Thursday, January 7, 2016

Top Eleven Most Viewed Posts

I- wow.  You know, sometimes you start something and you wonder if anybody will ever really think it's that great.  Maybe it's a painting, or a music track, or a short story, and you repeat to yourself over and over again "nobody else is going to care about this.  Nobody is going to want to see/hear/touch/taste/read/whatever this is."  But you go through it, and later you discover that, somehow, people have found what you made either by word of mouth or something else, and that they apparently shared it because it's somehow gone out and become something in the world.

When I started this, I was rather proud of some posts.  "Hey, my look at the American Rabbit movie has 115 views!  Huh.  My list of Xbox games I'd love if I was still thirteen got 212 views.  How the heck did part two of my Street Fighter review get nearly 110 more reviews than the first part?"

Then I realized that there were certain posts that blew those numbers out of the water.I started seeing posts in the upper two hundreds, then the three hundreds.  I kept going further back, and I found four hundred, five hundred, and more views on certain posts!  These were things I had no idea anybody would ever care about to click on if they found it on a Google search!  I think some of it might have to do with the person I talked about perhaps linking to my post, but a few I have simply no explanation for.

So, to celebrate my doing four years of this blog (with a few gaps here and there), I'm looking at the most-viewed posts I've ever written.  Some of them make no sense whatsoever.




Honorable Mention: A Game I Love And A Game I Own with 652 views.

I'm not including this in the regular running because it's one of my oldest posts, from before I really got this blog going.  To be fair, there is another post from that time period that's on this list, but that's because the view count is so high I can't simply attribute it to just "time."

I still own my copy of Once Upon A Time, and I would love for more opportunities to play it with people who wouldn't simply attempt to turn the entire thing into one long run-on sentence and would appreciate the spirit of the game, not just the desire to win.  ...sorry, let myself get a bit bitter there, because I know what's coming next.

I think I still own Wench.  It's sitting in the bottom of a box somewhere, waiting to rear its (admittedly pretty) ugly head again and make me feel embarrassed that I let a store give me a copy instead of turning it down.  I haven't yet found the right team of people willing to consume the massive amounts of alcohol required to make this game "fun."

Now on to the real countdown.

Number 11:  Part One Of My Dead Or Alive Movie Review with 601 views.

I know I go on sometimes about how movies need to be good, need to be coherent, and need to not insult the audience when they're trying to play everything serious.   It's why I simply refuse to see the movie Lucy, since it advertises plainly in the trailer the myth about only using a fraction of our brains.  No, movie.  That's not a real thing, and shame on you for trying to spread it.

On the other hand, DOA attempts to get me to accept a martial arts tournament meant to act as a cover for creating a super-weapon disguised as a pair of sunglasses that gives someone massive "judo chop" abilities when I'm pretty sure guns still exist.  Yet, somehow, I bought it and loved it, because the movie cared as much about the actual plot as I did (little to nothing) and was willing to just have fun and let you watch actors having fun.

I still have it on my shelf, right between Dark City and Defending Your Life.  But I am surprised that a movie that didn't really do that well in the box office got so many views.  If someone out there shared a link to it and a lot of people clicked it, thank you!

Number 10:  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Gummy Candy with- holy cow, 755 views?

Seriously? People cared that much about what I had to say about a gummy candy that I compared repeatedly to "pre-chewed gum."  Apparently there's a large audience out there for snack food critics (more on this later), and if I had known that, I might have done more on the topic.

Seriously, though, I'm willing to bet that even though it's been over a year since I saw those on the shelves, any unsold units still taste and feel exactly the same.  Disgusting.

Number 9: Eban Schletter's Fantastical Musicorium with 796 views!

I fully suspect that Eban Schletter himself must have linked to this post, or the guy has a more serious fan base than I expected (though, considering how much Paul F. Tompkins pushes for people to check out his stuff in everything he does, I wouldn't be surprised).  Sadly, there are still only those same episodes out with nothing new seemingly in the works, but you can still hear him play all of the background music in Spontaneanation, a podcast I'll finally get to reviewing this month.

Number 8:  Top Eleven Silly Crushes with (seriously?) 812 views.  I'm so ashamed.

I almost left this post out of my list here, because looking back, it's kind of embarrassing.  I mean, I still maintain that "crush" simply means that there's something you find attractive or appealing about someone, not that you're "so much in love" or "want to have sex with" them.  Still, y'know, if Eban Schletter's post taught me anything, it's that sometimes people find the stuff you talk about, and in this age of the Internet I don't want to come across as creepy.  ...well, not more so than your average inhabitant of the Internet anyway.

Plus, I mean, I might have to change a few people.  I don't have Claire Robinson, Jan Kurotaki, or Danica McKellar on that list!

...I might have to bump Lisa Foiles up to the top, too, not just because she's so darn gorgeous hot cute but if just because she actually replies to my comments on Facebook oh my god oh my god oh my g- ahem.  I mean, it's cool she interacts so much with her fans.  She seems like she'd just be fun to hang out with.  Play some video games.

...okay, I'm moving on now before I dig this hole any deeper.

Number 7: Plants vs. Zombies with 833 views!

Okay, I think I can contribute this one to the fact that the PvZ games are widely loved by people worldwide, so eventually some of that would come the way of my blog.  Maybe it was just people grabbing screenshots for their own blog posts, maybe I actually had some insight into the game few other people had touched on, I don't know, but I do know I'm amazed at that many views for something I described as a "silly lark."

Number 6:  Superman: At Earth's End with (holy cow) 840 views.  What's wrong with you people?

Okay, Plants vs. Zombies is popular, there's going to be some carry over from that fandom.

NOBODY is a fan of this comic book.  I have no idea why there are so many views for my diatribe about how awful a comic book featuring (spoiler) Superman killing the twin clones of Hitler with a giant impractical gun except that now that I say it out loud, I suspect word of mouth must have carried it.

Probably prefaced with "you won't believe the comic book this guy found."  Or "hey, this guy just ripped off Linkara, but in text form."

Fans of the Nostalgia Critic will get that last part.

Moving on!

Because it can't possibly get any worse than Superman using guns, right?

Number 5:  Barb. #*@&. Wire.  With (I kid you not) 967 views.

I haaaaaaated this movie.  So much.  Besides being bad on its own merits, it had the gall to sully memories of Casablanca, easily one of my favorite movies of all time.  It also exposed me to Udo Kier, a name I have to keep watching for ever since I stumbled upon him again in Iron Skies.

Surely nobody from the cast of the movie felt the need to share my breakdown of why this movie is awful.  Pamela Anderson didn't tweet "hey, everybody, check out this review of the highlight of my film career!"  I just- I don't get it.  Why so many views?  Why did so many people feel the need to look at a movie that almost killed Valentine's Day for me?

Someone, please tell me!

Number 4:  The Cutest Whiskers In Outer Space! with 1114 views.

Okay, this is the other "old" post I have on here, and I'm not really surprised that the viewership skyrocketed considering that Rocket Raccoon appeared in a huge summer blockbuster and I called him and Cosmo the telepathic Russian astronaut dog two of the best things in comics at the time.  However, I'm left a bit puzzled how many of those views came from people trying desperately to remember the names of characters from Shirt Tails or they wanted a picture of the raccoon from Pom Poko beating people up with their testicles.

Or maybe it was just my posting another gorgeous picture of Kym Johnson that drew them.  Who's to say?

Okay, we're getting into the three posts that, if you put my feet to the fire, I would have never expected to be my most-viewed articles.  But here goes.

Number 3:  Kinder Bueno with 2,163 views, you guys.  Seriously.  You guys.

My third most popular post is my review of my all-time favorite candy bar.  I don't even really know how to react to that or how so many people have stumbled upon it unless they were looking for images of it on Google and got redirected to my site.  I even used the phrase "a tasty coating of flavor" to describe what happens to your tongue when you bite into one, and I think that disqualifies me from anything people would think of as "good writing."

I really wish I knew what lead to things like this being some of my most popular stuff.  I really do.

Number 2:  Take The Lead with 2,491 views.  I can't even fathom that.

Did Jenna Dewan link to that post because I spend half of it gushing over her?  I can't imagine that there was a large group of people anxiously waiting on the Internet for me to review a dance movie from 2006, but I've been wrong before, I could be wrong again.

I mean, I like that a movie I genuinely enjoyed takes a higher spot than, say, Barb Wire, but the fact it's this movie is just surprising.  I honestly wish that if someone had shared the link to it that they would have at least commented so I knew people were liking it.   Or if they were telling people "look what this idiot posted."  I'd love to know if people hate what I write, because then I can adapt (read: instigate flame wars adapt my writing) accordingly!

Number 1: Top Eleven Reasons Why Luigi Is Better Than Mario with- man.  I just- oh, man.

2,551 views.  Granted, in a world where you're nothing unless you get a million views on Youtube, this isn't really that great, but considering I had no idea anybody was even reading this silly blog of mine unless they were in my immediate social circle, I just get blown away by that.

I mean, it's genuinely heartwarming.  I feel warmer just seeing that number and knowing that so many people looked at my post (though, again, many might have been there through image searches or such) but I would expect that if it has two comments (more than almost anything else I talk about) it must mean someone's reading it and sharing it with their friends.

I look forward to looking back in another four years and seeing what posts people were drawn to the most out of everything I plan on talking about.  If you've been reading for a while, thank you, I realize I'm taking your attention from any number of other things you could be doing, and if you feel my writing is worthy of that kind of investment, I feel honored.

If you're new, I hope you stick around.  I have some fun stuff coming up, and I think others will like it as much as I enjoy making it.  And feel free to comment!  I often reply to people who take the time to say things!

If you have something you do and would like it to be shared, let me know!  I'm always willing to take a look and then talk about it if I like it.  A candy bar got over two thousand views, who knows what your ...thing...whatever it is can do!

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