Better to be hated than ignored?
By AndrewBoyd • Oct 1st, 2007 • Category: Blogging tipsIt helps to be controversial. The easiest way to be controversial is to say something outlandish - the more sustainable is to take a defensible position on something that stirs up a lot of emotion. I recently watched Meg Tsiamis do this with her post on Maddison Gabriel - the face of Gold Coast fashion (or exploitation of children, depending on your perspective). Meg received 67 comments - to me this proves that well-timed controversy sells.
What if you decide to take the other path - that of saying something outlandish and extreme if not totally wrong? I used to work with two grumpy old blokes who would get bored and start an argument - to paraphrase:
GOB 1: The sky is purple today.
GOB 2: I say it isn’t purple, I say it is green!
GOB 1: You calling me a liar?!!!
…and away they’d go. It beat working I guess. Most of the other people I worked with at the time found them embarrassing.
This sort of grandstanding will certainly get you some traffic - in the form of trolls and troublemakers looking for a fight to watch and/or participate in. But are these the kind of people you want to read your blog? Or would you rather acheive nothing and avoid the hassle? In other words, is it better to be hated than ignored?
Being hated means:
- lots of traffic,
- lots of comments, but also
- internet and real life stalking, and
- distributed denial of service attacks.
I think that the secret of a successful and happy life as a blogger is to be popular without being hated. It is better blog karma and more sustainable. Being controversial is good - being hated is not.
What do you think?
AndrewBoyd is a consultant by day and blogger by night. He loves good food, good wine, and discussing faceted classification schemes with friends.
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I think in this, there is little difference between the blogging world and the real world. There too being controversial is OK as long as you are still being kind and polite. Being annoying to the point of being hated is not good for any type of karma
And in both, being smart, interested and interesting wins over everything else.
Hi Donna,
I agree - being kind, polite, smart, interested and interesting is a winning combination in blogging as in life. You are a fine example of all of these things and more.
Best regards, Andrew
Hi Andrew
It’s funny, you know. I was watching the late news when I saw the item about Maddison and it just struck me as wrong (I have a 14 yo daughter). So I aired my opinion (as bloggers are wont to do).
Little did I know that this story was going to reverberate around the world, and for some reason so many people wanted to have say. I also wasn’t prepared to rank so highly in a Google search. The hits started coming (10,000 in one day and still ongoing). And also the sicko comments. For the most part (except the sickos) I let the comments go through, and as a consequence I am getting hits for traffic I would rather not be getting - you know “12 year old p0rn” and so on. For the most part the commenters maintained the discussion.
We all want traffic - but not like that (well, unless that’s the type of blogger you are - a la Perez Hilton). I reckon that post would rank in my top 3 of “wish I hadn’t posted that” posts. I don’t know that I was particularly “hated” (not saying that you’re implying that). But, in conclusion, I would definitely tick the “I’d rather be ignored” box.
Hi Meg,
thank you for your comment.
It is funny how things work out sometimes. I don’t think that you were hated - I used you as an example of the reasonably controversial as opposed to the Perez type - you had a defensible position and argued it well. Most of the published comments either agreed or disagreed. It was something that you felt strongly about and someone needed to air that side of the argument - it may have well as been you as someone less able to cope
As to the off-colour keywords - that is an interesting debate in and of itself. You didn’t set out to get this kind of traffic and anyone looking for kiddie porn would be really disappointed - and annoying people who go in for that sort of thing isn’t a bad idea. My feeling is that you handled a difficult situation well, and you deserve applause for it.
Best regards, Andrew
Andrew
“… and annoying people who go in for that sort of thing isn’t a bad idea.”
I didn’t think of it that way! I actually thought of adding a link to a “help site” but couldn’t bring myself to Google it.
It was a apt case study in “well timed controversy”.
Thanks for your kind words.
Hi Meg,
thank you for your comment.
I think that just as there are passionate scambaiters (like Snos) who should be applauded for their work, so there could well be groups of people who work to dissuade those in search of kiddie porn.
My kind words are only telling the truth
Best regards, Andrew
[…] I wrote about Maddison Gabriel - a (now) 13 year old model. Andrew Boyd described it as “well-timed controversy“. At the time, it was just something that struck me as “not quite right”, and […]
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