Second Anniversary!

Marking my second year of blogging!



It's been two wonderful years since I started up Caitlyn's Masks as a blog.  Technically, just over two years as my first post was November 28, 2010.  I'd like to think that I've grown a lot since then.  I know my designs have change a lot, and I think my writing has improved... but really those are subjective measures.

I can say that I've opened myself up a lot.  If you remember, I started this blog with no intention of getting thousands of page views, let alone millions.  I mainly wanted a blogger account so that I could post to other people's blogs, but figured that as long as I had the space, I would go ahead and post my caps.   And as long as I was posting the caps, I may as well post ABOUT the caps as well.  

Well that went out the window fairly quickly.  In December of 2010 I received over 60,000 pageviews, 76 comments and even had a post that didn't include a cap from me.  You could easily call me hooked.  I now didn't think of posting my caps as placing them in a vault somewhere to keep safe... I felt that I was honestly and truly sharing them with people.  

And my time spent here has only grown better and better.  I've found myself sharing and talking about things that I hadn't planned on.  I found myself celebrating life's victories.... even ones that don't involve caps or even TG related things.  I've met many friends, and strengthened many other friendships.  Enough so that I could even share my failures and accept the comforting words from everybody.

This past year, this blog has become one of my main ways of expressing myself.  All of my caps used to be created for people at Rachel's Haven, but now I'd say that only about half of my posts here got their beginnings that way.

So for fun... here are some numbers.  This first batch is just for the past year.  Since Blogger can't break down numbers like this, they are all from Google Analytics:

• 376,061 Visitors
• 1,993,333 Page views
• Top Viewed caps:
• All The Options - 9,108 Page views
• Working Off A Debt - 7,887
• Make Up Your Mind Quickly - 7,864
• Experience Everything - 7,789
• Learning To Be A Real Man - 7,572

And just for giggles here are the same stats for all time:

• 632,956 Visitors
• 3,226,192 Page views
• Top Viewed Caps:
• Escape from D+X Institute - 9,592
• All The Options - 9,108
• Simon's Wishes - 8,963
• Time Travel Experiments - 8,884
• Man Up! - 8,645

Now before anyone gets excited about the three million page views.... remember Google Analytics give's slightly higher (although far more reliable) numbers.  According to Blogger I've only received 2,247,861 total page views.  And when I say more reliable... I mean it.  The numbers that GA gives me don't change, while the blogger ones do.  For instance... according to blogger, my most viewed cap of all time is "Working Off A Debt" with 6,346 page views. 

I don't mind there being a difference in the number of pageviews (GA just counts differently than Blogger)... but "All The Options" isn't even listed in my top 10 of all time (and they only give me the top 10!).  Neither is "Escape from D+X Institute".  Which means that blogger thinks that both of those caps have less than 4,000 total page views.  

While I was looking up these numbers I found something else that tickles the nerd part of my brain... my most viewed PAGE isn't even a cap.  It's the page that is loaded when anybody clicks on the "Forced" label.   That single page received 10,024 page views.  Hell... my Caps page (just a listing of the caps) received 8,526 page views all on it's own.  And since that page has only existed since my redesign in April of this year, that makes it the most viewed page of the year!

That "Forced" factoid really encompasses a lot to me.  My caps are of course made often from my own mindset.  Even when I'm making a cap for someone else, it still has my fingerprints on it.  My favorite theme overall is being forced into a transformation.  So to me it's natural that the people that come here to view my caps would be fans of that as well.  

Sure... the more vocal people may not be a big fan of that theme, but it's those unspoken masses that speak with numbers alone.  I think the reason that those caps are popular is because they will come out the most 'true' from me.  About the only way I'd go into a transformation (at least the ones that I write about) would involve something or someone forcing me into it.  Those delicious little details that get people to squirm are from my heart more than my brain.  

Thankfully it doesn't take any outside force to keep me capping and keep me posting.  As you probably know, I'm having a tough time now making caps and even feeling like "Caitlyn" at all.  My recent caps show that in both the bland designs and the less than stellar writing.  It's just not easy, and not always fun to do cap anymore.   

But I have no intention of hanging up either of my masks.

I appreciate each and everyone of you that's stopped by, and hope that the next year will bring many good posts!