Well, it’s been a year now.
I started Rational Male on August 19th, 2011at the suggestion of so many patrons of SoSuave wanting me to collect my writings there into one cohesive section. My intent a year ago was simply to compile all I’d written into a blog and refine those posts, case studies and Iron Rules into more concise essays and allow easier access.
That was the easy part. I had so much material built up at SoSuave over the previous 9 years it just became a matter of picking which topic to focus on and develop it beyond what I could expect the average forum reader to have the attention span for. I’ve never kept a journal or anything, but as I sifted back through my forum posts – some of which were almost a decade old – I began to see how my perspective on things had evolved over the years. In some respects I suppose it’s how people who keep a diary go back and read how they used to be and what they thought at the time, only I found my 2011 self using that groundwork I had laid in 2002, and into the decade, as the basis for broader ideas in the now. I had the benefit of 8+ years of evolving my perspectives as the manosphere itself evolved.
On August 19th, 2011, I had no idea who a good 80% of the bloggers you see in my blog roll were, and that’s not mentioning the ones I read, or locked horns with, regularly who aren’t in that last. I had no idea who Dalrock was, or Krauser who I’d unknowingly inspired to so much insight. I knew Roissy before he adopted Heartiste and of course I was familiar with Roosh before I began blogging. I was welcomed by them as well as Ferdinand from the gone but not forgotten In Mala Fide. Before October of last year, I had no idea who Aunt Giggles was until she fired a shot across the bow at me in Wait For It?
It’s been kind of strange to be accounted as one of the three ‘R’s of the manosphere in less than a year. I passed the 1 Million views mark on August 16th and my traffic, while not comparable to the likes of the other R’s (or even Dalrock for that matter), grows exponentially each month. It seems like the blog’s a meteoric rise to manospheric celebrity, until I consider I’ve been writing ‘red pill’ material for almost a decade now.
I’ve been approached on several occasions to monetize Rational Male, but I’ve held off from that. I’d still ask readers to anonymously donate to my charity fund, but I will never monetize RM. That said, I am in the process of compiling the material here into a book I hope to publish in 2013. I’m still figuring out best practices for this, and distilling down 228 blog posts into concise chapter topics is a challenge to say the least. I don’t even have a working title for it yet, but I’ve decided to put in the effort because the most common request I get is for a publication of my material that other Men can use to help their plugged-in friends unplug.
There’s just something about having a book in your hands, or perhaps on an e-reader, that represents legitimacy for people that reading the same material or ideas online doesn’t. When I get linked to from Reddit as a reference for some guy attempting to help his friend unplug it’s almost always followed by a stream of troll posts or blithering AFC crabs in the barrel pulling him back into their Matrix conditioned group-comfort. I’ve had a significant number readers ask if I had a book they could just hand to their friends (sometimes their sons) so they could digest what I’ve compiled for so long.
And that’s one obstacle I see in my blogging: I have a library of posts on so many topics that it’s difficult (even for me) to specifically reference what might address the troubles of someone seeking individualized help. Like any blogger, I try to make things easier; I have the categories on the side bar, the standard search query, and I always make a point of cross linking to past articles to aid in referencing what I think people might find most useful.
However, it’s really hard to be everything to everyone. Personally I think some of my most relevant posts were published in the first few months of this blog going live, but the million-plus readers who’ve more recently become regulars here may have no idea about them. So as I’ve been reviewing the past year’s material for book publication I thought I’d post a ‘best of’ list for today’s post to make newer readers aware of topics that might address a particular issue they have questions about.
So without further ado, I give you,..
The Basics
Plate Theory
Plugged-In
Unplugging
Game
Communication
Social Conventions
Hypergamy
Iron Rules of Tomassi
Mythology
The Feminine Imperative
If you have any other favorites that really spoke to you, but didn’t make my list, please link them and tell me how it helped.
Here’s to another great year of RM.
]]>