First post of the year should be a (brief) look back at the blog in 2024.
Unfortunately, I spread myself a little too thin in 2024. I only put up 1359 posts in 2024 which is not terrible but I was aiming for 1500 posts as a bare minimum. Too much time spent elsewhere on social media, too much time starting mini-projects which have yet to see fruition on the blog. Hopefully some of them will see the light in 2025. There are no excuses if I make the same *cough* excuse come January 1st, 2026.
A milestone of sorts was reached in late December when the blog passed 4 million hits. Two points: 1) The obvious one first: I'm under no illusion that the majority of the hits are bots, etc. However, I do know from the blog's site tracker that the blog continues to receive a healthy audience from around the world. It's pleasing to note that many of those visitors are returning viewers. The blog continues to serve its purpose of providing another online presence for socialist propaganda. (The more the merrier.) And if it's also used as nothing more than a resource for students of working class history, all the better for that. 2) The 'hits' on the blog actually exceed 4 million. When google overhauled Blogger a few years back the stats actually went back to Year Zero.
New pages were added to the top of the page in January of last year for the current regular columns in the Socialist Standard, and there are plans to add more pages in the coming calendar year. I won't say too much right now. Just watch this space.
Now to the meat of the post: the twenty most viewed posts on the blog in 2024. This is only the fourth time that I've done a 'End of the Year Stats' post, which is actually bastard annoying when you consider that 2024 was the 18th year of the blog. Think of all those missing years.
Nice to see a couple of Ralph Critchfield ('Ivan') pieces in amongst the twenty. He really was a wonderful writer for the Standard over many decades. Interesting to note that a couple of old pieces on Lenin - including Fitzgerald's classic 1924 obituary of Lenin - continue to receive hits year on year. The video review of the German Industrial Metal band, Rammstein, polled so high 'cos I made a point of seeking out fan pages for the band on social media, and posted the article front and centre on said pages. Steve Coleman's humbug piece probably polled so high 'cos it had Christmas in its title, and I fear it could become the blog's perennial end of the year number one because of that. Lumbered with the impossibilist equivalent of Mariah Carey singing the Declaration of Principles to the tune of 'Little Drummer Boy'.
Anyway, in the spirit of the late and great Johnny Walker, here's the countdown of the twenty most viewed posts on the blog for the year 2024.
20. Taboo (1982)
*Apologies to Zager & Evans.
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