Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Are bad posts good?

There has been a rush of viewing on this blog. One particular post has had more hits than all the others put together this month, a new all time high.

So what is the winning formula?

Was it:
  • the perfect day sail in the Solent on a Volvo 60 with round the world single handed sailor Emma Richards?
  • the unexpected treat of sailing an America's Cup class boat in beautiful Sydney Harbour?
  • or the fictional adventures of a bunch of celebrities attempting to race the Atlantic?
No, the overwhelming favourite is "Worst Ever Race", the confession of an occasional dinghy sailor selecting the wrong sail for the the wind blowing during a sailing resort's regatta.

Not entirely sure why this is - if you have any theories let me know.

A working hypothesis is that while it is said that everyone loves a winner, I think actually everyone would like to be a winner, but would rather not read about how someone else won by being smart and sailing faster and better than everyone else (i.e. them).

You could call it the Homer Simpson effect: his misadventures are more entertaining and endearing than the corporate machinations of Mr Burns. Similarly with favourite sitcoms like Cheers and Seinfeld: I loved both but neither set of characters were really successful.

So to all you race winners out there, all I can say is "Doh!"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have struggled with the same issue myself for the last year. When I first started I wrote like a pseudotravelwriter. BORING!!!! Very worthy and got lots of encouragement but not much reading going on. It was only when I started being a pit more personal or doing things that got others involved that things started happening.

The best quote for me was from Zen was that bloggers do this to share.