Universal pattern

As GetReligion prepares to close down after 20 years of writing, it’s featuring some memoirs by frequent writers or founders.

Cofounder Doug LeBlanc hits a resonant chord here:

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I note with amusement that most of my favorite posts attracted zero likes, and a few fiery dissents.

That was a sign of things to come. I found, across the years, that the posts that I liked best or represented the most work met either with silence or hostility. Perhaps the obvious response to that trend was not to become emotionally invested in any posts, or to work less on them — to simply note some basic facts and move on.

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This is a nearly universal experience. I caught it first when I was teaching at DeVry. On the days when I had prepared carefully and presented what I thought was an excellent lecture with excellent drawings, the students were bored and lost. On the days when I was sleepless and unprepared, just ‘phoning it in’, the students were engaged and learning.

Now I see the same thing with my tech history pieces here, which are a continuation of those well-prepared and carefully crafted lectures. Nobody ever reads them. Silly spontaneous meaningless crap gets some attention. This pattern is perfectly consistent since 2005.

I don’t think there’s a proper explanation for this inversion. Rob Long at the Ankler has a name for it, but doesn’t seem to know the reason.