I thought my last post was pretty good. It had lots of great ingredients including a bubble-headed newscaster, Lady Gaga, Academy Awards and racial slurs. In my book, that’s a can’t-lose recipe. I tossed that crap in my handy WordPress Lazy Blogger Crock Pot®, set the timer and toddled off to work. Eight hours later, I’d open the front door and be greeted by the savory aroma of delicious comments and a bountiful platter of steaming “likes”. I knew better than to hope for any Freshly Pressed action – this post was discomfort food, not French-Asian fusion cuisine featuring fair-trade organic lemongrass and sustainable free-range snails [Food analogies inserted to whet the readers’ appetites and make blog writing seem as effortless for me as slow cooking. Analogy of Freshly Pressed as some sort of trendy, politically-correct restaurant is due to my being a bitter man who can’t get a reservation]
I followed the instructions to the letter, adding a little extra salt and a pinch of cayenne, then left for my day of toiling making the world a better place for special-needs youngsters [Shameless self-promotion inserted to make people feel crappy for not reading my last post]
I trudged through the door that night and rushed to turn on the laptop. I was greeted with a mere four likes and a handful of comments from a few of my more ardent supporters. Four likes?! A fifth like showed up later, but it was clearly a “sympathy like” at best. I responded to each and every comment, and waited patiently for the momentum to pick back up. I jiggled the cord to make sure it was plugged in and touched the side to see if it had warmed up [Appliance malfunction analogy inserted to hint at my disappointment and grumbling stomach. Grumbling stomach analogy inserted into aside to imply that I’ll starve without positive reinforcement. Rushing to my laptop involved ignoring the greetings of both my long-suffering wife and gimpy-but-faithful dog]
It’s been too long now, there may be more likes trickling in and possibly a comment or two, but by this point, the post is buried and the expiration date on the topics has come and gone. My post before that one was over at The Nudge Wink Report. It had just a few words and was mostly comprised of cut-n-paste images of Kim Kardashian and her ample tushy being put in a bunch of silly places. It was far from my best work and I was fully prepared to be accused of having “smart-phoned it in”. Despite my doubts about the quality, the post got a butt-load of likes and a bumper crop of comments! Mrs. Kanye West’s ass pasted onto my dog’s nose is apparently blog gold. [Kim and Kanye reference inserted to allow me to put them in my tags for this post with a clear conscience – thus increasing my hits exponentially. Choice of using the words “butt load” and “bumper crop” in reference to ass-themed post responses was entirely intentional]
My first instinct, as a born pleaser, was to try to figure out what I’d done wrong. Surely there were errors in my less successful post and some sort of mysterious appeal to the more popular one. This is far from the first time I’d wondered what I’d done to displease the masses. [Self-reflection reference inserted to paint the author as being a little deeper than someone with an apparent fascination with Kim’s sizeable fanny might otherwise appear]
The bigger question eventually rises to the surface and sits there waiting to be acknowledged, like a turd in the punch bowl which can’t be ignored any longer. Here it is; Who exactly am I writing for? [Rhetorical question inserted in hopes of eliciting cries of “Me, Dave! You’re writing for me – I simply can’t get enough of your snarky brilliance!”. Turd in the punch bowl analogy inserted because, you know…poop humor]
I’ll be the first to admit that most of my blog posts are not exactly the stuff of literary artistry. I have written a handful of serious posts and some marginally humorous fiction in the past, but my blog identity is largely that of a smart-ass commenting on the news and/or the idiocy of the world. I enjoy making people laugh or even just smile. I like the thought of being the sarcastic voice of people who are annoyed or amused by the goofiness of our world. [As if to imply that most folk simply can’t read news stories and shake their heads in amazement without checking for my two cents first. You really should be insulted]
If I’ve learned nothing else from drawing and writing, it’s that people are going to like what they like, and not necessarily what I find appealing. The differing tastes and opinions of people is part of what makes the world go ’round. [Reference to my occasional drawing inserted to portray myself as something of a renaissance man, albeit one who had to try three times before finally spelling “renaissance” correctly. Reference to “making the world go ’round” is a bold-faced lie – we all know damn well that people with poor taste should not be tolerated, and couldn’t have less to do with the rotation of a planet]
Please don’t think this is some kind of a “Read my blog or I’m gonna quit” threat-fest. [Actually, that’s exactly what this is – you damn people better start coddling me a little or I’m going to take my mad writing skills over to the “Rants and Raves” section of the local Craigslist and hang out with the illiterate crowd. They’ll appreciate me even less, but there’s no like button there, so I won’t know]
Here are a few links to some of the posts I mentioned – no obligation, I’m just happy you actually got to the end of the post:
Nudge Wink Kardashian cut-n-paste post
1pointperspective 
I’m always thrilled when I see one of your posts. No, not lying. Thrilled is maybe too strong a word, but I’ll stick with it cause I’m lazy.
Glad to hear it sister! You don’t have to reply to this reply, I know you’re probably tired from the last comment.
Now all we have to do is like a comment. What a cop-out, but priceless for us lazy people.
Blogging is so frustrating because (speaking for myself here) a post that I hardly work on and just throw up onto the keyboard gets lots of love but posts I toil over and spend ridiculous amount of time on getting just right get lost in the shuffle. Who do I blog for ultimately? The voices in my head. And they’re getting louder the older I get but they usually tell me to eat a doughnut instead of blog.
Does the voice in your head have an accent? Is it a male or female? Inquiring minds want to know.
Nothing you write could ever fall flat for me. When I’m writing, sometimes I think…”What would Dave write?” and BAM! Like that I get an idea for a post.
Now that I’ve read THIS post, perhaps I need to up the images of naked men on my blog. Naked BUTT shots of men. I’m accepting applications so the sooner you get busy with that new smart phone of yours, the sooner my readers will have no excuse not to read and comment freely.
Thank you for your time.
I hope you’re not implying that you want me to take a butt-selfie, because the idea is to get more hits on your posts, not more vomit on them. By the way, thanks for starting out your comment with such a glorious compliment, even though I suspect it was fueled by wine.
Why do people keep assuming that just because I’m in Italy, I’m drinking way too much wine?
Oh. Right. Okay then. *makes ‘duh’ face*
It wasn’t so much about the wine as it was about my inability to take a compliment.
Well, that’s just silly. Get over your bad self and accept credit when due. Unless you’d like us to use Visa but that’s an additional 5% service fee added.
We like you but 5% is 5%. *nods head wisely*
I have no idea why some of my posts get lots of views while others fall waaaay short. It’s pretty frustrating. I think a lot has to do with the title. I don’t like to bait and switch, but hooking the reader when there is so much out there, is a trick…. When you figure out how to do that, let me know…
I haven’t come close to figuring it out yet, but you’ll be kept in the loop. If nothing else, I’ve got plenty of miserable company when it comes to getting attention for all the wrong posts.
You’ve already discovered one type of blog gold – Kim’s butt. Blogging about blogging is also popular because it’s by definition a favorite subject for nearly every blogger.
Or you could just title your posts like “I checked my stats and couldn’t believe it when I saw this”.
I’m thinking of titling my posts “Kim’s Kaboose”
You’re writing for me, Dave! But, first of all, we’re all writing for ourselves – most of us don’t get paid for this, so we only do this for as long as we enjoy it ourselves.
P.S. Words like “organic”, “free-range”, “sustainable” actually make me lose appetite.
So “free range snails” isn’t exactly an oxymoron?
Dearest Darling,
Wait!
I’ll be right back…
Umm…okay…I probably shouldn’t hold my breath, huh?
Not having read the prior post about which you are aggrieved, I have to say, you–like 99.9% of the rest of us–are writing to please yourself. If anyone else accidentally finds it funny, I’d call that a bonus. You still have more followers and likes than I generally do on anything I post. I consider blogging to be the wasteland where I go to scream my angst. It’s cheaper than a therapist, even if it is less validating than a parking ticket stamped by the library. So, continue to shout out to the apathetic masses, every once in a great while, the masses will shout back.
Consider it done. I just have to whine about blogging every 20 or 30 posts or so. Blogging is not only cheaper than therapy, but tends to leave you with less of a hangover than vodka or crack, so there’s that too.
Yes, as others have commented, we all feel the same way! Posts that we think are good get little attention, and then others that we didn’t really rate seem to really hit the spot! My one post that got Freshly Pressed was one I almost didn’t publish because I worried it was just too silly. Apparently nothing is too silly to be Freshly Pressed. Also we never know what other factors come into play, like day of the week it’s published, the time of the day, whether it’s a slow or overloaded day of posts in blogland, all these other things that aren’t just related to the content of the post.
I love you, Dave. Come in off of that ledge and draw some more penises!
Your word soufflé … Ha I like that. I’m often fond of what you whip up here and I have to say I’m also in the same boat with you. I think I write something pretty great that took me a while to put together and it ends up with a sad reception then something that took about 30 minutes that was meant just for a my few regulars and bam! All kinds of likes. Don’t know the magic of the masses or The Freshly Pressed Peeps but it’s out there…keep typing.