Christmas came early for me this year. A certain Paul Elam, in an attempt to prove to his donors that his garbage website is more influential than ever, recently posted a screenshot of the traffic stats for A Voice for Men.
By doing so, he inadvertently provided proof that We Hunted the Mammoth is drawing considerably more traffic than his terrible site.
I’ll get to my stats in a second. But first, here’s Paul’s screenshot of AVFM’s traffic:
In his fundraising appeal, Elam declares that “we are gaining steam and momentum.” A post stickied to the front page of his site, meanwhile, informs visitors that “traffic to AVFM has been buzzing for quite a while now.”
Which is a bit weird, because the traffic stats he just posted don’t show that at all. They suggest, rather, that site traffic has basically stalled out at a little less than 800k pageviews a month, down a bit from its peak in June — when AVFM was getting a bit of press attention for its first conference. (The reason the last bar on the graph is so low is that it reflects less than a full month of traffic.)
Thanks for sharing, Paul! Since you were so generous with your stats, let me give you a look at the stats for We Hunted the Mammoth over a similar period.
Make sure to compare the numbers on the left hand side of each pic — and you’ll see that AVFM has yet to come in spitting distance of a million pageviews a month. We Hunted the Mammoth blasted past a million pageviews in October and almost-but-not-quite hit a million last month.
Yep, the story here is that after spending quite a while trailing AVFM, We Hunted the Mammoth really took off this year, and for the past several months has been trouncing AVFM’s traffic. Even though I’ve been taking a bit of a break over the last few weeks — I was pretty burned out — traffic for WHTM could well beat AVFM this month as well.
Then again, maybe Paul’s new cooking column — no, really, he’s already posted the first one — will spice up AVFM’s traffic a little, as it were.
What makes all this even more delicious is that AVFM has more than two dozen names on its masthead. Alongside an assortment of alleged editors and “news directors” from around the world, it boasts both a “Resident Historian” and an “Activism Director.”
It raises, by its own account, more than $100,000 a year to fund its “operations” and pay for the personal expenses of one Paul Elam.
Yet somehow my blog, with a staff of one, is drawing more traffic than the flagship site of the alleged “Men’s Human Rights” movement. I’m happy to see that those who so generously donate money and time and talent to help support We Hunted the Mammoth are getting a lot more bang for the buck than AVFM’s much-abused donors.
The standard line amongst AVFM apologists is that I’m “irrelevant.” If I’m so unimportant, Paul, why are more people reading my website than yours?
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Kirbywrap:
I have a suspicion that all the recipes are gonna look the same: 1. Decide what you would like to eat. 2. Get a woman to make it for you 3. Go your own way. 4. Eat.
‘Cause grocery stores are for women, amiright fellas? And big strong manly men contend with the earth, and grapple it, and pin it, and make it grow arugula with their bulging, sweaty biceps.
twincats, his first recipe will be:
I actually can’t wait. By which I mean I don’t think he will ever post an actual recipe and this whole idea will be quietly forgotten. I hope ferret David keeps us updated!
I was expecting that the cooking column will just boil down to “Eat Ramen + other cheap instant food and send all money to my site”. But he actually did try to talk about cooking.
Shocking that.
Or maybe not. It looks like just another “Thing I know nothing about but will present myself as a expert anyway”.
@daintydougal:
Done and done.
Huh, links broke.
Home-made Chili Powder:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/abs-chili-powder-recipe.html
Braised ribs:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/who-loves-ya-baby-back-recipe.html
Aaaaaaand now I want ribs.
I never got the appeal of ribs. Then again, I prefer poultry and fish to red meat.
I’ll admit it’s a bit of fun in pulling the meat off the bone. It’s the same reason boneless hot wings have nothing but my contempt and disdain.
Also if made right they’re really good, but I’m like 80% carnivorous too so grain of salt.
They seem like more effort than they’re worth to me, like lobster.
As in, if you think Paulie has any, you’ll surely starve. But hey! You’ll at least die as a lean, mean, hatin’ machine.
O RLY? Then where are you gonna get the fixin’s for your homemade chili powder and your baby-back-baby-back-baby-back-baby-back ribs?
Because, you know, I can’t see Paulie doing anything so…effeminate as gardening. And I can’t see his lazy ass hauling slops out to feed the pigs, either. Much less butchering those suckers.
Ewps! Apologies to any goons I may have offended.
Yeah, well, the same goes for sugar, and any other nutrient, too. But it’s the dosage that makes the poison. People have died from drinking too much water, and that’s a fact. Even though water makes up…er…what percentage of our bodies, again?
But hey, Paulie, go right ahead with your Macho Diet-O. I’ll just sit back here and chuckle as the defeminizing recipes come rollin’ on in on feet of lard.
@daintydougal:
Merry Xmas, blockquote monster!
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the AVFM cooking column contains no actual cooking, just rants about how all other cooking columns are part of the Conspiracy and only Paul Elam provides the recipes of free-thinking and going your own way. But come on, that’s still pretty hilarious.
I’ll be spending the next few days prepping an Edwardian Irish spiced beef for my Dead Christmas Dinner, wherein I recreate the holiday dinner from James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.” I’m also going to attempt a caramel custard, which worries me because I’m terrible at getting desserts to set, but it really needs to be on the table for authenticity. I balked at making a real Christmas pudding and am doing a quick chocolate bread pudding instead.
Hopefully by the time I’m done, Elam will have that chili rub recipe up.
Good news, David.
Elam wrote a column saying he was going to ignore you. Then they threw some mud (based on no evidence) and implying obviously stupid things about you. Then they did an “intelligence report” on you (I think?) and recently ludicrously claimed you mocked male suicide attempters and sexual abuse survivors. Then called you a sociopath.
Nope, they’re too important to bother with the likes of you…
Elam did an article about his strategy, which was basically to increase traffic to his site. It was a few years ago and might well have changed, but the entire MRM continues to fail hilariously to do anything except to make itself look awful.
JohntheOther has recently made his feelings about Elam public. JohntheOther is a ridiculous character, but compared to Elam, he is an intellectual. 2015 will be a bad year for avfm.
catmara:
This! THIS!
XD
pendraegon:
I laughed aloud at that. Mine’s prolly in the same condition.
Buttercup:
::looks at hips::
Too late! D:
daintydougal:
Don’t forget that this is part of the official proceedings around whether a candidate for sainthood should be canonised. Regardless of what one thinks of the beliefs involved, it was a process of examination: were the miracles attributed to X to be believed? Could they be explained another way? The whole name “devil’s advocate” is a bit of hyperbole, really.
Also this troll doesn’t even rate as a devil’s advocate, he’s just boring.
Just a thought, but shall we put some posters up, then proclaim imminent victory, then brand ourselves the world’s fastest growing human rights movement?
I used to visit A Voice for Men to catch up on what was going on in the wide world of misogyny. Now I come here instead.
For those curious about what the difference has been: Elliot Rodger’s rampage was in May this year.
Merus, ugh, yes, all the MRAs would have been flocking there to sympathise with that poor poor misandered boy.
::vomits::
Wow, chili powder. He can mix spices together. What a master.
Welp- I’m gonna brag. 365 of those page views per year are me. Opening WHtM is part of my tab set-up routine.
Even if I’m doing something really important, I’m like ‘I’ll just check & see if there is a new post up from David. Oh what, there *is*? X can wait….’
This blog is full of horrormirth…David takes just the right tone with it.
Instead of just being grossed out and appalled, you get the funny absurdity of this stuff.
David, is there any way to find out how many of those are unique visitors to each site? Obviously repeat visitors and comment-section engagement are also important measures of a site’s success, but a detractor might argue that our ability to hit 300+ comments just by talking about our cats (ALL HAIL THE FURRINATI) might be skewing the pageview results a bit 😛