Editor’s Chair: 100k Views

Tracy Wuster, Founding Editor

From time to time, I have seen fit to print reports on the general progress of this website as a publishing venture. As the editor, I feel it is my prerogative, stretching back to the great tradition of 19^th century magazine editors to speak my mind and address our readers—both real and imagined. Also in the tradition of those editors, I have not been able to resist the urge to explain what I think we are up to with our publication and to, in addition, engage in that greatest of all editorial goals—filling space.

Upon reaching one hundred thousand views, today December 2, 2012, I cannot resist expounding on some of the statistics that have accumulated for us to reach this milestone. I have no idea if this is a lot of views for a publication of this sort—although there are not a whole lot of publications of this sort for me to compare to. I will choose to treat it as a grand milestone, one worthy of reflection. Plus, I have long been obsessed with statistics and milestones, and the WordPress statistics page, which tallies the use of the site in real-time, has been a boon to my obsession.

Number of Contributors: 23

Number of Posts: 214

1^st Post:

Appropos of a first post…

June 24, 2011

Total views: 5

1^st Official Post (Public Launch):

Politics and the American Sense of Humor

by M. Thomas Inge

August 11, 2011

Total Views: 2405

Viewing Statistics:

Most views in a month: 18,737 in June 2012–almost 10,817 views on Ricky Gervais’s birthday, June 25, 2012.

18,197 in November 2012–a close second

Most views per day (average): 625 per day in June 2012

Average Views per day (overall): 189.81

Average views per day (2011): 39

Average views per day (2012): 273

Average view per post: 467.44

Comments: 336

Subscribers–wordpress: 147

–facebook:88

–twitter: 81

Top Posts:

Title Views

Home page / Archives 14,640

Stand-Up Monday: Happy Birthday Ricky Gervais! 11,918

The Election! Zombies, dogs, and white people! Humor and politics in short video form… 5,247

An Educated Sense of Humor 4,566

In the Archives: James Russell Lowell “Humor, Wit, Fun, and Satire” (1893) 4,178

Sunday Sermon: Activist Humor and Frederick Douglass’s “Servants, Obey Your Masters” 3,526

Frank Lloyd Wright, Ice Cube, Poetry and Humor 2,677

The Sound and the Furry: An Interview with Alfra Martini, Creator of The Kitten Covers 2,545

The third best gift of all: The Muppets and Laughter 2,407

Politics and the American Sense of Humor 2,406

The Mark Twain Circle of America 2,305

Power Girl and Girl Power (Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bombshell) 2,024

Humor Studies News 1,740

Happy Birthday, dear Google . . . 1,253

Humor as Ridicule: The Case of UVa 1,251

Occupy Wall Street Cartoons, Post 2 1,217

Top Search Terms:

All Time

Search Views

mark twain 1,485

frank lloyd wright buildings 500

frank lloyd wright 403

political cartoon 344

joe paterno funny 311

kurt vonnegut 281

political cartoons 233

vonnegut 202

humor in america 156

american humor 156

frank lloyd wright works 146

mount rushmore 130

barbie doll 130

occupy wall street political cartoons 123

monkey on a dog 121

occupy wall street cartoons 118

Country Views (since 2/25/2012, when that sort of thing started to be counted):

Top 20

Country Views

United States 51,992

United Kingdom 10,176

Canada 4,757

Australia 2,877

India 1,278

Germany 823

Ireland 702

Philippines 688

Netherlands 643

New Zealand 643

France 632

Brazil 629

Sweden 486

Spain 398

Norway 354

Italy 342

Mexico 300

Belgium 298

South Africa 275

Russian Federation 271

Countries with only one view: Faroe Islands, Gabon, Mozambique, Guadeloupe, British Virgin Islands, Belize, Dominica, Anguilla, Chad, Malawi, Botswana, Isle of Man, Zambia, Iran, Haiti, Gibralter.

Most Clicked Pictures:

Falling Water: 85

Occupy Cartoon: 41

Super Girl: 34

99% cartoon: 34

Mark Twain in a chair: 33

Most clicked youtube clips (not most watched; these are links, not embedded):

Nyan Cat: 25