Scott Adams decides to blog less:
I hoped that people who loved the blog would spill over to people who read Dilbert, and make my flagship product stronger. Instead, I found that if I wrote nine highly popular posts, and one that a reader disagreed with, the reaction was inevitably “I can never read Dilbert again because of what you wrote in that one post.” Every blog post reduced my income, even if 90% of the readers loved it. And a startling number of readers couldn’t tell when I was serious or kidding, so most of the negative reactions were based on misperceptions.
Adams recently decided to hold forth on YouKnowWhat. Like a lot of people who read something or other about YouKnowWhat and decide that that qualifies them to hold forth on it with full measures of condescension and sarcasm, he discovered that lots of people spend much of their lives ranting and raving at each other about YouKnowWhat and are quick to pull the trigger on new entrants to the fray.
Maybe that's not what this is about, but I'm guessing it is...
Adams recently decided to hold forth on YouKnowWhat. Like a lot of people who read something or other about YouKnowWhat and decide that that qualifies them to hold forth on it with full measures of condescension and sarcasm, he discovered that lots of people spend much of their lives ranting and raving at each other about YouKnowWhat and are quick to pull the trigger on new entrants to the fray.
Maybe that's not what this is about, but I'm guessing it is...
I think JSinger is right.
Also, if posting on a blog and driving away a few crackpots who just can't read Dilbert anymore because of what he said about YouKnowWhat is seriously impacting his income, a) I will eat my hat and b) he is right to blog less.
Certainly a few e-mails from irritated readers can't be having any effect on his income, & if he believes that, he's as foolish as his Pointy-Haired Boss. I'd suspect that even letters to the editors of papers that run Dilbert would have little effect, unless it was in reference to something in Dilbert itself.
P. S.: I don't Know What. Was this a generalized YouKnowWhat, or a specific YouKnowWhat?
"And a startling number of readers couldn’t tell when I was serious or kidding": some of us are being particularly serious when we are kidding.
From what little I've read of Scott Adams (mostly stuff people spread around), his non-Dilbert writings are pretty silly. He doesn't seem particularly insightful or intelligent compared to many other bloggers out there.
EI
Scott Adams should decide to start sucking less.
A retarded five-year old could write and draw a better, funnier comic strip. Only the authors of Day By Day and Mallard Fillmore have less talent than Adams.
YouKnowWhat is the war in Iraq. In one post he ranted about how America was destroying Iraq, and how he was apologizing for it. A number of people were predictably outraged, though not all that many (Adams' readership is at least 80% leftist). Later, he pulled out the "Just Kidding!" card and suggested his readers were hallucinating. Whatever.
Only the authors of Day By Day and Mallard Fillmore have less talent than Adams.
Don't tell me, let me guess: you love "Doonesbury" because it speaks truth to power, right?
Adams is being disingenuous. A lot of his posts are just him stirring up shit to get a reaction from the moist robots who read his blog. He's making the monkeys dance to his tune.
The posts he makes that are taken seriously when they're not meant to be are misconstrued because no matter how silly the position, there are people who actually take that position, or believe that other people believe it.
"(Adams' readership is at least 80% leftist)"
I know in budget statements some people use parentheses to denote a negative. I figure that must be what this is.
Was this a generalized YouKnowWhat, or a specific YouKnowWhat?
A specific YouKnowWhat, and not one as uncontroversial as Iraq or his earlier foray into defending creationism.
I'll keep on reading Dilbert, because it's mildly amusing. But I've made two attempts to read his blog, and given up in frustration both times.
I liked it at first, because it was typical amusing stuff about being a cartoonist or about his daily life. But more and more he'd try to post political stuff - not just about Iraq, but his solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, things of that nature. They would be simplistic and irritating, and when they provoked comments disagreeing with him, he'd follow up with a couple posts about how dumb his readers must be for disagreeing with him.
It wasn't that he wrote things I disagree with regarding Iraq or world politics - it'd be hard to open a web browser or turn on a TV for the past few years without coming across stuff like that - it's that he did so in such an arrogant and disingenuous manner, and that I don't read "the Dilbert blog" for insight into world politics.
A specific YouKnowWhat, and not one as uncontroversial as Iraq or his earlier foray into defending creationism.
For the love of God, what are we talking about? I'm fully prepared to be shocked and appalled; please don't spare my delicate sensibilities.
Did he defend pedophilia? Hold forth on the joys of man-on-sheep romance? Write sonnets glorifying Hitler?
I'm incredibly curious (though not curious enough, I guess, to go poking around his blog looking for something that seems so horrendously offensive that no decent person would dare refer to it by name).
For the love of God, what are we talking about?
"The question has been answered, Logan five."
Only the authors of Day By Day and Mallard Fillmore have less talent than Adams.
Don't tell me, let me guess: you love "Doonesbury" because it speaks truth to power, right?
Hey, I grew up in a house so conservative my dad stopped taking the Washington Post in favor of that Moonie rag, the Washington Times. Their comics feature Mallard Fillmore. That is a god-awful comic strip. It's like Fox News, but less funny and with no hot women. And FYI, Day By Day and Doonesbury are also unfunny, but nothing is as bad as Mallard Fillmore. Not even Family Circus or Cathy.
Don't forget Marmaduke. That is one bad comic.