End of Year Surge

Normally, at this point in the year, I step away from the keyboard, give myself time to recharge the batteries and leave the readers of RoundSeventeen a hand-curated selection of past hits, such as they were.

But as the picture above indicates, there was nothing normal about 2016.

This was the year we saw the incredible rise of billionaire fascism. A year when we elected to the highest office of the land, and of the world, a pussy-grabbing, immigrant-hating shitgibbon who had never heard of our nation's Nuclear Triad. A bumbling, tweeting dimwit who believes the 2nd amendment is more important than the 1st.  An illiterate rich rich douchebag who is unprecedented in his demonstrable pettiness, misogyny and glory fucking.

And so, in light of this remarkably crappy year, I've decided to give you faithful 8 readers some brand new material. A Post-Christmas gift if you will.

Why you may ask.

Well, as of this morning, web traffic here at R17 corporate headquarters is at an all time high.

For the first time ever, we have had more than 18,000 page hits/views in one single month. With a powerful end of year push and with 5 lazy calendar days when advertising people, and normal people as well, are questioning every damn decision in their lives and looking for some type of comic relief, there is the real possibility of surging past 20,000.

If I'm going to be brutally honest, and rare is the occasion when I'm not, there's a good chance some of the analytics are false.

Two weeks ago there was a report of a Russian methbot, a robotic software program that purposefully pumped up the artificial statistics of blogs and websites across the world. This was a malicious attempt to skew numbers and throw corporate accountants into a hissy fit.

I noticed several unwarranted spikes on my web charts. And these were on days when the posts were not particularly funny or well written. Why, for instance, would 1329 Moscovites want to read one of my perpetual rants about witless planners and unproductive open office spaces?

Authenticity notwithstanding, I'll take the inflated numbers.

Because frankly, that's how pathetic lifelong advertising copywriters can get. Our need for self validation knows no bounds.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but for many years the mantle above our fireplace was permanently festooned with a cheap array of Telly awards, LuLu awards, and several framed Belding Certficates, including an Honorable Mention for Best FSI, Automotive Retail, Four Color, Budget under 10K.

My hope for 2017?

That we can hit the 20,000 per month mark every month. If they're human great. If they're Russian methbots, well, I'll take that too.