Blurkers

A “blurker” is a “blog lurker”. The term often is used to specify someone who regularly reads your blog but never comments. Blurking is considered poor blogosphere etiquette, but has become quite common.

What makes blurking so weird is that you know there are folks doing it, but you don’t know what they’re like. This causes a blogger’s imagination to run wild. You start thinking who these creepy people are.

So…I’ve filled in the blanks, created my own little blurker profiles. I imagine that blurkers of He Said, She Said include (but are not limited to) the following people:

Ole Kilnikov: Ole is a Swedish Russian. He is a speed skater and harvests wheat with a sickle. He likes his speed skating outfit too much.

Rita Fern: Rita composes ballads to express how she feels when she reads our blog. One day she hopes to get these songs published. She likes to wear hemp.

Hank Williams: Actually a pseudonym. His real name is Edgar Shank but he admires people who can yodel, which is how he found He Said, She Said.

Kalina Suarez: Kalina’s distinguishing feature is that her navel appears on the small of her back. She invented chocolate covered Oreos.

Tod Smit: Because Tod got short-changed on the spelling of his name, he’s been over-compensating all his life. He likes to read He Said, She Said by beaming it on his wall via video projector.

These are the blurkers of our blog. For goodness’ sake, people: COMMENT!

Alright all you blurkers, we know you’re out there. And yes, we even know WHAT you are.

“1. blurker: A blog lurker. Someone who reads a lot of blogs but never posts any comments. I stopped posting to my LJ because all my readers were blurkers.” (from www.urbandictionary.com)

The funny thing about blurkers is that the blogger can (if they use any sort of stat tracker type thingy) find out quite a lot about who is reading their blog. We use Statcounter to keep track of things around here, and there is a view that shows a map of the world with little “pins” in the spots where people are reading. It’s wicked cool, and seeing people from all over the world checking in with our little blog makes my heart go pitter patter.

I admit, I blurk quite a bit too. ;-) I usually feel like I don’t really have anything to add, so will often just stay quiet even though I read regularly. Weird isn’t it? Because I would say to all of you blurking here, “Come out of the closet, and introduce yourself! We promise we won’t bite.” Yet I keep on blurkin’.

What do you say, peeps? If I go and post comments on five different blogs I read, will you reveal yourself in the comments? If I post 10? Will ya, will ya, huh?

Ahem. Anyway, if you have been reading, it would tickle us if you would leave us a comment!