Over the last few years, I’ve changed my relationship to my blog. Whereas I once saw it as something public which I often sought to promote through social media, I now see it as something quasi-private which I make no effort to promote. Other than the recent Bluesky post, I can’t remember the last time I shared a link to something on here on social media. It’s something I only do if I have an extremely specific reason for doing it. For the most part I genuinely forget that people actually read it. It’s odd therefore that the traffic has continually grown during this time. What was once an exceptionally busy day on my blog is now a typical day:
In part this is the long tail of 5000+ posts over 13 years which means people continually stumble across old stuff which I have often forgot about. The batman absurdity has also played a large role. But I was suddenly struck by a sense of it being slightly disconcerting that 12k+ visitors are viewing 16k fringe thoughts of mine each month. The page per view rate is relatively low for a blog, lending support to my thesis that this is mostly people stumbling across the long tail. It’s odd to suddenly stop and reflect on this nonetheless. I’ve continuously thought out loud on this blog for pretty much my entire research career (from the third year of my part-time PhD onwards) and it’s a remarkably comprehensive record of my intellectual and professional development. I’m torn between thinking there’s an inherent value in that longevity and actually finding it unsettling, as if there’s a window into my brain entangled into the knowledge system in a way which I can’t now unwind without causing myself serious damage.
Mark Carrigan 