I Wanna Marry My Stalker
Fully evolved humans come fully-equipped with a cheater detection mechanism. One that will sharpen their eye to liars and con artists. One that will allow them to avoid other humans, who when the dust settles, will only bring them down.
For those of us less evolved humans, the wonders of technology level our playing field. For some this means Facebook stalking. For others, Twitter updates. For me, StatCounter. When I first entered the blog world, I was apprehensive about divulging my deepest thoughts and emotions on the World Wide Web. I sent the link to only a select group of individuals with whom I felt comfortable. With whom I would have shared my deepest thoughts and emotions in person.
Gradually, I summoned the courage to open up to the greater public. And then, I became curious. Viral marketing is an uncontrollable phenomenon...and I rapidly was out of my own loop. With whom was I sharing these dark secrets? Who was reading my blog?
I signed up for the most basic (and free) membership of a stat counter. I could view the number of people who viewed my blog each day. But like most people, I got greedy.
Soon I found myself paying hundreds of dollars for a platinum membership. I wasn't just seeing number of views per day. I was tracking time spent on the page, mouse clicks, I.P. addresses, locations, satellite street views of the location, and by extension, full names.
More repulsive to me than my own mania was the fact that some of my closest friends, self-proclaimed fans, were lying to me. Spending 13 seconds on the page when, last I checked, even the most advanced speed reading courses couldn't accomplish such skill. Others were reading my inferior alterblog, abridgedro.blogspot.com (feel free to check it out). Some were having their cronies give them highlights and others had not been to my blog in months...or ever. In the end, what had originally started out as my own little experiment had taken a miserable turn for the worse.
While I appreciate the superficial support, I would hope for us to be close enough that you could, as someone dear to my heart likes to retort, "say it to my face," if you don't have the time or interest in reading. I would not feel offended or hurt. Nothing like a lie to slap you in the face.
It isn't an experiment without surprising results and a clinching conclusion. I'm skipping the discussion on this one. Do it for yourself, because chances are that if you're doing it for someone else, you're doing it for nobody.
[My idea of a prank. If you believed it well...you're an April Fool! I don't have the capacity nor do I attempt to go to such great lengths to see who reads my blog. Click on the link in this entry for more fun.]
For those of us less evolved humans, the wonders of technology level our playing field. For some this means Facebook stalking. For others, Twitter updates. For me, StatCounter. When I first entered the blog world, I was apprehensive about divulging my deepest thoughts and emotions on the World Wide Web. I sent the link to only a select group of individuals with whom I felt comfortable. With whom I would have shared my deepest thoughts and emotions in person.
Gradually, I summoned the courage to open up to the greater public. And then, I became curious. Viral marketing is an uncontrollable phenomenon...and I rapidly was out of my own loop. With whom was I sharing these dark secrets? Who was reading my blog?
I signed up for the most basic (and free) membership of a stat counter. I could view the number of people who viewed my blog each day. But like most people, I got greedy.
Soon I found myself paying hundreds of dollars for a platinum membership. I wasn't just seeing number of views per day. I was tracking time spent on the page, mouse clicks, I.P. addresses, locations, satellite street views of the location, and by extension, full names.
More repulsive to me than my own mania was the fact that some of my closest friends, self-proclaimed fans, were lying to me. Spending 13 seconds on the page when, last I checked, even the most advanced speed reading courses couldn't accomplish such skill. Others were reading my inferior alterblog, abridgedro.blogspot.com (feel free to check it out). Some were having their cronies give them highlights and others had not been to my blog in months...or ever. In the end, what had originally started out as my own little experiment had taken a miserable turn for the worse.
While I appreciate the superficial support, I would hope for us to be close enough that you could, as someone dear to my heart likes to retort, "say it to my face," if you don't have the time or interest in reading. I would not feel offended or hurt. Nothing like a lie to slap you in the face.
It isn't an experiment without surprising results and a clinching conclusion. I'm skipping the discussion on this one. Do it for yourself, because chances are that if you're doing it for someone else, you're doing it for nobody.
[My idea of a prank. If you believed it well...you're an April Fool! I don't have the capacity nor do I attempt to go to such great lengths to see who reads my blog. Click on the link in this entry for more fun.]
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