Robert Stacy McCain explains it all.
It's an interesting read and makes a blogger stop and reflect on what she does and could do better. I'm not McCain, and I'm not sure how many of his rules for success I could ever make myself follow. For example, believe it or not, I'm notorious for hiding my light under a bushel IRL and have a real problem begging for linkage. This isn't to say I have a problem with others begging for linkage, and it obviously works! But I'd say that part of the reason I've got 46k hits in 2+ years is that I've never networked enough, asked for enough linkage or succumbed to posting bikini pics. Oh, and I take myself too seriously, but that probably comes from being overly focused on politics, which makes a person both harsh and cynical. And maybe puckered.
What I found most interesting on McCain's list of things to do to get 1,000,000 hits was about feminists:
Feminism sucks -- You can never go wrong in the blogosphere by having a laugh at the expense of feminists. All sane people hate feminism, and no one hates feminism more than smart, successful, independent women who've made it on their own without all that idiotic "Sisterhood Is Powerful" groupthink crap.
Occasionally, I (and I've seen this happen to Dana at Common Sense Political Thought) get asked why I spend so much time bashing Amanda Marcotte, a pasttime that, no doubt, led to my eventual banning. The reason is that shrill people like Amanda are made for lampooning because their positions on women (no double entendre intended there!) are so completely contradictory. On the one hand, they want the world to treat women as competent, independent beings who can not only make all major life decisions for themselves but who have a God-given right to determine which human beings get to make it to birth. On the other hand, women are clearly not competent and independent enough to deal with ultrasound pictures of the beings they are making life and death decisions for, or in finding pharmacists who will dispense their birth control pills.
If you couple that silliness with the typical Pam Spaulding post drooling over her dogs the way married people dote on their children, it's no wonder we like mocking Amanda and the Pandagonistas at every turn. After all, this was the blog with the famous "abortion is just a 20-minute procedure" comment.
I'll admit that the Amanda well has probably run dry and it's time to find other feminist bloggers to satirize. I've heard Feministing and Feministe are good for some giggles, so I may have to check them out.
I suppose this is my post where I say I'm re-evaluating my blog habits of late and considering revamping my blogging style a bit. Call it the equivalent of getting a new haircut, going on a diet, getting on an exercise routine.
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