I'm flummoxed as to whether the most recent anonymous comment on my last post is a response to my response to the first anonymous comment, or perhaps a different "anonymous" entirely. It's funny to me that there are so many covert knitters, flying under the radar and unwilling to divulge their true identities. It brings outrageous pictures to my mind, pictures of women in trenchcoats with hats pulled down low over their faces knitting in the shadows and skulking along dark alleys with their yarn hidden in briefcases.
For the past two days, my top twenty natural search entry terms for this blog have related to the Yarn Harlot and the recent controversy I referenced in my last post.
This isn't traffic I want, have any use for, or expect to retain. It's more of a social experiment, and one that's yielding depressing results. Only one visitor--or two, depending upon whether we have one anonymous or two--has commented, but dozens of people have gone searching for phrases like "Yarn Harlot controversy". And then, you know, been indignant that I don't have knitting news to offer when they arrive.
Because, of course, everyone who clicks on a link titled: Stephanie Pearl McPhee is Overrated - My Mean Post about the Yarn Harlot" is looking for knitting news. Just read the comments to my last post; you'll see.
For what it's worth, I don't think anyone made a mean post about Stephanie Pearl McPhee. As I mentioned earlier, I know very little about her, and I don't have the slightest interest in knitting. But I do know that she's a best-selling author, and that even before the "controversy" some of her blog posts were getting hundreds of comments a day. I strongly suspect that she's in a position to roundly ignore anyone making mean posts about her, and that her reprimand was in fact intended for someone who wrote a "mean post" about someone else in the knitting community, someone perhaps less well established and more vulnerable. Just a guess, but I suspect that all those "Stephanie Pearl McPhee is overrated" and "Yarn Harlot bad mother" and "mean post about Yarn Harlot" searches aren't going to find you what you're looking for. Just a thought.
I'm looking forward to this traffic dying down. I want to think this kind of thing blows over quickly. I want to think we all have more important things to worry about. If you're really looking for "knitting news", check this out: Real Knitting News.
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this and then for linking to me. I have to say, I've been so enamored of the knitting community because of the amazing on-line generosity of knitters. I am a novice knitter but I have been embraced by many in the knitting community, and I've had a lot of help getting started. This latest hiccup in the knitting world, while not unusual and not worthy of the notice it got, has definitely saddened me. Does everything have to end up with people searching for dirt?
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