December 26, 2022
5 Most Popular 2022 Posts – and 2 that Are Sad
2022 is almost over. The truth is, I don’t really see anything special about the end of the year (or the beginning of a new one). It’s just an arbitrary limit marking another revolution around the sun. But I’m fully ready to opportunistically take advantage of it and offer a list of the 5 most popular 2022 posts on Home for Fiction.
At the same time, I’d like to share with you 2 posts that haven’t received the attention I believe they deserve. Let’s rectify this in 2023!
The 5 Most Popular 2022 Posts on Home for Fiction
Let’s start with the top 5 most popular 2022 posts. Keep in mind that this list refers to posts that were the most popular in 2022, regardless of when I wrote them. Moreover, rather self-evidently, clicking the heading link takes you to the post in question.
Defamiliarization in Literature
Hands down the most popular post for 2022 on Home for Fiction was this one. In it I offer definitions and examples on something that seems to confuse a lot of people. It’s a complex concept, to be sure, but hopefully the popularity of this post shows I’ve done a good job simplifying it to the degree it’s possible.
A JavaScript Iambic Pentameter Generator
An always favorite post, this silly, alpha-stage JavaScript iambic pentameter generator attracts a lot of attention. It’s not any remarkable program, just something I hastily put together many years ago, when I was still learning how to code in JavaScript. Still, if it helps people, great.
Romantic Poets and Jinjer’s “Pisces”
As I’ve mentioned before, I write posts just because I feel like it at a given moment. I wrote this post at some point after I discovered this cool band, and having found interesting connections to Romanticism. Whether there’s anything of value in the post or its popularity accidentally rides on the (much larger) popularity of the band, I can’t tell. Probably both.
What Is Philosophical Suicide?
The fourth most popular 2022 post on Home for Fiction was this, talking about Albert Camus and the concept of the absurd. It’s comforting, I must say, seeing people searching (and finding!) posts on philosophy. Unlike the post on Jinjer or the iambic pentameter generator, I’d like to take more credit for this one. As with the post on defamiliarization, here too I managed to simplify a complex concept in a way that is understandable, and I believe its popularity is a result of that.
Why Friends Disappear
Frankly, I’m surprised this was the fifth most popular 2022 post. It’s a solid post – I believe I’ve focused on important reasons behind this social phenomenon – but I’m still a bit surprised it has attracted so much attention. Still, the surprise is a positive one. Nice to see a post on society receiving attention.
2 Posts that Deserved Better
And now, let’s take a look at two posts that, I believe, deserve more attention. Let’s make it happen in 2023!
Heroes in Democracy: a Dangerous Paradox
This post becomes more and more relevant. The more I see people cheering for a single person – be it a politician with funny hair and dangerous ideas, an NBA player who thinks the Earth is flat, or a capitalist riding on the success and work of others (I let you figure out whom I mean) – the more I feel the ideas I presented in this post are ideas we need to discuss, as society.
Language and Context: Destabilizing Narratives
Though this text is mostly about language and meaning, there are clear social aspects in it as well. Intriguingly, it’s also tangentially connected with the post on heroes in that it shows how dangerous it can be to see things from a Manichean, good-or-evil, with-us-or-against us perspective. If we need to escape mediocrity, suffering, and the perpetuation of idiocy, we must be able to discover the in-between and – as I mention in the post – see the bigger bigger picture.
Any posts you liked and aren’t on this list? Let me know – in the comment section below, or emailing me.
2 Comments
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Now you did something unexpected for me! Usually such last post of the year only recall the most read ones. Bringing up the ones you think deserve more attention is such a great idea. I think it’s one of the most valuable gestures available to a writer, an influencer, or anything similar. To speak of what deserved more attention, and even to try to trace why it didn’t get the spotlight it deserved, to figure out what is happening in public opinion or collective taste. Writers — the ones that are artists, at least — think such topics (willingly or not, it just so happens). And it is so true, I forgot the Language and Context one! Rereading it as soon as I submit this comment. Memory is really that strange thing that forgets more than it remembers. I was listening to a friend, a PhD student in History, talk about how he noticed a myriad of distinct details when re-reading a novel. Since then, I have been thinking how re-reading has gone out of fashion, has even fallen into disrepute, due to the acceleration and proliferation of information sources. Then I recall the best writers I have ever read, and they are all obsessive re-readers, even my object of study in my master’s degree, Salim Miguel, reread The thousand and one nights all his life, from preadolescence to later old age, when he was almost blind, listening to the book from the mouths of his grandchildren. If the adage that sings “writing is rewriting” is true, so too it should be for reading: reading is re-reading. And you teach it to me again and again. For this and so many other things, thank you.
I reread the one on friends disappearing – and realized I’ve been reading these posts for years now – and it’s a good thing. Even though we are so different as writers and probably as people.