Saturday 1 October 2016

Month in Review(s) - September 2016

September was the month that various sh** hit various fans.








In case you're not caught-up on all the goings-on of the bookish online community, let me briefly summarise:


  • Some people questioned authors about the lack of diversity in their books (no matter you're opinion on this, those people had the right to ask the questions.) This resulted in trolling.

  • There was a video on BookTube (the bookish portion of YouTube,) by a horrible person who sees diversity as a dirty word, and is generally a bigoted jerk. She then took offence when it turned out a lot of people didn't agree with her.

  • White supremacist & Nazi trolls decided to spread their racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. hatred by trolling members of the online bookish community. Most of these people were also Trump supporters.

  • A US library magazine called VOYA showed some of the worst customer service you can imagine in their response to criticism of their apparently bi-phobic reviewing.
...I think that covers most of it. It was an... interesting month.











But we, as a community, are pulling through this... I hope.





As far as my blogging stats go this month, things have been good :)




I discovered an acronym for my blog which had been staring me in the face the whole time - DORA. Which I will now be using when Diary of a Reading Addict is too long-winded.

I passed 30k page-views for the first time (!!!!) and now see between 100 and 300 page-views on a typical day :)







I gained a handful of followers on BlogLovin and Twitter, though not as many as I would've liked.

I also noticed something in terms of my Twitter followers, which kind of upset me.







Whenever I tweet about anything to do with LGBTQ+ issues, I lose 2-3 followers; that's per tweet where I mention queer issues, characters, books, etc.







At first I thought it was just coincidence - but after that it became too regular, and I couldn't believe it was coincidence any more.

It's not like I tweet about LGBTQ+ an excessively large amount... is it? I don't think I do.

Anyway, I figure I'm better off without followers like that. As upsetting as that is.






But I just want to thank all the people who do read this blog, like and RT my tweets, comment on my posts, and continue to follow me.

I love you. Each of you is worth 1000 of those homophobic a*sholes.

In a month of trolls, bigotry, and bad news, there were two high-points - my birthday, and you guys.






So, to the books I reviewed this month:




Young Adult








Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova - Fantasy, Witches, LGBTQ+
As I Descended by Robin Talley - Ghost story, Horror, LGBTQ+




Adult










Comics




The Sun Dragon's Song #1 - Kids, Fantasy



9 comments:

  1. And that's what you missed on another drama filled week in the blogosphere! Seriously when are people gonna learn that being nice to people isn't as hard as they think?

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    1. Month, but yeah - definitely! Don't act like a jerk: how difficult is that?!?!

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  2. There has been so much unnecessary drama surrounding diversity and it's so sad. But congrats on surpassing 30,000 views!

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    1. Thanks :) and yeah - but hopefully positivity & diversity will win out! :)

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  4. Now that you summarize September that way, it really was a difficult month filled with conflict. I'm glad we got past it and hope October is better!

    About your Twitter. I'm sorry you noticed the pattern, but it probably happens to a lot of people. It used to happen to me too, and probably still does, I just don't notice anymore. I am vocal about diversity and LGBT issues. I mean, last night I was talking about gay men policing other gay men's "effeminacy" and I actually gained followers from that! hah. These people who are unfollowing you will perhaps be replaced by the right kind of followers :) That's been my case, anyway.

    Loving the DORA acronym. I think I'll use it too!

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    1. Ha - I hope so too!

      I've worked so hard to keep my follower count healthy that I definitely noticed the pattern... particularly when I lost about 10 followers one day when I was RT-ing some LGBTQ+ based tweets.

      You're right, of course, I'm much better off without people like that! I tend to take things overly-personally because of my depression - anything that seems to confirm my low opinion of myself tends to take on too large a perspective in my mind; but I'm working on that!

      I can't believe it took me nearly 2 years of blogging to realise that DORA is an acronym for my blog! When I saw it was like a light-bulb moment! XD

      Thanks for your lovely comment Naz :) You rock, you know that?

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  5. Congrats on your pageviews!! :D
    I can't believe so many people unfollow you when you tweet about LGBTQ+ stuff! I thought this was the 21st century O.o

    Lipstick and Mocha

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    1. Thank you! :)

      Yeah, it's annoying - but I've decided I would rather keep tweeting the way I do - talking about things when they interest me or are important to me - rather than let that get to me. Apparently other people have noticed the same thing, so... yeah... 21st Century :/

      Thanks for the comment! :)

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