Heck Of A Guy 2006: Through The RetroIntrospectroscope
What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself
— Anita Brookner
During the end or beginning of a year, editorial calendars reliably produce a plethora of feature articles that encapsulate the preceding twelve months from a given perspective, resulting in titles such as “The Top 10 Pop Music Albums Of The Year,” “The Most Important News Stories Of 2006,” “The Worst Movies Of 2006,” “The Year In Sports,” and “Monthly Milestones In Tile & Flooring Retail Sales In The Southwestern United States During The Past Twelve Months.”
Anyone wading through such articles, however, soon realizes that many are actually thinly disguised, self-referential pontifications that focus on the writer or the publication rather than the subject ostensibly under review.
It will come as no surprise to Heck Of A Guy blog readers that DrHGuy’s visceral response to these exercises in pathological narcissism is a single, straightforward, bold thought:
The Heck Of A Guy Mission: Why I Blog
(AKA, The Obligatory Omphaloskepsis2 )
(AKA, Why Guy?)
It’s easiest to approach the question of Why Guy? by describing what Heck Of A Guy is not.
1. The Heck Of A Guy blog is not a diary or journal
Some blogs are explicitly presented as public diaries.
Monae at Dear Diary, which I read for its unbridled, over the top enthusiasm and energy, writes in her introduction, Here at J-Land I would like to share my journal/diary with all of you. You are all cordially invited to come along for the ride. /em> (I follow another journal, Squirrely Jedi, because, well, I can’t pass up the chance to read about an undergrad student majoring in English and German with a minor in Film Studies who also includes photos of his “weapons of choice” on his blog sidebar; who knows when the next one will come along?)
Heck Of A Guy does list a few family events, often as asides or segues into more general topics. In any case, some family and friends check in on occasion primarily to keep track of Da Boyz. And, I have indulged in celebrating a birth here and a wedding there for no other reason than the people involved are important to me.
But, such entries are relatively rare and are hardly characteristic of the majority of posts.
2. The Heck Of A Guy blog is not a interpersonal conversation
Some blogs, independently of their content, implicitly (and occasionally explicitly) invite responses and often maintain sizable coteries of readers who reliably comment, e-mail, and otherwise interact with the blogger.3
The tone of Mrs. Linklater’s posts and those from Farm House Window, for example, strike me as conversational.
With the exceptions of a few brave souls (MindSpin and Mrs. Linklater come to mind, among others) and a truly remarkable number of offers this blog receives to converse about medications to enhance sexual prowess, cinematic selections featuring large and naked genitals, unusual sexual activities, and opportunities to gamble online, the Heck Of A Guy blog is distinctly asocial.
Given that I am myself a dedicated lurker only rarely moved to e-mail a blogger and even less often willing to click on the “Leave Comment” button, this commentapenia on my own site is neither surprising or unfair.
Nor, admittedly, is it entirely unwelcome. While I revel in accolades, I find it painful to disappoint others and in the past few years have become more reluctant to offend or engage in conflicts,4 all of which are part and parcel of an active comments section.
And, my initial assumption that the number of comments would serve as a proxy for the number of readers has proven has proven somewhat (i.e., incredibly) faulty (i.e., wrong). As the number of unique visitors5 has increased by precisely “a lot” (the stats actually look pretty darn good but contamination by comment spam makes exact calculations difficult – more about the stats in a later post), the number of (non-spam) comments has increased by a factor of zip. My estimate of the correlation of comments on and readers of Heck Of A Guy approximates zero.
Q: So, if Heck Of A Guy is not a diary or a conversation, what is it?
A: I’m afraid our time is up for today.
Footnotes
- DrHGuy's RetroIntrospectroscope has its precedent in Tom Swift's Electronic Retroscope, which was featured in Tom Swift And His Electronic Retroscope by Victor Appleton II; originally published in 1959 as part of The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures series. Retitled Tom Swift In The Jungle Of The Mayas in 1977. A plot summary and a detailed elaboration of the electronic retroscope can be found at The Complete Tom Swift Jr. Home Page ↩
- Omphaloskepsis is the contemplation of one’s navel as an aid to meditation ↩
- These are not mutually exclusive categories; most blog-diaries, for example, are written as conversations. ↩
- Yes, I’ve succumbed to the call of the mild, transforming from someone who inexplicably fostered more than his share of disputations and battles to a guy whose primary motivation is congruent with that of Dan Rydell, the fictional sportscaster on the late, lamented “Sports Night,” who, when asked by his therapist, “Is it important to you that you get every attractive woman you meet to like you?” responds, “Mnh-mnh. It’s important that I get the unattractive ones to like me, too.” ↩
- ”Unique Visitors” are individuals who have visited a web site at least once in a fixed time frame. For example, if a user leaves and comes back to the site five times during the measurement period, that person is counted as one unique visitor. PCMag.com Encyclopedia ↩
