I don’t give a rat’s ass about traffic, but I care a great deal about being as big as we are.
It looks like those new Technorati numbers are going to hold, and that particular screenshot sings to me. We’re not as big as the real estate porn blogs or the bubble blogs or the investor blogs, but we are far and away the biggest of the category I call the RE.net, the real estate industry weblogs.
My delight is not a matter of traffic or links, that’s just so much shoes on the carpet. What matters to me is not where we are but, rather, how we got here.
In email today a friend of BloodhoundBlog said:
I love it that you’ve done this, but I love it most because you’ve done it without the Twitterati, despite people making public pronouncements that they are boycotting BHB, by bowing to no one, by keeping your own counsel.
And that’s exactly right. I don’t care if nobody is listening, so long as we’re doing this work our way.
But consider: Hardly anybody bothers me, these days, with bad advice on what and how to write or how to manage this weblog, but this used to be a common thing. But we are what we are despite all that bad advice.
I know there are a certain number of people reading here — even if they have insisted publicly that they don’t — who don’t understand what we are doing at all. There are a small few who understand all too well — and it drives them completely crazy. Another small few get it and love it and catch every delightful little nuance of the theater of the thing. But the ninety-and-nine — and I never forget the ninety-and-nine — are here for their own reasons, and a healthy self-interest is the perfect expression of the unchained ideal.
I know that you are confronted all the time with what I consider to be horribly bad advice — kiss up, kiss ass, bend, yield, compromise, to get along you’ve got to go along. Of all the many things we can do at BloodhoundBlog, perhaps the most significant is that we can serve as a living, breathing counter-example to all of that swill.
We bend to no one. We bow to no one. We take shit from no one. But we’re the best. And because we’re the best, we’re the biggest.
If that little victory dance irritates you, I’m genuinely sorry for you. I wish you had better values. It is delights you, I love your spirit and I want to do everything I can to help you cultivate it. And if your impulse is to say, “Cut the crap and let’s get back to business” — you’re my kind of hard-working dog…
Chris Johnson says:
Milton Friedman was the best example of pursuing an ideal while retaining congeniality. I myself don’t have the poise (and, I’m almost certainly not a genius) to operate like MF did.
So, we can say, “hey, that’s a shitty idea, and that’s going to hurt people,” calling as much attention as possible to the problem with the idea.
I am offended at my core when someone gives shitty advice to a person that is saying “fuck you” to being a kept citizen. That is a far worse outcome.
September 16, 2008 — 11:16 pm
Vance Shutes says:
Greg,
>”…catch every delightful little nuance of the theater of the thing.”
So true. You have to read both the lines and between the lines to really capture the essence of BHB. Those of us who’ve been reading for a while even look for this theatre.
>”We bow to no one.”
A fabulous line from Lord of the Rings.
See what I mean? Reading between the lines!
September 17, 2008 — 3:53 am
Teri Lussier says:
>We bend to no one. We bow to no one. We take shit from no one. But we’re the best.
Go figure. 😉
September 17, 2008 — 5:39 am
Greg Swann says:
> A fabulous line from Lord of the Rings.
I hadn’t even thought about literary allusions, but I deserve no credit for Lord of the Rings. I’ve never read it.
Here’s one of my faves, though, from a comment:
Can you name that tune?
September 17, 2008 — 6:59 am
Thomas Johnson says:
Greg: There is no doubt that your writing and this blog is a labor of love, to which Othello was referring.
September 17, 2008 — 8:18 am
Greg Swann says:
>> this makes me write wisely but not too well
> this blog is a labor of love, to which Othello was referring.
Bravo! I do that stuff for my own amusement, so I’m delighted not to be alone in it.
Just beautiful writing.
September 17, 2008 — 9:35 am
Jay Thompson says:
Have you had a chance to look and see if the folks on the Matrix blogroll all got a pop? (I have not)
Regardless of that, or the inherent quirkiness of Technorati, you and the BHB contributors are to be commended. While I may not always agree with every message (hell, I don’t agree with anyone all the time — sometimes I argue with myself…) there’s no question you do it your way. I’d say don’t stop, but you clearly don’t need anyone telling you that.
This blogging thing isn’t easy. 1350ish links is a testament. Congrats.
September 17, 2008 — 6:23 pm
Thomas Hall says:
Do you mean to tell me I can use the “F” bomb?
September 17, 2008 — 7:36 pm
Greg Swann says:
> This blogging thing isn’t easy. 1350ish links is a testament. Congrats.
Bless you, sir. Thank you. Congratulations to you, too, on all your achievements.
September 17, 2008 — 8:05 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Do you mean to tell me I can use the “F” bomb?
You know you can. Chris Johnson did it last night in a comment to this post.
For the benefit of inlookers, here all the rules with which new contributors to BloodhoundBlog are admonished:
I’m told that contributors to other group weblogs are more tightly constrained, but, as you can probably guess, I hate rules, laws, strictures, prohibitions, et infinitely cetera. I trust good people to behave wisely and well and they do.
September 17, 2008 — 8:14 pm