As you'll no doubt be aware, this blog isn't about anything. On this occasion it's also about itself being not about anything, as
indeed it is on every and all other occasions. There's probably a point where too much meta-commentary
becomes, well, too much. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't that point.
For example, did you know that I sometimes like
to use a section down below, labelled 'notes', to cleverly make points in
relation to the main block of text? Did you also know that the main block of
text is often completely irrelevant, and serves several times only as a
prevarication to keep you waiting for the notes following the main block of text?
And that you'd have been better off in such times just skipping straight to
those notes? Did you also know that this is one of those times? Well, you
should.
But, just in case you're not going to skip
ahead in the manner in which you've just been quite clearly instructed (and to be fair we all know you have
issues doing what you're told, alongside your many other horrible issues), here is a
blog about the audience statistics of this blog. This is a thing that many
blogs like to talk about, and I applaud their doing so. Because talking about
the meaningless statistics behind a meaningless blog is exactly the sort of 'commentary
on nothing' that I have always professed.
So, here are some overall points on the audience
for this blog, as if you didn't already know all about yourselves (and you
don't). The top rated post on this blog has 3003 views. I don't collect my own
views, so that's either 3003 people, 3003 bots (entirely possible, and frankly preferable), some number of people and/or bots viewing some number of times adding up to 3003, or even, and my personal favourite, the same person 3003 times. I really hope
it's that last possibility. If you're out there, and you also dislike Paul Rudd's
acting as much as I dislike Paul Rudd's acting, then do please get in touch. In fact, now that I come to
think of it, maybe that single viewer actually is Paul Rudd, punishing himself
by reading about how bad he is over and over again.
As you'll have noted, my own list of
favourite entries on this blog can be seen over there on the right. It hasn't
changed in quite some time, and when I say 'the best' I may be using that term
ironically. Or even just wrongly. But be that as it may, my list of best posts
is still far better and more considered than the list of most viewed posts
represented in the statistics for this blog: yet another example, if further
example be needed, of your awful judgement in such matters. And so I present the top posts,
as voted for by you, average and stupid as you are:
At number one in the list of top viewed posts on this blog, as the preceding comment above
on the Ruddster indicates, is Random DVD review #1. On the whole, I didn't
expect Random DVD review #1 to be number one, nor by such a large margin. But disliking
Paul Rudd is clearly a popular activity, and one which has not grown less
popular with time. It makes me think I should do a blog post reviewing the
sequel to 2007's Knocked Up, also featuring Paul Rudd. Because I suppose for a time he liked appearing in
that sort of film, even when there was and is no apparent need either for such a film or for him to partake in it. I can tell you several things about the sequel to Knocked Up.
Firstly, it's the sequel to Knocked Up. Secondly, it's called something like This is 40 I think? But I'm not totally sure. And thirdly, in the first gentle scene
accompanied by the film's rousing opening score, Paul Rudd's naked bottom
mashes up against a shower cubicle which is not as opaque as it might reasonably
be, while having what is apparently vigorous but ultimately disappointing
intercourse with his wife. I can't, unfortunately, tell you anything more than
that about the sequel to the worst film ever because at that point, despite my best intentions to watch the rest of the
film in order to write an amusing review, my hand instead picked up the
television remote and autonomously drove it through my eyes into my already
melting but nevertheless grateful brain.
The second most popular blog entry on this
blog is all about a Dungeons and Dragons roller coaster ride, as featured in the opening to the 1983-1985 Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. That post was composed in the days when I liked to include
images in this blog, before coming to the realisation that other people quite liked my doing
that too. My current disregard and despite for images proceeds entirely from the realisation that other people liked them, and the discontinuation of said images is only one of two wholesale reversals of policy over the long lifetime of the waspinator-for-president blog brand. A picture, of course, is worth a thousand
words. A person who prefers a picture to a thousand words, however, is worth
absolutely nothing.
And in what is very much bronze place, the
third most-read entry here on this blog concerns refreshing cold lemon tea. Frustratingly, I refer in that blog post to a
bit-character from the Marvel UK imprint of The Transformers as the
'long-dead Autobot, Impactor'. Since that time of writing, however, Impactor has enjoyed
something of a renaissance courtesy of the publisher IDW and its wonderful reinvigoration of
the comics end of the Transformers franchise. Now while I very much enjoyed and continue to enjoy IDW's
offerings, particularly the 2012-2016 run of MTMTE, this has raised a fairly unexpected
editorial problem. Indeed, even old Waspinator himself, who previously acted as a very specific and very deliberate reference point to very little of any consequence, has made the odd reappearance in
the comics, which frankly makes a mockery of the whole point of this blog. But I suppose that mockery also deepens the irony which is also the whole point of this blog.
So: thanks, IDW, I guess.
In other meaningless data not at all worth
noting, much less talking about, I found myself dwelling over the 'search keywords'
statistic: apparently this tells me what people (or bots, or Paul Rudd) put
into their browser in order to get to what and where they wanted. The top search
result bringing people to this blog is 'waspinator for president', which makes a
fair bit of sense unless they were actually expressing their voting wishes (though, to be fair, the world has had worse ideas). Numbers
three through ten for search terms bringing people to this blog, interestingly or not, are all related to
the toy franchise Thundercats. I like
Thundercats, and several blog posts
here reflect that; so, all in all, fair enough. On the other hand, I can't say
that I wouldn't myself be disappointed if, upon searching for Thundercats, and hoping for Thundercats, I instead ended up here. In fact, I'd probably be heartbroken. If you're
one of those people who wanted Thundercats
and instead got me, I'm genuinely sorry.
The number two most popular search term
bringing people to this blog, impressively, is 'jamie lynn spears naked'. Let's
dwell on the complexities of that for a moment. Let's also note that this means,
for better or worse, that a not-insignificant number of people (okay, it's fairly
insignificant) decided to click on this post right here instead of (or as
well as) actually looking at the presumably delightful pictures for which they were
apparently searching. Unless they were 'feeling lucky', as I believe Google
still playfully puts it, they actually chose to click on this
blog. Maybe they read this blog rather than looking at certain photography
elsewhere. Maybe I saved those people's marriages. Maybe I saved those people's
souls. Who knows?
As everyone knows, statistics can tell us absolutely nothing about
anything. But then, maybe, just maybe, when they're applied to the absolute
nothingness of this blog, statistics can tell us absolutely everything. Mainly
what they're telling me is that you're just awful, and, to be honest, that seems
like it has rather more than a ring of truth. And that, I think, is the salient
point on which we'll have to finish today's discussion. One could, of course,
continue to dissect the statistics behind this blog for some time, but where
would that get us? Nowhere, that's where. And as we know, that's exactly where
we do and do not want to get to on a consistent and continuing basis.
Notes:
1. Yes, I am aware that I previously said I
would never write a blog entry on blog statistics. That is the joke, and I
thank you for noticing it.
2. I have seen both Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp and while both were formulaic repeats of every other film in that genre produced over the last
two decades, Paul Rudd was not awful in them. So: well done, Paul. Well done.