It’s been an unusually busy week for yours portly, and I’m still catching up on delinquent posts from Monday and Tuesday, both of which I hope to get up later this morning.

In the spirit of that delinquency, it seemed like the perfect time to look back at the worst posts of last year (I’ll be getting into the worst posts of this year soon).

By “worst,” I don’t mean that the posts themselves were bad—although that may be true—but that they did not get very many views.  All of the posts had fewer than ten views in 2021, which means essentially no one read them (if you were one of those nine people, my apologies—you are a person and you do matter, you just aren’t generating much ad revenue for me).

Let’s see if these poor little posts can get some love—then we’ll do the same for 2022’s soon enough.

With that, here is 31 December 2021’s “The Worst of 2021“:

It’s New Year’s Eve!  And being the last day of the year, it’s time to look back the worst posts of 2021.

Now, by “worst,” I don’t mean “the lowest quality” or “the most offensive.”  I wouldn’t be an impartial judge of the former (and my readers are generally too polite to tell me if my writing sucks), and I’ve toned down my rhetoric too much to be the latter (although, who knows with the delicate sensibilities of modern Westerners).

No, by “worst” I simply mean “the posts with the lowest views.”  In the old days, when I routinely had posts with single views, I’d just hoover up those and plop them into one big post.  Fortunately, the blog has grown to the point that I don’t have single-view posts anymore, but I still have some neglected posts.

For this list, I will ignore posts that were written in prior years, with the exception of TBT posts, as I often add substantial new commentary on such posts.  I will also ignore posts that merely informed readers that that day’s real post would be delayed, or has been posted (so classics like “SubscribeStar Saturday Post ‘The TJC Spring Jam’ is Posted!” and “Lazy Sunday is Coming” won’t be included).

In order to prevent the list from being too short, I’m only featuring posts with under ten views (as of the time of this writing on Tuesday, 28 December 2021).  That will also keep it from being too long, as this post historically takes a long time to compile.

So!  With those tedious criteria in place, here it is:  The WORST posts of 2021:

1.) “TBT: Disorder” (9 views) – There are a lot of TBTs on this list.  This one was about the social and racial ructions of Summer 2020.

2.) “The Joy of Romantic Music II:  Bedřich Smetana‘s ‘The Moldau’” (9 views) – This post deserves way more views, not because I’m some kind of incredible writer, but because this piece is amazing!  Please help put it into double digits.

3.) “TBT: Guest Contributor – photog – ‘The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms’ – A Science Fiction Movie Review” (9 views) – My poor buddy photog of Orion’s Cold Fire didn’t fare too well in this edition of TBT, but I think the original post performed much better.

4.) “For the Love of Crumb Cake, Please: Not Another Bandcamp Friday!” (9 views) – There are also a lot of these Bandcamp Friday posts on this list.  Turns out people don’t like being sold to once a month.  But I have to keep trying!

5.) “Happy Memorial Day 2021!” (9 views) – I can only assume my readers don’t honor our veterans the way yours portly does.  Or they were all on vacation.

6.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films IV: Hammer Films Collection, Volume II, Part I” (9 views) – I love Hammer Films.  My readers, however, do not.

7.) “TBT: The Creation of Culture” (9 views) – The original post is one of my personal favorites.  The TBT did not do quite as well.

8.) “Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2021, Part II: ‘The Personality Cult’” (9 views) – I really think more readers should check out the author who wrote this short story, Michael Noonan.  I bought his book after reading this story, and it’s an amazing short story collection.

9.) “Lazy Sunday CXLV: Christmas Cheer” (9 views) – The most recent Lazy Sunday, I’m chalking this one’s low views up to it being Christmas weekend.

10.) “TBT: The Desperate Search for Meaning IV: Vanity” (9 views) – A meditation on Ecclesiastes.

11.) “Memorable Monday: Happy MLK Day 2019 – Suggested Reading” (9 views) – This one was a real blast from the past.  I can’t even remember what I recommended to be read!

12.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Homeownership” (9 views) – Homeownership is great.

13.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Yuletide Mania” (8 views) – I had a very busy Christmas.  Turns out that doesn’t exactly sell subscriptions.

14.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Minecraft Camp 2021 Review” (8 views) – Minecraft Camp is always a big deal for me and my campers every summer.  It’s fun and lucrative.

15.) “TBT^16: Happy Birthday, America!” (8 views) – I suppose you can only reblog the same post so many times before people start tuning out.

16.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Concert Postmortem” (8 views) – One of many concert reviews.

17.) “Supporting Friends Friday: photog” (8 views) – Wow, photog is not getting the love he deserves.  Read this post!

18.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular 2021 Review” (8 views) – This post performed about as well as the 2021 Spooktacular—poorly.

19.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Educational Tyranny” (8 views) – Forced vaccinations and neurotic masking have ruined what little good remained in education.

20.) “Lazy Sunday CXLIII: More Movies, Part XIII: Movie Reviews, Part XIII” (8 views) – I really got lazy with Lazy Sundays this year, doing a ton of movie review retrospectives.

21.) “MAGAWeek2021: Red Meat” (8 views) – I’ll admit, I was reaching for a topic on this one.  It is a mildly interesting, very brief (one might say “digestible”) history of beef in America.

22.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Dog Days: Early Reflections on Dog Ownership” (8 views) – This blog went for a dogs for a few weeks this summer.

23.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Easter Weekend 2021” (8 views) – Either people don’t care about Easter, or they care so much they weren’t reading my self-important blog that weekend.

24.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Bric-a-Brac” (8 views) – I love bric-a-brac—random little things that makea  space personal.  But it was definitely a reach for a paywalled piece.

25.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: The History of Electrock” (7 views) – The history of my musical series Electrock.

26.) “Lazy Sunday CXXXIX: More Movies, Part X: Movie Reviews, Part X” (7 views) – More movies.

27.) “Lazy Sunday CXLI: Thanksgiving Stuff(ing)” (7 views) – A collection of Thanksgiving posts.

28.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Inspector Gerard Preview” (7 views) – A preview for subscribers of my debut short story collection, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot.

29.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films V: Hammer Films Collection, Volume II, Part II” (7 views) – More Hammer Films!

30.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films II: Universal Horror Films, Part I” (7 views) – And even more Hammer Films, the ones distributed by Universal Studios.

31.) “TBT: Cass on Our Diminished Income” (7 views) – An important post that is even more relevant now with hyperinflation.

32.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: The High Life at Universal Studios” (7 views) – I really lived it up with the premiere Universal Studios experience this summer.

33.) “Lazy Sunday CXXXIV: Friends, Part IV” (6 views) – I am blessed to have good friends; only six people cared.

34.) “Here We Go Again: Yet Another Bandcamp Friday” (6 views) – Another failed sales pitch.

35.) “Belated SubscribeStar Saturday: Back into the Arena Again” (6 views) – A post about running for another term on Lamar Town Council.

36.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: 2021 Election Analysis” (6 views) – An analysis of the 2021 election (in which I won election to a full term on Lamar Town Council).

37.) “TBT: Albino Giraffes Poached” (5 views) – Poor giraffes.

38.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Authoritarian Creep” (5 views) – No one cares about creeping authoritarianism, either.  That explains a lot.

39.) “Friday Rundown (18-22 January 2021)” (5 views) – I think I was just out of ideas this week, so I did a retrospective of that week’s posts.

40.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films III: Universal Horror Films, Part II” (5 views) – Dang, people really hate Hammer Films.

41.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Concert 2021 Review” (5 views) – And Christmas concerts!

42.) “December Bandcamp Friday” (5 views) – C’mon, y’all—you’re supposed to buy your friends’ stuff at Christmas—especially mine!

Well, there you have it—the forty-two WORST posts of 2021.  They aren’t all bad; some of them are even great.  Why not give them some clicks?

If you make it through all forty-two, let me know in the comments!  I would be very impressed (and appreciative).

Happy New Year!

—TPP