Now, everyone wants to be popular. We want admiration, we want comments, we want fame and fortune. So online writers try to write popular pieces. Unfortunately, trying too hard just doesn't work. Today I came across an article "Five Things You Should Avoid Writing About". It was worthless rubbish, but it was popular rubbish. However, it was popular precisely because it was unpopular with a large number of commenters. It's a really difficult trick to pull off consciously. The writer thought he was obviously being sensible but people who've been writing online for far longer just thought it laughably juvenile. Writing something offensive is not the idea - that will just lead to flames and possibly deletion. But to write something so banal that people feel the urge to respond and tell you how you've wasted a few minutes of their lives is pure genius.
Try it and see if you can pull it off.
29 Jul 2009
How to Write Something Unpopular
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