freckles_and_doubt | they're immune to your consultations

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they're immune to your consultations

So, you lot are odd. More specifically, I lament my complete and utter inability to map your responses, i.e. to predict which of my posts will garner millyuns of comments, and which will languish with no more adornment than a grammar nit-pick and an unrelated link. On the whole I'm in this blogging lark for the dialogue and wish to provoke same, tending to feel confused and unfulfilled if I don't succeed. This is provoking introspection. (Possibly exacerbated by an uneasy night after an emergency visit to my dad, who seems to have picked up a 'flu bug which is not interacting at all well with his motor neurone symptoms).

I am interested to notice that, while posts tagged, for example, "narcissism" on the whole attract a reasonable number of comments despite my expectation exactly to the contrary, posts in which I offer a detailed review of a film or book generally don't pick up on the comment action. In fact, most of them are not commented on at all. I am fascinated by this, and somewhat at a loss to account for it. Inevitably, pollage results.

[Poll #1442936]
Or, as always, leave some other pithy rejoinder in the comments. (See what I did there? self-conscious self-fulfilling recursive reference ftw!)

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I avoid reading the detail of the reviews before I've seen the film.

but... but...! I'm at the benighted tip of Darkest Africa, we usually get movies far later than the UK, and I never see them in the first week anyway owing to a tendency to gnash in crowds. What I'm saying is, how can you possibly see them later than I do? it bends the laws of physics!

there are lots of other things to do in the big city. Like um ... sheer lazyness?

we usually get movies far later than the UK

Hah, peruse this. The UK is not only after South Africa, it's after Kazakhstan.

Heh, I thought I was the only one who was simultaneously dismayed and fascinated by post-age or lack of post-age to my entries. :-)

I am disappointed by the lack of an "other" or "clicky" choice in your poll. :-P

As far as your movie and book reviews are concerned, you are much more enlightened than I...I never analyze them mentally as well as you do. So, you'll spit out this amazing and detailed review, and I'll think...duh...I liked it (or didn't like it, as the case may be). I like to hope I'm not excessively shallow as far as my book and movie experiences are concerned, but I certainly don't articulate my experiences anywhere NEAR as well as you do.

I have YET to find a single one of your posts to be boring, so there. There are occasions where I've felt a little awkward posting in that we haven't seen each other in 8349702 years. If more comments make you happier, though, more comments you shall have. We aim to please! :-)

"Clicky" options in polls are so 2008! ;>

Good lord, please don't feel obliged to post comments just because I'm coming across all insecure - I'm basically interested in motivations rather than being on the hunt for more comments. I mean, if I conduct six months of research and discover the exact formulae for the post which will elicit the most comments, I'd probably continue posting exactly the same kinds of posts that I currently do, because I enjoy posting them. (Although I'd franchise the formula for untold cash, I have to say). I'm just naturally a pattern-seeking organism and want to understand the graceful sine waves of Internet interest.

Also, lack of recent contact so not an issue. Several commenters on this blog I've never actually met in the flesh, so you're well ahead!

Your response to my reviews is curiously similar to my mother's, in that she vows she enjoys watching almost any sort of movie with me because of the way I unwrap it afterwards. Then again, she presumably has more investment than you do in the value of my expensive education ;>.

Reviews, yours especially, add a lot to a movie. Afterwards.

Edited 2009-08-12 17:06 (UTC)

Oh, dear heavens. Don't think I'm going to manufacture comments out of nothing just to make you feel better! I'm just going to submit the ones I've been thinking and NOT writing. In other words, I'm done being bashful. Believe me, I almost always have something to say--I've just been hesitant to say it. Well, the gloves are off now, baby! :-P

"so 2008". I love it!

"graceful sine waves of the internet"? Don't you mean scribbles of teh rabid monkeys who inhabit teh intarwebs? I'm sure they look extremely similar when plotted on a line graph. :-P

I was going to be all surprised to think that you're bashful about posting comments, but in fact I realise that I'm exactly the same about other people's blogs if I don't know them well (I think about half of my potential comments on

grumpyolddog's posts get self-edited into nothingness). I'm less inhibited about yours, though. It helps to actually know you. And I'm sure it's not as long as 8349702 years - 7569368 at the very most!

I voted "boring", "pseudo-academic" and "cussedness", all from a surfeit of cussedness. :D

On the whole I don't read reviews of films or books. I just don't. I'll read the book/watch the film, but I'm generally not that interested in what other people think of it.

Sheer bloody-mindedness is a virtue!

I find your lack of interest in reviews disturbing. One of the great joys of the internet for me is finding intelligent, snarky reviewers, to the extent that I honestly hadn't considered lack of interest in reviews as a class in my hypotheses about non-commenting. But I shall endeavour not to judge your strange, alien ways ;>.

I have long since given up trying to guess at the interests and motivations of my blog's readers/commenters. No doubt there are many factors involved, only some of which relate to what I write about. I'm mildly curious as to how many people visit occasionally and how many see whatever I write; likewise, which posts people read in full and which get skimmed/skipped. Though I think I'd be unlikely to post differently if I knew.

Wrt your film reviews, it rarely happens that I've seen the film that you're reviewing. Posts labelled "neurotic" tend to be about you, a subject most of your readers are inevitably going to care about.

Edited 2009-08-12 13:43 (UTC)

I usually comment on reviews.

I agree with bumpycat in that I rarely care what other ppl think about books/films, if I like it I like it and if I don't then I don't. It's not often that it makes me wonder what someone else thought about it (and then it's your opinion that I wonder about, simply because you're the most learned opinion to which I have access easily). In these cases I'll see if you've reviewed it and either agree or disagree and maybe comment if I feel I can add something. I usually don't feel I can add anything, your reviews are quite detailed and even though I often just skim them if it's a movie I haven't seen I respect that lots of critical thought went into them. I often feel similarly to you but lack the words to express it correctly.

I also agree with egadfly in that I'm more inclined to comment on the personal posts, perhaps because I feel on a more able footing than with the academic stuff. I don't know if I'd feel inclined to comment if I didn't know you.

Sometimes I'm just too lazy or busy to comment and think "must come back later" but never seem to to do that :P.

I like reviews, because 1) they can useful and 2) if I disagree, it's useful to analyse what I disagree about. Most books/films/music can be re-examined without prejudice and it's quite possible to notice something somebody else has pointed out and actually begin to appreciate the stuff in question.

Yes, exactly! For me reviews interact with a film or book to add a whole new level of pleasure and discovery. And disagreement can be intensely stimulating.

Hey! You cannot possibly think that an HP review which speculates whether the next film will get Dan Radcliff nekkid is in any way academic! Unless you have a particularly odd idea of academia, which I have to admit, if I'm your extant example of it, you probably do...

In general (not only your LJ), I wonder to what extent comments beget other comments. I can remember a few occasions where I wasn't going to comment on the original post, but then enough people commented on it that I found something in there that I wanted to discuss, and I commented. I wonder if there is a critical mass (ideal number of comments) that generates a maximum number of additional comments.

Sorry, "I found something in there" meant to be "I found something in the comments" (could be read as me finding something in the original post)

This may be another corollary to XKCD's Third Observation, namely Someone Is Wrong On The Internet - or, in this case, an equal possibility that someone is right? Highly compressed opinions in comments are far easier to react to than the often wordy wodge of my posts. Valid point.

At the risk of sounding obnoxious, it suddenly occurs to me that some kinds of comment dearth may be because the general intelligence level of commenters on this blog makes it mercifully free from "Me, too!"s - people only really comment when they have something, however lateral, to add.

Well, the alleged wordy wodgeness of your posts wasn't quite my point ;-) I was thinking more that the more opinions there are in the mix - again, across all friend blogs I read, not just yours - the more likely I will find something that motivates me to engage, rather than spectate.

Reviews in general do not inspire me to comment. I think it's partly because I can see the person has done much thinking about the subject matter and I feel a bit sheepish about then coming back with some half-arsed comment. And then what if my comment triggers some sort of lengthy well-considered response? Then I feel both guilty about abusing the person's time, and anxious about the prospect of a debate where I will be expected to produce some sort of reasoned argument, and even worse, care about it.

What type of comments would you like to get on your reviews?

Oooo, it's raining. Lovely :-)

I have a theory that better thought out posts are less likely to attract comments. The edifice of ideas may be intimidating, or it may simply be too much work to develop a fitting response. Flawed/uncertain posts give readers more "hooks" to hang responses on. Just a theory.

I think that if the better thought out post is serious that's probably true. If it's silly that isn't necessarily the case. But you could argue that the silliness is a big, fat hook. Or Greek wedding. So, I agree. With the theory that is yours. Ahem.

It's possible to introduce more hooks while still maintaining essay integrity, but I don't know that's time well spent unless you're desperate for comments, or are specificially looking for a discussion.

I wonder to what extent comments beget other comments

Never!

Oh, I don't know.

I chose "I never watch that kind of movie" as the closest option to a more accurate "I rarely watch movies". When I watch a movie on dvd approximately 37 months after you've reviewed it, I sometimes get this feeling that you might have said something about it. Once. Long ago. It was probably interesting. Even interestingly academically pretentious. I can no longer recall.

My reading of your reviews is distant and detached. Perhaps I'll see the film, later, when I'm old, but right now it's not connected to my life.

For what it's worth, I like reading reviews of films (and plays). I'll often decide whether to see a film based on reviews. I also like your reviews, even though they can be quite intimidating. :-)

Obviously, the way to attract comments is to ask for comments... ;)

pK.

or at least to express an interest in when and why people comment. She says, trying desperately not to sound desperate.

Generally, if I've seen the movie and I agree with everything you said, I don't comment (other than leering drivebys) because I usually prefer hashing that kind of thing out tête-à-tête. But sometimes (like recent HP review) it's because I said all I had to say in the immediately previous thread...

I read your blog, first and foremost, to hear how you're doing, so I most enjoy the posts about your life.

I suppose I don't comment on your reviews because you approach them very differently from the way I do. As a writer, I'm looking at story, plot, dialogue, characterization, etc. Although I enjoy reading your reviews, from my perspective (as a writer) I personally don't care whether a movie (or book) has some deeper academic relevancy. (I write to entertain, so I read books and watch movies for entertainment.)

Does that make sense?

Hugs, Dayle

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