We almost never do lists or slideshows here at the Dish, but as we enter our fifteenth year, I figured a little year-end nostalgia couldn’t hurt. The following are the ten most popular posts of the year, the ones that went viral, the ones that for some reason or another, took off.
What the Hell Just Happened in Kansas? won the year by a landslide, with 1.8 million views. Sometimes, when I’m asked if I miss more longform writing – essays, reviews, columns – I simply say: yes, I do. It’s been a constant strain the last decade and a half figuring out in our new media world what form of writing is really my calling. But then, you look at the numbers. If you’re really lucky, a serious book will get you maybe 20,000 sales. An essay in a major magazine in the old days could reach a few hundred thousands, not that you ever fully knew how many actually read it. But online, you can see who actually clicked on the page and (maybe) read it. The posts below were not clickbait in the usual sense of the word, so I’m assuming some level of engagement. And how many times can you say that a piece of writing got nearly 1.8 million people to read it? That’s the power of blogging.
Anyway, the top ten:
What The Hell Just Happened In Kansas? (1,772,565 views)
The Hounding Of A Heretic (199,301 views)
A Good Closer? (183,822 views)
Jo Becker’s Troubling Travesty Of Gay History (174,751 views)
The Worrying Vacuity Of Hillary Clinton (164,507 views)
Excuse Me, Mr Coates (160,705 views)
Sarah Palin: Anti-Christian (80,906 views)
Why Sam Harris Won’t Criticize Israel (61,004 views)
The SJWs Now Get To Police Speech On Twitter (50,709 views)
The Hounding Of A Heretic, Ctd (49,797 views)
The Dish 