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Tapping Into The Collective Rage

I’ve been watching my WordPress Dashboard for some time now with great interest like the good Type-5A obsessive that I am.  While all of the usual statistics are there to scratch my “check on that” itch, I noticed a recurring thing a few months ago with some mild interest.

This may have been going on for some time, or not.  I’m not sure.  I had that whole Afghanistan thing going on to keep me distracted for some time, so I may have neglected this entirely.  Anything is possible.  However, once I noticed this I started watching and now after some weeks I’m certain.  I’ve tapped into some kind of collective rage.

I’ve always gotten a laugh out of the search terms that bring people to my blog.  For a while, I used it as blog material.  My recent discovery stems from me reading the same search term for weeks on end: birthdays suck.  I then noticed that a post I did about why I find my birthday so distasteful was getting between two and five hits per day.  Each week, my statistics pane on the Dashboard informed me that I’d racked up about thirty additional page hits for that piece.

The detailed stats page confirmed it.  Eliminating my home page and the ‘About’ page hits, my “Why Birthdays Suck” is second only to my Freshly Pressed effort, but outstrips the next highest post by about 900 hits.  That one is about procrastination, so I’m guessing people search for that but elect to read it later.

Anyway, all of this made me wonder, because I am a curious ape who has nobody in a yellow hat to explain things to him.  Have I discovered a hidden undercurrent of society?  Is the Hallmark Card Company secretly forcing Americans into bouts of forced happiness and celebration?  Are that many other people as perturbed about the inane marking of time through their lives?  Do I have overly-celebratory relatives?  Is this only an expression of people who are displeased with the gifts they received?

I don’t have answers to these questions, and I’m probably underequipped in brain capacity to nug out anything coherent.  For now, I suppose this will remain the tantalizing mystery that it is now.  In the meantime, I’ll watch my statistics.

This entry was posted on May 21, 2013 at 05:19 and is filed under Humor, Random, Rant with tags , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

60 Responses to “Tapping Into The Collective Rage”

  1. Le Clown Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 06:53

    BrainRants,
    Too many questions. Here’s what I think of all of this: blue.

    And a post about Le Clown would bring you more hits than a mango worms YouTube video.
    Le Clown

    Reply
  2. Melanie Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 08:31

    I’m the one who always deactivates my facebook page the day before my birthday. Fuck that shit. People who never talk to me suddenly have multiple exclamation points to throw my way.
    But really, my crabbyness at celebrating my birthday peaked after I birthed my kids. It was a lightbulb moment. My birthday has little to do with me, except that I appeared, and everything to do with the woman who made that possible. Now my mom gets a present on my birthday. She’s earned it.

    Reply
    • BrainRants Says:
      May 21, 2013 at 08:37

      Great point, Melanie. I feel the same way and try to do nice stuff for Mama Rants every chance I get, not just my birthday. She more than earned it, as you say.

      Reply
      • Melanie Says:
        May 21, 2013 at 08:40

        I’m just glad I’m an adult way longer than a kid so I have plenty of time (maybe, hopefully) to make up for the gray-hair-cultivating stupid shit I pulled from birth til 18 (now, next year, the rest of my life…I do a lot of stupid shit).

        Reply
  3. twindaddy Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 09:20

    I have a post like that, but it’s a post about inconsistencies in the Star Wars movies I wrote almost two years ago. It gets a few hits a day and makes me wonder why people are actually searching for this. If you’ve seen the movies you should already know what they are.

    As for birthdays sucking, they get that way after you turn 25. There’s nothing to look forward to after that….

    Reply
  4. 1jaded1 Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 09:39

    I hatched. I don’t have a birthday.

    Reply
  5. whiteladyinthehood Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 10:12

    Holy Smokes Batman – The BrainRants Birthday Card

    I don’t celebrate birthdays
    (gettin old really sucks)
    Say to hell with a Hallmark
    (buy a bitchin’ Rant card for 2 bucks!)
    It says the same shit…
    Were happpy you’re here –
    Now shut-up your pie-hole
    and pass me a beer!

    too hard-core?

    Reply
  6. Kayjai Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 11:07

    Yeah. I wanted to say something intellectual, but that’s all I got today. So, yeah.

    Reply
  7. John Erickson Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 14:25

    You mean, with all the Ranty goodness you have out there, it’s your birthday post that keeps ’em coming back for more? Well, dang – maybe you’re onto something here (as opposed to being on something 😉 ). Maybe a whole range of “special day” posts? Hacking on holidays? Agitating over anniversaries? (You’ve already got the “bitching about birthdays” down, so we’ll skip that.) Combine ’em with special, commemorative card series, and I think you’ve got the next billion-dollar idea!
    (Or maybe, just like me, you’re full of it…. 😉 )

    Reply
  8. thelifeofjamie Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 14:29

    My #2 after my FP is called Dead Squirrel Season. Apparently people are interested!

    Reply
  9. Southern Sea Muse Says:
    May 21, 2013 at 22:02

    I thought the Army had the market cornered on “mandatory fun” long before Hallmark. And yes, misery loves company.

    Reply
  10. charlypriest Says:
    May 22, 2013 at 01:43

    Embarrassingly It´s me who keeps on reading over and over again the freaking post that´s why so many hits. Sorry that you thought people liked it.

    Reply
  11. charlypriest Says:
    May 22, 2013 at 01:44

    And I´m going to read it again right now. Just to be clear.

    Reply
  12. benzeknees Says:
    May 22, 2013 at 02:50

    I guess I’m just ignorant ’cause I don’t go into the specifics of my stats that much! I like my birthday – it’s the day people appreciate me for being a part of the world & i like EVERYONE to acknowledge it (too many years of shared birthdays in my family). Last year was such a blast when so many people joint blogged for my birthday. Hubby feels like you do about birthdays so it’s such a pain to get him to celebrate mine.

    Reply
  13. The Byronic Man Says:
    May 22, 2013 at 22:47

    I did some goofball post a while back about a study done by the Girl Scout Institute (which is real) saying girls who watch more reality TV have lower self-esteem (filed under “N” for “No Shit, Sherlock’), and get hits for it every day by people looking for “reality TV statistics.” Which means every day someone out there is juuuuust a little disappointed.

    Since then I’ve tried to think of non-pornographic things people search for to replicate that and have gotten nothing.

    Reply
  14. La La Says:
    May 23, 2013 at 07:22

    People come back to mine for “ambien sex.” Sigh. I’m proud. Whatever people are looking the fuck up, be proud, because you’re their birthday post beacon in the night or something.

    Reply
  15. Madame Weebles Says:
    May 23, 2013 at 13:28

    Search temms really are hilarious sometimes. There are some twisted people out there. As for birthdays, a lot of people really go nuts with the hyper-celebrating. For me, I like my birthday for the cake. It’s all about the cake.

    Reply

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