on paper”, as it were, creating something and illustrating it with suitable images, but if I am true to myself my answer would also include the fact that I like the thought of other people reading my blog, having access to my thoughts and opinions, perhaps going to the trouble to comment on my views and even express some appreciation of my writings.

HAVING said that, it brings me full circle to the way I began this post. If no-one, or as good as no-one, is reading my blog, why should I bother at all? After all, it’s been years since I gave up keeping a private journal, as I wearied of just doing something which did not involve anyone else and which only I knew about (at least while i was still alive!). A lot of bloggers, if they are honest about it, would not be writing anything at all or at least would not be keeping any sort of regular journal were it not for the opportunity that online blogging affords them of being read by others, receiving feedback and perhaps being appreciated from time to time.

WELL, folks, there you have it. I’ve said what I had to say about that and I don’t suppose I will hear anything from anyone about it or that anyone will even get to read it. Obviously, there are bloggers out there outclassing me hands down and soaking up all the followers, and my humble blogging efforts are as nothing compared to their apocalyptic outpourings. Bitter? You bet I am! However, be that as it may and notwithstanding my disappointment to-date, I will soldier on in the steadfast belief that I may yet be read by someone out there in cyberspace or, more accurately, the blogosphere, and even build up a decent following before I end up doing as I did with my paper diary and throwing in the towel once and for all! It all depends on you, my fellow bloggers, out there. Are you going to let me languish in limbo or are you going to give me the fillip I need to keep this blog up till I finally take my leave of this world? My fate is in your hands, cybernauts!