Saturday, October 09, 2004

The Correlation between Cool and Comments

This post has sprung from a mini conversation between myself and my best friend [but only on the bus] about comments. This conversation is actually under the comments [go figure] of the previous post. Anyway, now to what I really want to talk about.

The number of comments on any particular post has the power to change the coolness levels of any particular person with a blog/livejournal/website/pulse. It seems like there should be a formula to figure the coolness of a person. Something [but only something] like this:


If # of comments ≥ 3, then coolness exists
If # of comments < 3, then floppery exists; flop=loser

The problem with this equation [other than it's illogicality] is whether or not you count your response posts in the total count. I, for example, like to reply to the comments that people post, frequently doubling the number of comments. And furthermore, do repeat commenters count once or as many times as they post? Is the 3 in the equation the total number or the number of people. This is in fact why I didn't get into mathematics in college. Can you tell that I was in a "special" program in high school? I wanted to use limits and derivatives (the limit of exists as comments (x) approaches 3...), but neither my word processor or my brain has that capability. So as you can see by the above equation, everything depends on how many comments you have, even your status as a living breathing human being. A harsh but necessary standard by which to live. Seriously. No, not seriously. Gosh, people take me too seriously. I don't even take myself seriously. Why am I using seriously so much? Seriously. Anyway, sorry about that little tangent there. Comments and coolness. Does it really have anything to do with how "cool" the author of the post is? Not really, I personally believe the actual contents of the post is what determines "coolness". This post for example has forever earned me the "nerd" label, in which case I am decidedly uncool, in more than a few circles. In the nerd circles however, I could possibly considered "hilariously funny," "intellectual and mirthful," and [dare I dream?] "cool".

Well, that is my treatise on cool and comments. To be sure, I am not talking about comments all the time because of the lack of comments on my posts, seriously [let us not start that again].

Cheerio. (Farewell. Not breakfast cereal.)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I was like sort of named in a subtle way in YOUR journal!!! I'm SOO cool now :-D hahahha

Kim

Laura said...

What are you talking about Kimi, you've always been cool. Anyway, yeah, I try not to put peoples actual names (although I have deviated from that rule on occassion) because of privacy and such, and it leaves that feeling of mystery to people who don't know me.

Anonymous said...

HAHA i made you cool, you should be grateful
that's not the point though, i think this post is very uncool, despite being a nerd my self. it's nerdy, but i still like it. which definetely makes it not cool, seeing at it's me

Anonymous said...

Um, so depending on how you are counting, i've just bumped you up a notch to "cool" ;-)

"Maybe if your posts weren't so dang long. . ."
Sound familiar? :-D but so are mine so whatever.

Your "writing voice" is definately an entertaining one and I wish mine were more like that.

Adios!

Laura said...

Well, either you or the squirty above you did, but who's counting? I do not base my coolness on the number of posts, despite what the equation says. And I'm glad you think my "writing voice" is entertaining. Thanks for the compliment.

Anonymous said...

of course you aren't doing math in college, you go to florida state, do they even offer math above "Intro to Mathematics: Adding." all kidding aside i would argue that number of persons who read a particular blog would be a much better measure of coolness. cool people aren't usually smart people, and consequently probably don't have smart friends, so their friend can probably barely read, let alone comment. also what if a writer is cool, but never writes anything interesting...no one will ever comment, even if 10000 people read it. if you have someone who isn't cool, but writes great things, he/she has few friends, so less people read it, but they all comment. if this were the case, the cool person would have less comments than the uncool person, but still have far more friends and be far cooler. anyhow, you now have 6 comments, so that makes you cool.

p.s. this is paul

Laura said...

Awww....people read my blog, I feel honored, especially when it is someone from a fine upstanding educational establishment like the University of Florida. [I think I'm breaking out in hives after that statement.] Anyway, who says cool people aren't smart people? I mean, I think I'm relatively cool. Relatively, in comparison to say, Napoleon Dynamite: Uber Dork, or um, me. And I'm glad you think I'm cool.