Blog Anniversary, The Second
nekosasu | January 19, 2009 | 8:09 am
Because one can’t get enough sweets.
Neko’s Thinkbox is turning two years old, and for this special occasion, I will conduct an interview with the creator and spiritual leader of this blog, natsuneko.
Wasshoi! Wasshoi! \o\ \o/ /o/
Hello natsuneko, and first off: congratulations on your blog’s second birthday! What an exciting moment this must be for you!
Yes, thank you very much! It’s a very special day for me and this blog, and for all the excited readers too!
So, it’s been about two years since you started this venting space on animeblogger. All this time, you must have had your ups and downs like any other successful blog as well.
Indeed, it has not always been an easy journey. My beginnings were quite humble, but soon became marked with spite and jealousy, because I truly believed that my deep, journalistic insight of the past would attract curiosity and attention in this very competitive blogosphere – not so. Standing in the shadow of the big aniblogomerates, I was shunned for being a Rookie, and for reflecting superficial thoughts and analyses in my episodic summaries. My, what a greenhorn I used to be! (laughter) Valuing comments over hits, no way my desire for recognition would ever be soothed!
It triggered a certain procrastinating feeling inside of me: I started neglecting my blog, and immediately lost the few regular readers and commentators I used to have, which was even further demotivating. I kept attempting spectacular comebacks, which resulted in massive activity spikes, but failed horribly. It became some sort of a vicious cycle, you know? And the ensuing frustration was vented onto my highly demanded Twitter account.
…but you didn’t want them.
Yes, we all remember that. At that time, you were even considering to quit this submarginal blogging business.
That is true. This lack of feedback from the community was what hurt me the most – I did not know how I could make a real impact. I could have degenerated into a second-rate troll, like every third blogger out there, but that was not – and will never be – my style. Rather than making enemies, I wanted to make friends, to be a little popular, you know. But at this stage, I was close to giving up. I knew a lot of people and blogs who did that, because they could not be distinguished from the masses.
However, I tried a different approach, and tried analyzing where I went wrong. And I soon realized that I had a fatal misconception of the anime blog: instead of being a source of insightful, anime-related reviews, it has become a display of the numerous acquisitions I have made for myself, as well as an emotional, angst-filled compilation of my everyday life. It became too personal, you know? That kind of concept, of mingling philosophic anime reviews with personal life experiences and off-topic details might work on one, two, or even fifty blogs, but the fifty-first one is not appealing anymore – that was this blog.
Nevertheless, after a while, I learnt that not only did I need to provide regular updates and articles, but I also needed to make a lot of friends, commenting a lot on other people’s blogs and start linking their blogs as well, raising awareness about this blog. After all, if you have no friends, nobody will have enough sympathy to read your highly sought-after articles and photographs, right?
Yeah, it wasn’t always easy to fight against my initial lack of popularity. I might have joined the aniblogosphere at the worst possible time, when all the niches were covered and the only way of getting by was to copy other blog’s concepts. But I gained a lot of experience these past two years, and, as you might have figured out, the quality of this blog’s articles improved drastically, which is often reflected by the thousands of hits, and dozens of comments to each of my blog posts. All this positive feedback makes this wonderful hobby even more gratifying.
“I learnt that I needed to make a lot of friends.”
It was definitely an eventful period, yes. So, what posts did you enjoy writing the most, so far?
I particularly enjoyed writing my Baccano! reviews, because they had the one thing that made the difference: a highly professional, chronological timeline that cleared the entire confusion up in that initially trainwreck-ish story up. Too bad the anime wasn’t as popular as my reviews, though! I never got around to involve the three DVD-only episodes, due to this low demand. What a shame, really.
But the period I enjoyed the most was when I discovered ARIA. For once, I could write my heart and soul onto paper, without thinking of the mindful reader who wanted a purely episodical, emotionless, McDonaldlizated review. The incredible feelings that this anime showed me were paramount, and still unsurpassed until today – but matched by my epic ARIA-inspired journey to the real Venice, which I honored with not one, not two, but four (!) lengthy posts with loads of photographs. However, these posts were easily overshadowed by a similar-themed voyage that you can find on my popular friend’s blog Ruki: The Running Blog – as I mentioned above, overused concepts are passé! But I shall definitely not discredit Ruki for his awesome coverage and gorgeous pictures, I am sure his experience was better and more interesting than mine.
Very interesting details. Well, the other question would naturally be, what did you not enjoy so much these past two years?
What I did not like… Hmm, there are not many things. I should perhaps mention the fact that, due to minor trifles, I dropped blogging many old series. I used to think hat I could use the obvious lack of popularity and viewership (and not my motivation as I often claimed) as an excuse to drop series at will. Sadly, I did not consider the bored viewer who, someday in the future, might actually have wanted to read my philosophical analyses about this and that series. Or, making promises I would never keep on this blog. Therefore I apologize to all my fellow readers and myself, mea culpa.
Of course, it would be unfair to blame other people for my absenteeism, and leave a derogatory comment about all those… (koffing) excuse me, charismatic and erudite people, who rightfully kept to themselves and their fantastic, prosperous community, and blissfully ignored this groundbreaking blog that was on the rise. Once again, I am to blame: I was too boring and unoriginal. Mea culpa.
I think that was all I did not like. I must have repressed all the other negative occurrences. (laughter)
Koffing: also coughing; usually signaling some kind of awkward discomfort or mischievous intent.
Haha, I’m with you there. So, of course, now comes the interesting part: please tell us the facts and numbers!
Ah, I had totally forgotten about them! Thanks for asking… err, I’ll ask your name later.
So, in two years of successful blogging, I made 170 blog entries, that’s roughly three posts a week, of which a little less than the half were unfortunately not anime-related.
At this very moment, the exact number of (approved, of course) comments is 597, and the most dedicated commenter is… my humble self! But I mean no irony, not at all – this is only solid proof that I foster a very healthy communication with my dear readers.
The most commented post was the review of the last TV episode of Baccano! with 22 comments.
The least commented posts were too numerous to be presented here, as it would blow the given schedule of this interview.
And now, the most interesting numbers: the hits and views. I shall provide you a screenshot of the SlimStat counter when you will publish this interview, for it will reflect more accurate figures.
Any claims that those figures are inflated by the hordes of spambots and other bots are ridiculous and should be burnt to death.
Darn, still no million hits, eh? You’ll get there soon, I’m sure of it.
I sure hope so! (laughter)
Hell yeah.
Anyway, where does neko’s thinkbox go from here on?
Well, that’s quite a tough question. As my most loyal readers must already have figured out, I will be off to Venice in a couple of weeks to study there at the Universitá Ca’ Foscari. However, since I still haven’t gotten any information from the ESU (the local organization which allocates lodgings in the Venetian area) yet, I cannot tell if I will even have internet access in my room or lodging. Lack of access would be very detrimental to the health of this blog, because it needs regular, um, CPR, if you will, to stay alive. Honestly, only time will tell what is to become of this place, but I fully intend to continue gracing the aniblogosphere with my very important presence, and to keep providing even more interesting litter reviews and useful bullshit information!
We’re already at the end of this fascinating interview. Any final words?
I wanted to particularly thank all the people who have visited my blog in these past two years, and the tens of thousands of people who commented on this blog with their interesting, thoughtful, concerned, encouraging, loving, friendly, and not-so-friendly ideas. Thank you all, your prideful contributions are the driving force of this blog!
Thank you so much natsuneko for this interview, and congratulations once again to this blog’s anniversary! Here’s to another year, cheers!
Another year full of WIN!
Sarcasm and hypocrisy levels, over 9000! And if this isn’t obvious enough, it’s a JOKE! Mazel tov!
…well the blog birthday isn’t, so thanks for reading and commenting, I appreciate it! Really! :)
Wait, so who are you again? lulz
We have probably all had that experience one time or another. We make mistakes and we learned. We’re only human.
That was touching and funny, super lul images hahaha. Aw, well I hope you find time to blog or write stuff, you have a clever and amusing way with things. DON’T DIE!
I also needed to make a lot of friends, commenting a lot on other people’s blogs and start linking their blogs as well, raising awareness about this blog
The issue with this blogosphere is that it’s damn small, and the number of external entrances is not a large number. Sure people come and read anime blogs, but most are already familiar or are bloggers themselves…. brand new readers is not a big growing number I’m afraid… I’ll get some graphs.
@Aizen: I donut know, lol ¯\(°_o)/¯
@RyanA: Well, it’s as I hinted in the post, the small blogs, rogues and renegades die off because they see no point in sharing their ideas and opinions with a community that does not want to read them, because of the low popularity of the blog, or the author him/herself. But that’s obviously stepping into the butthurt attention whore act of the lazy procrastinator who believes that one post a month can drastically change the world.
It’s a fact (as you already had told me before, RyanA) that it’s a closed community, where the opinion pool is saturated with the dozen of huge aniblogomerates (ie. team blogs that get all the attention) out there that covered all of the niches. Kinda hard to stand out as a small/rookie blog, since nobody reads more than five blogs at a time anyway. So it’s the “either die or be facetious in a pretentious whore manner or troll until you’re notoriously (un)popular” manifesto. Also, like in real life, connections and acquaintances help boost awareness a lot. Ah shit, I’m relapsing into hypocritical chatter.
In any way, this blog ain’t gonna die yet, as much ignored as it is, don’t worry. I’ll make sure not to join the hordes of frustrated
martyrsbloggers that quit because of low popularity, and if it annoys everyone, then it makes me even happier. :3Thanks for the compliments, I’m sure all the other important people who read this post without commenting feel the same :D
That’s the spirit, neko!
Sile of Natsu’s Life Blog
Today’s Episode: An Interview with Himself.
Pure Greatness.
I think these personal whatnots make this blog special.
@Will: Special and unwanted, yeah. ;)
Actually, natsuneko called me earlier, and left me an emotional comment that was purely off the record: “Sometimes, I wonder. Why won’t people read my deeply personal articles! The interview you made is still largely ignored, even if I didn’t create it! Is it this blog, or am I that uninteresting? (sobbing)
I really don’t know how to reply to that. ;o; Edit: Sorry natsuneko, but you’re calling me too often now. I’ll put you on ignore for a while, cool down your head, and try your luck next time.
Then again, I understand his pain. I wonder why the few influential brothers, sisters, friends and circle jerks I advertised this funny and hope-filled post to are seemingly taking this post so seriously, because they are not reacting at all. I even wonder if they have taken five minutes of their free time to read it. I mean, okay, it’s not a short post, they need some patience, and unless they don’t have ADHD it should be relatively okay. But it’s not an inconvenient truth, it’s business as usual, so… why so serious? Cheer up, relax, have a laugh, share some fun, and wish this blog well as you do on the other blogs! It’s a day of solidarity and celebration, not of butthurting! After all, the sphere isn’t cruel and biased at all, is it? There natsuneko, I said it for you. :D
Schizophrenia. Pure Greatness. XD
>Sile of Natsu’s Life Blog
*Slice. I fail.
Congrats for surviving yet another year!
I am sure you enjoyed your Venice trip much more than you claimed! Hmm sorry if I made you feel your posts were “overshadowed” but to be honest after reading your posts it made me feel a little ashamed and useless since you managed to cover so many things I didn’t. Great job on the pilgramage!
As for this saturated community business, think we should take it a little more casually. I think you already have enough regular readers on here that you should be proud of, no need to ask for more ^^.
Anyways, good luck with the reaching the 7 digit figure soon! and have fun in Venice. Live Aria! Become an Undine! Make us proud!
Gratzi.
400 hits a day ain’t bad – it’s actually good!
Congrats and may we get more posts about your NDS addiction in the future!
@Will: Me, schizophrenic? No, you must be mistaken. :’(
@Ruki: Haha, as I told you on IRC, I believe natsu just wanted to poke a little fun at the identical concepts, not to make you feel bad about you overshadowing him – in fact, I found yours more interesting but pssst, don’t tell him I said that. Also yes, he doesn’t understand that he has so many people reading his blog. All he cares about is his friends (they aren’t friends, I tell him! they just felt sorry for him at some point) who don’t adulate him like they do each other in the sphere. Sometimes I feel like he’s just a bitter, jealous prick. Wish I could convince him to think differently. ;’(
@X10A: Yeah, it’s more than enough, but natsu (and this time I agree with him) doesn’t care about those, because of the low possibility that numbers could be inflated and manipulated due to various reasons. He has always said that comments (and the topic-related contents thereof) were the only proper measure the quality, popularity, and controversiality of his posts. I’m sure, as much of an asshole he is, he’d give a thousand hits away to anyone who needed them in exchange for a comment. But enough about natsu right now, he annoyed me too much earlier today.
So about my NDS habit… ugh, I wanted to play Etrian Odyssey II but it wouldn’t accept my password – EO 1 was the European release, but EO 2 isn’t released yet, so it’s only the US version… T_T And to play Luminous Arc 2 and/or Rune Factory 2, I’d need to finish playing those….. Which apparently I can’t bring myself to, yet.
Thanks everyone for your attention and your encouraging words! :D
Congrats to two years! \o
You are one of the more directly and deliberately introspective bloggers that I read, and I feel like you wear your feelings on your sleeve when you post. It makes the posts where you’re sad or annoyed/angry harder to take or comment on (since people aren’t usually that willing to be open or passionate without caring about what happens), but it also makes the posts where you’re really happy and pleased that much more fun to read. Just because people don’t comment doesn’t mean that people don’t read your blog, and you know that. I know you’re going to keep going forward with this blog, which is great, but I’d also want to say keep opening up if it feels like it works for you. :3
[...] bookmarks tagged soul coughingMilwaukee, WI Term Life Insurance – Compare Rates Blog Anniversary, The Second saved by 5 others shikamarusforever bookmarked on 01/27/09 | [...]