Blog game ironies.

A ridiculous irony in the game of blogging is that you can score a lot of links by saying something that people disagree with vehemently. It's particularly ironic that Kevin Drum has hit the link jackpot by pissing a lot of women off about how men are better at playing the blogging game. I've played into his hand more than once already, and I do it one more time in my role as guest-blogger over at GlennReynolds.com, where I score an Instapundit link every time I post, but don't win any points in the blogging game because the links go there not here. Which just goes to show how badly women play the blogging game!

Let me thuddingly say that I'm kidding, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to blog on GlennReynolds.com and all the Instapundit links I've gotten over the months, and I'm not jealous of all the links Drum has attracted by being unattractive to women.

And, quite seriously, the real way to win at blogging is to create a place for yourself that you find energizing and intrinsically rewarding, which is probably going to be at odds with the goal of getting the most traffic and the most links. It's the readers that you get and keep by writing in a way that you find intrinsically valuable that matter the most, sort of like the way your best friends are the people who like you when you're being yourself. So those traffic and link rankings do not show who is really winning. You'll have to look into your own heart to find out if you're winning.

And yeah, yeah: go ahead and mock me, guys, for being like those school teachers who ban dodgeball and insist on games where everyone can win. I mean it: mock me! Mock me and link, because I find it intrinsically rewarding to gaze at Site Meter and the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem!

UPDATE: I like this Drum slam over on the RLC blog:

Why don't people who are pretty sure that what they have to say is stupid just keep it to themselves? Why the "my blog can kick your blog's ass," anyway?

I hope some readers are getting a little mixed up and thinking, I thought Drum was the liberal blogger and Althouse was the right wing blogger. Think, people! Is the left feminist? Is it?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kesher Talk wisecracks:

I think Ann has the goods on Kevin. He's playing dumb to get links. How feminine of him. Bat your eyelashes, too, Kevin baby.