Top Ten Posts on Man vs. Bear in 2013

Last year, when accurate visitor data was still a shiny new concept around these parts, I went and looked at the posts that had achieved the most visitors over 2012. It proved to be an interesting exercise, so this year I’m expanding it to look at the top ten.

In order of visits, the most popular parts of the archive were:

1. Why I Have Problems with the Big Bang Theory

2. 13 Things Learned About Superhero Games After Running 30 Sessions of Mutants and Masterminds

3. Why Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ Can Be Dangerous to New Writers

4. What Writers Ought to Know About Die Hard, Part Two

5. What Writers Oughtt to Know About Die Hard, Part One

6. Seven Notes on a Lover’s Discourse While Halfway Through the Book

7. Sri Lankan Love Cake FTW

8. 10 Thoughts on Shame and Writing

9. Running a Villain Audit

10. GenreCon 2013: The Aftermath

It’s interesting to note that both the first two spots are consistent with last year, but not a huge surprise. For one thing, a crazy amount of traffic comes to this site following searches for Big Bang Theory and related terms. For another thing, the post about superhero gaming got a lot of eyeballs when it first got posted, and people still link to it occasionally (we’re coming up on the 60th session of our Mutants and Masterminds campaign in a few weeks, which probably means I’ll do another post in this line to celebrate it).

The weird part about doing this is seeing exactly what it is that gains traction. The Die Hard posts I pretty much expected to get a bunch of links, and they did, even though I ended up getting distracted by other things halfway through the series (part three is still waiting for me to go and re-watch the film so I can enter time codes); the response to the Steven King rant wasn’t entirely unexpected either, but seeing the Writing and Shame post on the list is a pleasant surprise given that I went back-and-forth on both writing and posting that one.

Number 7 is just a reminder that I owe the internet a long overdue dance video. I’ve got no excuse for this one, beyond 2013 being way busier than expected and my original plan for recording things wasn’t altogether feasible. I think my coworkers have set up plans to ensure that it happens over the coming weeks, which will mean we can get a slightly better quality video of my embarrassment due to their superior equipment.

And with that, it’s time to start looking forward, and thinking about what I’ll be blogging about in 2014.