The first stage of grief, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously postulated, is denial.
So it’s hardly surprising that Paul Elam and his gang of flunkies and fans at A Voice for Men have responded to the news that my site is besting AVFM in traffic by trying to claim that my traffic is somehow … fake.
Elam’s “evidence” for this assertion? He poked around my site for a few minutes and couldn’t find any posts that felt really “viral” to him.
He explained his, er, logic in a post yesterday. (You’ll have to excuse his terrible prose; he’s apparently running out of ways to call me fat.)
The gynecomastia plagued mammoth hunter’s sudden, meteoric rise into alleged relevance can only be explained by one thing. There must have been a stratospherically viral article (usually meaning more than two paragraphs) penned by the Wizard of Wallow that must have been picked up by every major media outlet in the mainstream.
Trouble is, we could not find it. A complete search of his website for something that coincided with his liftoff into the upper echelons of Alexa rankings, only turned up more of his usual fare. Quote mining, distortions, lies, poorly written snark and hundreds of comments, most of which have nothing to do with the OP and everything to do with kittens.
I’m not sure how one is supposed to be able to tell how much traffic a post has generated just by looking at it; it’s a bit like trying to tell how fast a car can go by looking at it parked.
But using some methodology of his own, apparently based not so much on what is true as on what he desperately wants to be true, he concludes that I bought the traffic using some of that sweet sweet cash I apparently get from the Femilluminati overladies.
So, that leaves us with only one other conclusion about David’s strut-worthy presence on Alexa. He paid for it. Yes, for those who cannot create real traffic, it can be purchased. Of course, purchasing a fake Alexa ranking is, well, fake. But what better tool for web presence could there ever be for a fake writer, with fake ideas waging a fake war against fake enemies for the approval of fake allies?
Also, I’m a big fan of fried chicken. (How did he know?)
A fake Alexa ranking fits on David Futrelle like a day old bucket of fried chicken fits in his lap . And it will probably last about as long given it requires regular financial maintenance.
Elam’s preoccupation with Alexa is a little weird. I didn’t even mention Alexa in my post comparing my traffic to his. Alexa’s numbers for my site and his are based on estimates — extimates that I’m pretty sure are something less-than-reliable, at least when it comes to my site.
No, the reason I know that I’m getting more traffic than A Voice for Men – or at least that I was getting more when I wrote my post on the subject – has nothing to do with Alexa rankings. It’s because Elam posted a screenshot of his actual traffic stats. Which I was able to compare to the traffic stats I get directly from WordPress. (You can see my screenshot and his in my post om the subject.)
The closest thing to “evidence” Elam has to back up his false accusation that my traffic is “fake” is based on something called Google PageRank, a zero-to-ten ranking that provides at least a rough representation of a site’s importance in the internet world. (Zero is totally obscure; ten means you’re as popular as Google.) Unfortunately, Elam’s internet research skills leave something to be desired, and his “evidence” isn’t actually evidence of anything real.
Elam reports that when he typed his site’s url into a site that tracks PageRank it got a rating of 5. He typed WeHuntedTheMammoth.com into the same page and it gets a PageRank of … zero.
Which would be pretty damning, except that it’s meaningless.
You see, the real URL for this blog is manboobz.wordpress.com; that’s the URL that WeHuntedTheMammoth.com redirects you to. And if you type manboobz.wordpress.com into that same PageRank site that Elam used, you’ll see that my site has a Google PageRank of … 4, pretty close to that of AVFM.
Seriously, Paul, try it yourself if you don’t believe me.
So, no, Paul, I didn’t buy traffic or whatever it is you think I did to get “fake” traffic for my “fake” writing.
You want to know the real secret behind the increased traffic to my site? Well. I don’t know if you realized it, Paul, but last year was kind of a breakout year for online misogyny. You remember that whole GamerGate thing? I wrote a lot about that, including a number of posts that collected together a lot of information that other people found useful.
If you look at my most-read posts from the past year – here, here and here – you can see that a lot of people did in fact find them useful: each one was shared on Twitter and Facebook literally thousands of times, as you can see by scrolling down to the bottom of each post. (Or did I fake those too?)
Also, I started writing more than one post a day. All else being equal, more posts means more traffic.
The flipside is that all this misogyny and all this writing kind of burned me out, and I’ve been taking a bit of a breather for the last few weeks, writing fewer posts and taking some days off. So my traffic has slowed a bit. Heck, my traffic may have dropped back down to AVFM levels.
But I’m not worried, Paul. As long as terrible and ridiculous people like you keep saying and doing terrible, ridiculous things, I’m not going to run out of things to write about. And as long as people are interested in hearing about people like you, it seems likely that I’ll continue to get enough traffic to reduce you to tooth-grinding rage.
I can only hope you’re able to work y0ur way through the other stages of grief until you finally reach acceptance. Because right now your desperation is so obvious it can probably be seen from space. It’s not a good look for you.
Aw! Such a sweet baby.
Cupisnique
So sorry for your loss, hugs if you want them.
Cupisnique, I hope that you can track down her relatives.
I’m uploading more videos right now to my youtube of her if anyone is interested. There are some really precious moments.
Oh, she’s so beautiful!
Yes please, I would like to see more videos of her.
(Crying? Me? Don’t know what you mean.)
Sorry for your loss, cupisnique. She looks adorable.
My brother went to live in Florida for a few months some years back, and came home with … four? four cats in tow.
The eldest passed a few weeks after moving in with my parents, while I was visiting actually. It was sad, but what broke my heart was when my mom patted the poor old boy’s body tucked into his cardboard box, under a scrap of cloth for a blanket. For some reason, that broke me down and I bawled like anything.
Reblogged this on daerosdaimeyez.
cupinesque, hugs if you want them. I am so sorry for your loss.
Thanks for all the hugs! I’m glad other people get to appreciate her beautiful spirit, thanks for letting me share.
Props to your brother, Falconer. That is major cat-adoption.
Ave Cassie & gilshalos as it so happens I have not even a single year of latin under my belt but i’ve been using this for awhile: http://www.memrise.com/course/53569/hacking-latin/
although i’m a little concerned that it will not teach me declenation very well, perhaps as students of latin you might be of assistance for getting down the word endings and figuring out how easily learn the Verb stem endings and tell things apart so i can figure out how to tell them apart without screwing that up?
I’ve been using it largely because it will make French and other romance languages much easier.
But I have to admit for all the lovecraftian cthulhu references here the idea of speaking a “Dead” language is exciting in a way because it’s like we’re lingual necromancers in training!
additionally even though english is my first language my command on it in written form is less than perfect. Oh if you heard me speak outloud you’d know I was literate but my Grammar and Spelling sometimes betray me or the opportunist who don’t want to deal with my arguments will typically target them to deflect instead of using their inate error correction abilities and addressing the substance rather than the tone of my responses to them. It happens to me far too often But my understanding is that learning latin will make you better at English.
i’ve -always- lived with cats BTW. I’ve got more years -with- cats than without by a long shot. For about 3 years there was a “space” due to rental fees. I’m very hit or miss with my feline furry friends, some cats adore me and I adore them but some irritate me. I’m just inconsistent dae. I love cats in general too much though which is why the ones that don’t like me don’t get along with me because I just can’t help myself whenever i see em., My furry friends are teaching me impulse control because everytime I see the cute it’s just like BAWWW I HAVE TO PET C’MERE LET ME LOVE YOU!!!! and some cats will put up with that but others will learn to avoid you like plague. Thus I’ve known some hyperaffectionate furries who were my bread and butter for awhile but I’ve known more than a few to be weary of me. So I’e had to learn with the latest one that isn’t so affectionate (our little one) to resist my urge to pick her up and pet her and when I do to let her her down quickly it ‘s sooo hard though. Wahhh… i don’t write about my cats often though because i’m usually so into what i’m doing I have other political stuff to write about that i just ignore them. The little one’s almost destroyed my blinds in my room because she likes the window and to bird watch and i mean I get it but my blinds….. my blinds…..
i got a big black one with white paws and a white belly though that just -wandered- into our place sniffing about a year ago a bit clearly overweight , lazy but extremely tolerant and accepting. You can’t pick him up comfortably or sit em on your lap but he never seems to mind being touched ever even when he does if you just are presistant he’ll be be sort of miffed at first but then eventually roll over and take whatever you can dish out for as long as you want because he just started to enjoy it too much. He’s a boy, the little kittens a short furred girl., so i hve a big fluffy black one and a short furred little one that is so frisky and jumpy she almost never wants attention
The big black one though came in and I was on my computer ironically reading an occult book so i’ve always jokingly called the cat my Familiar. especially because he’s Big and black. Speaking of Black cats tend to get discriminated against and not adopted, I don’t know as much if that extends to multi colored ones but i guess we simply seemed to jive with his energy and so he sleeps around our place all the time and soaks up all the love.
he’s not the most affectionate cat I’ve ever known but he’s the chillest i’ve ever known. I mean nothing bothers him. It’s remarkable. he seems to simply be well adjusted as a feline. to people.
they sometimes annoy me when i almost trip over them because our apartment is kind of narrow and they tend to idle in confined spaces but I love my cat even though you can sometimes see me get sort of irritated at them and be like MOVE!!! i just want a soda…wahhhh!!!….
they called the black one Tux and the little one Jumper. funny thing is i mmediately thought of the third eye blind song when she told me what she’d named her.
i should take photos some time. I don’t catblog often though because I got other stuff on my mind so … rare treat.
I lost a few in my time. We lost one when we were moving from portland to phoenix It just broke free and ran off at a restaraunt stop.
but yeah my feline friends are good for me because they’re teaching me more impulse restraint.
which needless to say is kind of important if your of xy chromosomes… which I am. through no fault of my own.. but I scarely identify as male anymore because this era of the MRA have exasperated my alienation from other men.
long post is long though. Cat Cat cat cat.
cupisnique i’m sorry for your loss, it sounds like we’ve both had to travel with Felines too at some point,.
If i can ever find a good camera phone and stuff I’d be happy to post some pics of the two we have currently.
I’m sorry for your loss, Cupisnique. The death of a beloved pet is always hard to cope with.
Hugs if you need them. Blessings if you want them.
I uploaded a buuuuuuunch of videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ezfCuQilyuD55NcwSdAkg
Too soon to be any consolation looking at them, but I’m glad you’ve all those photos of your darling girl, cupisnique.
Photos? Videos. Duh.
cupisnique, I’m really sorry for your loss. It’s always hard to lose a pet, and especially so suddenly and young.
Silly cats, worming their way into our hearts. *sniffles*
Very sorry for your loss, Cupisnique. I just had my first health worry with Cassie, a viral respiratory infection. Vet said she is over it now and everything looks good, but it was an unpleasant reminder that one day I’m going to have to say goodbye to her, and that’s so hard for me to grasp. (This is the first cat I’ve had, so unlike many here I haven’t gone through the grief of it yet.)
@Daeros
Hey, that Hacking Latin thing looks interesting. When I was doing hobbyist Latin, I most used the big Wheelock text books plus a supplemental “Guide to Wheelock’s Latin” (great resource) and other various readers I found for cheap. And you can always go to the Latin Wikipedia http://la.wikipedia.org and practice; it’s very simple Latin and you pick up some good vocabulary.
@kittehserf
Good to be back. I was away because of the usual: life and work and stuff. I was writing a new novel and just got consumed, and then the holidays, etc. And I’m gearing up to write a new book soon, so I may get swamped once more.
@Woody
Claude suam oram, Woody.
Cassie’s Major Domo – life and such are just rude, the way they interrupt our WHTM time.
Glad your Cassie is over her respiratory infection. Those things can be nasty.
New book? Fiction? Non-fiction?
Did anyone else use the Ecce Romani textbooks as a child? I both bless and curse whoever thought that naming one of the main recurring characters in a textbook aimed at tweeners Sextus was a good idea.
Cupisnique, I am so, so, so sorry for your loss.
Loosing kitties is hard, especially young ones.
Amo, Amas
by John O’Keefe
Amo, Amas, I love a lass
As a cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip’s grace is her nominative case,
And she’s of the feminine gender.
Rorum, Corum, sunt divorum,
Harum, Scarum divo;
Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig and hat-band
Hic hoc horum genitivo.
Can I decline a Nymph divine?
Her voice as a flute is dulcis.
Her oculus bright, her manus white,
And soft, when I tacto, her pulse is.
Rorum, Corum, sunt divorum,
Harum, Scarum divo;
Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig and hat-band
Hic hoc horum genitivo.
Oh, how bella my puella,
I’ll kiss secula seculorum.
If I’ve luck, sir, she’s my uxor,
O dies benedictorum.
Rorum, Corum, sunt divorum,
Harum, Scarum divo;
Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig and hat-band
Hic hoc horum genitivo.
*cough* Latin declensions poetic lover style
I do still have somewhere a print out of a Magic Roundabout script in Latin (Circus Mirabilis)
It’s fiction. I mostly write fantasy and “weird” SF. Right now I’m working on a fantasy piece dealing with a period similar to 6th century Italy after the Lombard invasion. But it’s a fictional version of it, so it’s historical fantasy in which I get to lie a bunch more about the history part.