3.03.2003

 

Commenting on blogs, here at HM and around the Blogosphere, strikes me as such a strange organism sometimes.

Sometimes the strangest things generate comments, stuff that you would never anticipate receiving much of a response. Sometimes stuff that seems controversial to you and certain to ignite passions out there generates little more than a whimper among readers. And sometimes your readers show their generosity and tell you good things when you put your nuts on the block and bare some difficult thoughts and revelations.

I love getting comments, even if I'm usually receiving them from the same ten people. I appreciate that they not only come here to digest what I'm thinking but take the time to weigh in on matters, offer a light-hearted anecdote, encourage, constructively criticize, direct me to the identity of extremely hot women, or do anything else that adds another reason why I love writing HM to the plethora of personal reasons I already have.

Sometimes I know when something I write will generate no response. Sometimes I think I might get a few notes and I do. Sometimes I think I might get four or five comments and I get less than that. I am always pleasantly surprised when that number exceeds five or six. But now and again I'll write something that I think might approach that level and nothing happens.

I just don't get it sometimes.

Another thing I don't really understand is the massive amount of feedback Moxie always seems to land on her site. Certainly her much larger readership has a lot to do with that. And the way that she writes probably has a lot more to do with that. She wears her life and her emotions on her sleeve all the time, and while I do not claim that she writes fishing for comments, I know that a lot of the topics she treats tend to provoke an emotional and sympathetic response from her readers. I understand why this sort of thing might generate comments. But I'm confounded by how her reporting on reality TV shows, in particular The Bachelor franchise and Joe Millionaire, topics which she clearly enjoys writing about, generate so much feedback. Yes, the media assault for these phenomena put such topics in the realm of general knowledge, encouraging us to feel like we have something to say. But even so, I am perplexed as to how talking about television can result in 30 to 50 comments. Just astounding.

Then people like Jeff Cooper, who is extremely articulate and a great daily read (and the first blog I read every day) have a string of brilliant posts with no comments whatsoever. Cooped Up engages me intellectually and really gets me thinking about events occurring outside my knowledge and how they affect me. What Jeff writes always gets me thinking, which on some level makes me want to respond and articulate my thoughts. And certainly I'm not the only person who praises Cooped Up, so many other readers must want to respond to what he has to say.

And yet I don't recall having ever left a comment on Cooped Up. Which makes me think that I don't even understand myself when it comes to this stuff.

People fish for comments, beg for comments, threaten to discontinue blogging if people don't start reacting to what they write. To some extent I don't really like it when people do that because I have always said that keeping a blog is an intensely selfish and self-fulfilling action. It takes a slight arrogance to think that you have something to say such that other people will want to read it. Therefore, the writing of the blog should serve as all the impetus authors need. On the other hand, having experienced the delight that comes with every new comment and interacting with other people because of what they have written here, I understand the desire to try and generate as many comments as possible. It's a toss up.

Anyway, no real point to this post. Just sort of thinking out loud.