Feeling Stared At

It seems that my "Willful Child" (there's a blog name for someone!) post has attracted a lot more attention than I'd anticipated.  I got linked by a big gorilla of some sort (albeit one I'd never heard of) and by Lauren of feministe, and my daily hit count jumped to more than 250% of normal.  (In real terms, this meant 300 more people came by than usual, but it was still something to behold.)  So I'm feeling something akin to what I'd feel if I'd been presenting a paper to a small , spot-lit audience, only to discover, when the main lights came on, that that small group had been joined, silently and in the dark, by an audience large enough to fill an enormous lecture hall.

Believe it or not, none of these new visitors left a comment, although a couple thought the post was interesting enough to cite elsewhere (including on some sort of military chat site -- eek -- where it was subsequently ignored by the other posters).

I don't mind the linky love, but I do like my current blog audience, both in terms of size and depth of social connection.  I have always been better with the one-on-one and the small class discussion, than with the large lecture or survey course.  So I hope that most of those visitors got bored and won't be back, even though I won't mind if a few stick around and join this corner of the blogging community.  *waves*

Comments

[Scrivener]

I got a cerain amount of refracted traffic too, because you linked to me in that post. A fairly sizable portion of traffic to my site in the last couple of days has come through that post. None of them left a comment for me, either.

[Rana]

I _was_ wondering about that. (Do you want me to kill the link?)

Now I wonder how many clicked through to trollish guy.

[jo(e)]

When I wander through a blog for the first time, I don't usually leave a comment. I always figure the comment boxes are for the "regulars."

[Rana]

Yeah, I'm not really complaining about that.

My usual feeling about blogs is that they operate like private conversations in public places (like in a restaurant or cafe), outdoor salons in the park, lectures, and free sporting events. So people peeking in, then leaving, seems normal to me (and it is, in fact, what I do myself most times).

It's just that normally I think of this blog as being salon-sized, and to have a large lecture hall's worth of people silently eavesdrop in the space of a day or two, feels creepier than the occasional passerby.

It's like swimming in the ocean when all of a sudden you realize how much depth there really is beneath your feet. Creepy!

[Scrivener]

No, I don't mind. Whatever.

I actually went to trolls place once I realized that so many were coming through--there's one new comment on that post which chastises him for being partisan for saying such things, but then also calls us both immature for arguing. When we all know that I am the picture of maturity. Right jo(e)?

[Phantom Scribbler]

What great images, Rana -- private conversations in public spaces, salon/lecture hall, and etc.

I had a substantial stream of traffic (measured by my otherwise extremely modest stats) flowing in from a trackback at Chez Miscarriage for quite awhile. Perhaps a handful of those visitors have gone on to be silent lurkers, though I don't think so. But none of them, not one of the several hundreds who have been through, has ever left a comment.

It is a bit odd to think of all those eavesdropping passerby. I think that's one reason I avoid overtly political posts -- not wanting to attract attention beyond this friendly little blog neighborhood. Trolls like Scrivener's I need like a hole in the head, you know?

[T.V.]

I'm not a complete stranger, but I'm one of the fans who pointed some other people to your post.

I'm glad you got a lot of traffic for that one. It was really sharp.

[Harrison]

I know the feeling. At least you've been at this for quite a while now. I think it was my second week of blogging when I got a link from Matthew Yglesias (went from having almost no hits to, well, quite a large number.)

At the time, I had thought of the entire blog as something I was about to start to start. I had stolen the title from a poet who stole the phrase from a Revlon ad.

[Chris Clarke]

Dang. You should have seen the line to get in here! and now all the chairs are taken and someone ate all the donuts.

What'd I miss?

[Rana]

David -- okay, I'll leave it alone. Amusing about the troll scolder!

PS -- yes, attracting trolls isn't something I terribly want happening, either. Still, I sometimes can't help myself. *grin* (The main reason I don't do more political/public education posts is that I'm lazy; unless an interesting idea comes to me mostly fully formed, or I'm addressing a topic where the interest to work ratio is high, I don't feel that motivated to do the heavy lifting. I don't want the blog to become my unpaid job.)

TV -- thanks for the compliment! Also, don't feel like you did anything incorrect in linking to the post. My post here is more about my own response to the increased traffic, and how it reminds me about the vastness of the internet, than a complaint about people wanting to send me traffic. *grin*

Harrison -- I remember those early days! That was back when your blog was hosted by Salon, wasn't it?

Chris -- if there were donuts here, I didn't bring them -- yuck. (David? jo(e)? Phantom?) As for seats -- didn't you see the reserved row up at the front? There's a seat there with your name on it.

[yami]

*hangs head in shame*

I ate the donuts. I'm sorry! I was hungry, and the Bavarian creme filled ones looked so tasty! I'll bring some bagels to the next post to make up for it...

What surprises me whenever one of my posts makes it into the wider world is how different people's responses are outside my little salon. They're... less guarded in their negativity, I guess is the way to put it. And lacking in wit and insight, too, of course :)

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

I can imagine the sudden traffic and exposure must have been a little disconcerting, but for the post's sake I'm glad it happened - that was a great set of ideas, Rana. Glad they got some attention.

[Rana]

Aw, shucks. :)

(I must say, though, that it's weird to have _that_ be the post that takes off, given that it's on a topic I'm really rather "meh" on.)

yami -- yes. One of the things that really makes this blog special is the people who comment here. I'm very grateful to y'all!

[Megin]

Darn! If I knew that lurkers weren't allowed to have donuts, I would start commenting more often! ;)

I don't think ANYONE hits my site, Rana- may I stick around while at the same time preserving anonymity? *grin*

[Harrison]

Yup, back and dang ol Salon.

[Rana]

Welcome! Yes, you are certainly welcome to join this crew -- have a bagel? I think there's a few left in the batch yami brought. ;)

And, for all the rest of ya lurkers out there -- I have no problems at all with people using pseudonyms -- in fact, I far prefer them to blanks and "anonymous". All I ask is that you be consistent; don't go switching names on me every few weeks, please! (I'm easily confused.)

And if you have a blog, please include the URL -- who knows, I may drop by and comment there someday. :)

[Harrison]

Oh my. I'm being stared at for a reason I would *never* have guessed.

Rogers Cadenhead (who writes the excellent Workbench blog) blogrolled me some time back.

A few days ago, he was speculating on the name the new pope would take. Amazingly -- given how unlikely the choice of name was -- he got it right. So this has become a news item that reaches all the way up to the Vatican.

He must be getting untold thousands of hits because of this. I'm getting hundreds of spillover hits because he blogrolled me.

And it's my first week at a new job; I don't have any interesting new posts up.

And a Very Large Eye is aimed at me now.

[Rana]

All of a sudden I'm thinking of that Far Side cartoon, with all the microbes under the microscope yelling "The Eye!" (or something like that).

[Harrison]

:-)

Oh, also, don't want to give the impression that I *mind* the extra traffic. Not at all.