Please, have a balloon. Cake?
Today marks one year of The Byronic Man being online. Hurray for me! One year of not shooting myself in the foot, and not abandoning it. Phew. I did a few posts before launching it initially, so that when the legions of people flocked to it immediately upon creation there’d be several posts for them to read. It was… an unnecessary precaution. But it’s persevered and now look at it! The most popular blog in the world! (disclaimer: may not be true)
It’s interesting to see how the blog has shaped and evolved over the year, and perhaps you’d enjoy reading every single post from beginning to now, leaving comments on all of them and then finding 10 friends to subscribe. Or you could just take a few minutes while I reminisce on some highlights and discoveries of the past year. Either/or.
- There are blog people, and non-blog people, and never the twain shall meet. If you ever want to be left alone, suggest to the people you’re talking to that they check out your blog. You’ll get uncomfortable excuses for leaving faster than if you’d whipped out a bible and said, “So, has everyone heard the good news?”
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Hey 7 billionth person, born October 30th, 2011! As soon as you've figured out how to lift your head on your own power, why not "follow" The Byronic Man?
Writing a blog is an incredible jolt from high to low. Those days when I’m feeling on, cranking it out? I’m the funniest man alive! There’s 7 billion people on Earth? I can’t believe I don’t have 6 billion, 999 milllion, 999 thousand, 999 followers! I could post constantly! There is just nothing like the feeling of writing something you really like. Then there are the other days… the days I can’t think of a thing. Days where I feel like, “Well, that’s it. I’m done. Might as well pack it in because I have nothing else in me, I’ll never have another idea, never say anything funny again. I suck. Maybe I’ll put up one last post apologizing for my suckiness and hang up the closed sign.
- Looking at how many followers other blogs have, or how many comments they get compared to your own? Yeah, that leads nowhere good.
- A lot of the comments I get are about the pictures and captions I include. This is one of my favorite parts, but there are two pictures from the last year that are my absolute favorites. The first one is the one is “Bored” by someone calling him or herself Plonq.
I can't not laugh when I look at this picture. Can't do it.
The other is untitled, but I think of it as “Dude Enjoying The Beach That Is On Fire.”
I'm sorry I don't know the author. There's a story here, and I want to know it.
- The things people search for on Google are incredible. Reading the Google searches that led people to your site is like a window into the unconscious. And the unconscious needs serious help both psychologically, and, it seems, with simple day-to-day activities. Non-bloggers out there should start one just to see what people are looking for.
- Getting freshly pressed is an awesome, baffling experience. Shortly after starting, I had a post on going to the dentist get featured, and I looked at my site stats that afternoon, hoping hoping hoping I’d broken 10 hits. The count was at 240 and I figured something was wrong with the page, so I refreshed it. Now it was at 270. And up and up from there. I was getting pretty discouraged at that point in getting my blog going, trying to find readers, and suddenly getting 2,000 hits a day and a slew of subscribers was a huge boost. I have no idea why certain FP’s are up for a couple days and others are up for what seems like ages (Japecake, Brain Rants – I’m looking in your direction), but I’ll take what I can get. I had a second post get pressed about eating food that was too spicy, which suggests that if I wish to get freshly pressed again, I apparently need to put myself in more situations of extreme physical discomfort. Perhaps this is some sort of sick joke on the part of the WordPress editors.
- Aside from those two featured posts hands down my most popular post is one about wanting to find a nemesis, and I’ve never totally understood why. I’m happy it’s popular, but it’s a really short post, and one that didn’t particularly stick in my mind at the time as solid gold, baby; but week after week, it’s the one that gets searched for and read from my list of Most Popular. It’s been read more than twice as much as the next most popular – and never goes long without being read. Apparently everyone wants a nemesis. That or people are just really curious about the word “shan’t”. Who knew?
- There are some really great blogs out there. Probably the highlight of the year has been coming across so many talented writers, the great number of blogs that are so funny that I, from time to time, hate them just a little bit. There have been a lot of people I’ve gotten to know, and feel like they’re friends, even if I’m not sure what they look like or where they live or what their names are. So thanks to everyone whose become a reader, and a commenter; no doubt, some of the best things about doing this have been you, the people I’ve gotten to know. Also, getting mentioned by the London Times. But you’ve all been great, too.
The Byronic Man 
November 22, 2011 at 9:36 am
Firstly, congratulations!
I’ve been blogging since the mid-90s, when you had to do your onw HTML and I didn’t know it, so I learned how to copy-paste (steal) others’! My most popular blog (before my life took a decidedly downward turn the past few years) got a lot of single visitors everyday. It made me feel good about the blog — only after I’d abandoned that one, started up a new one and nobody read it. ::small, nervous laugh::
My WP has never been searchable by google, so I don’t get those wacky results and I never get too much traffic (which I prefer; who blogs daily, publicly, but cuts herself off from searches?). Sometimes I think I blog now simply because I’m used to it for catharsis. I’m certainly not using for a creative outlet these years.
You are, however! So, again, good on you!
November 22, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Yeah, but if yours was accessible by searching it might lose its “indie cred.”. It’s like a hipster hang out. If you don’t know about it? Psh. Totally uncool.
November 23, 2011 at 5:20 am
Yeah, that’s me! Did you see that “hipster playlist” video by Harvard Sailing Team? Gotta google, it’s on youtube.
November 22, 2011 at 10:17 am
If it makes you happy to know it, you’re one of the bloggers I hate because you are so very funny. There. I said it.
And Brain Rant got left up for so long because the WP staff took a working vacation for, like, 9 days.
November 22, 2011 at 11:15 am
How awesome that I was their digital “closed for holiday” sign.
November 22, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I was so glad it was you that they left up and not some of the lesser FP posts. Yours made me laugh.
November 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Actually, that spicy food one was up for two days. I don’t why so short… Maybe I was just too dangerous to The Man. In any case, I’m glad you happened along then!
November 22, 2011 at 3:30 pm
So you’re saying when mine got featured they were on special “double time” work days? This explains it.
November 22, 2011 at 10:59 am
Congratulations, Byronic Man! I plan on toasting to you this evening. Well, I was going to drink champagne anyway because it’s Tuesday (duh), but never you mind.
I’m so glad I found your blog, and may stop resenting your talent when I too am FP for the second time, which I expect will occur as soon as they straighten out the glitch that has left me un-Freshly Pressed for the last 3 months.
P.S. – I really don’t know how I’m going to concentrate on anything else until I find out why that beach was on fire.
November 22, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Sometimes don’t you want to notify WP and say “this one! Feature this one!” when a post has gone especially well? Then a “nothing to see here, folks” notification other times?
If I can’t track down the real story of the beach, I may just make one up.
November 22, 2011 at 11:18 am
Byron,
Thanks for the shout, albeit sarcastic. I dig your post. It’s like mine exept not miltary, potty-mouthed, angry, confused, and black (with fugly orange highlights that can’t be modified).
Come over. I have thumbscrews and beer for you; we can work on your next FP selection.
November 22, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Oh, not sarcastic… Just petty jealousy.
November 22, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Congratulations on your first year anniversary! As usual, your post had me laughing throughout, (and that’s a rare thing, usually I only laugh once at the end of a post.)
May I suggest for your next post a story about a spicy dentist.
November 22, 2011 at 3:21 pm
That’s a very efficient use of your laughter. Well done. And a dentist using, like, a wasabi rinse sounds nightmarish. But I’ll see what I can do.
November 22, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Happy Anniversary! You are definitely one of the bloggers whose talent I envy. If I make it to one year I will be ecstatic. Congrats!
November 22, 2011 at 3:34 pm
It was definitely touch and go at times, but the great thing about a blog is you can delude yourself that if you quit your readers wouldbe crushed.
November 22, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Serendipity- I included you and your sardonicness as I pay forward the Versatile Bloggers Award. Though I have rationalized you must have already been named, I could not complete this list without naming you. I think the Nemisis post strikes a chord with so many because on some level we all grow up either wanting to be either James Bond (ok, I reeeeally wanted Wonder Woman’s cool bullet-refracting cuffs) or Dr. Evil.
http://nonstepmom.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/versatile-bad-blogger-bad/
November 22, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Feliz primero ano!
November 23, 2011 at 7:57 am
Happy Anniversary!
Thanks for the balloons and cake! I’m so happy to be one of your hoards.
(no, no, no, read that again . . . hoarDs! Geez, people)
November 23, 2011 at 9:34 am
Happy Blog-anniversary and keep it up!
November 23, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Ha – right on. Congrats on your blogiversary! Totes agree with the Google searches. I wrote a story about raccoon domination a while back and am contiually surprised at the amount of people searching for information about the terrors. Also cucumbers. Did I say surprised? I mean scared.
November 25, 2011 at 9:15 am
The terrors of cucumbers? Or just cucumbers in general? Or, worst of all, “raccoons wielding cucumbers”?
November 23, 2011 at 7:05 pm
#5 and #8 are my favorite as well. My search terms aren’t half as awesome as most of those I read in other folks’ blogs, but half-as-awesome still leaves a pretty respectable degree of awesome.
November 26, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Congratulations on your year! And thank you for #3, since I just saw how many followers you and The Good Greatsby have and wanted to crawl under my desk and just pretend I’d never written a blog in my life, ever. What blog? Who blogs? But I’m glad some people do. Here’s to another year!
November 27, 2011 at 7:55 am
I sometimes have to pretend that Good Greatsby doesn’t exist. Or that his site stats are riddled with typos. I’m a petty, petty person.
November 27, 2011 at 6:31 am
Congratulations! I am one of the bloggers who hate you a little sometimes. But I keep coming back.
November 27, 2011 at 7:58 am
Well, that was my goal at the outset – readers who hate me.
By the way, I love your avatar/hovercard picture. It’s so perfect for your blog.