50,000 Views:
What People Looked At
On Flickr

I swear this post has nothing to do with flickr being down in China. That event just happened to coincide almost perfectly with my 50,000th photo view. I told myself I'd write a blog post as soon as I crossed that magic number. Instead, I finished a stats project, wrote a survey , and had a finance exam. Now freedom has arrived....

50,000 views sounds like a lot, but it's not a lot when you think that I've uploaded over 10,000 photos to my flickr account. Even though I reckon 1,000 of said uploaded photos are for private archival purposes (biz cards, journals, various publications, research, etc that are for friends or personal viewing only), this figure only means each photo has been viewed a little over five times. That means each person on earth has viewed one of my photos .000000008 times!

Here are people's favorite pics.

As of June 15, 2007, 1:47am....

# 20) Ms. Fawcett

334 Views

Here's the sham wife! In her wet suit. Could the fact that this photo is tagged "Ms. Fawcett" and "wetsuit" have anything to do with its popularity?


#19) Prototheca wickerhamii

335 Views

I did not take this photo of "Prototheca wickerhamii." Nor can I take credit for this saprophytic alga. I don't know which Wickerham named this guy. Or which Wickerham won the that scientist's heart. There aren't many Wickerhams out there. But oh how we woo. And here's what wickerhamii does. Ewww. Internal septation.

#18) Drag in Henan

360 views

Who wouldn't be curious about a drag show in Henan Province? Click on it to see other pictures of me in a terrible outfit feverishly doing things in that filthy smoke hole.

#17) bumpermadness

368 views

As if driving an Expedition wasn't enough of a middle finger to the world... These people had to plaster a bigoted bumper sticker on the bumper. This picture got posted to a news site, so we're starting to get some hits now. (Don't click on it if you're offended by swear words).

#16) Crying Mary

369 views

When this statue of the Virgin Mary started bleeding from the eyes, guess who was there? Your narrator, that's who!

#15) On the Dock

385 views

Another pic of the sham wife. This time you see her whole body in the wet suit. She claimed she wanted this pic for her mother. I knew she was doing it for the good of the blog.

#14) resume art

401 views

Here's my resume after being corrected by all three career services staff at IR/PS.


#13) holding brokk

419 views

Brokk was a norse dwarf. He's also the sham family's dog. He has overactive anal glands and a cute mug. And why does anyone care? Because we posted this photo at the bottom of every auction when we were selling out childhood possessions on eBay.

#12) letter writing

422 views

Over winter holiday 2006/7, I wrote a letter to a girl from YangShan Cun in rural Anhui Province who said she wanted to be pen pals. She has yet to write back. I have no idea why 422 people have chosen to view this unless they're hoping to make out my chicken scratch.

#11) love with you

432 views

A compendium of gay organizations in China, circa late 2004. Here's a link to photos of the whole pamphlet. It was comprehensive for its time, but is a little out of date now. Published by the Beijing Gender and Health Education Institute. I imagine the majority of viewers up to now had been Chinese, since I tagged it in Chinese. Not any more. I colored all the photos blue over the weekend for our mainland Chinese viewers.

#10) just pretend

476 views

Everything is ok. So this was a response to those flag-waving days that have not really gone away in anything but a cosmetic way. Something's gotta give, folks!

#9) in the midst

506 views

More eBay bidders wanted to look at Susan's picture than the one of me holding Brokk. She was sitting in the middle of 500 Star Wars action figures. I guess she had a bit of an advantage over me and cute little Brokky pants.

#8) carved wooden buddha statue

541 views

From Hangzhou. I was thinking about exporting these little guys. I think they're fine figurines. Actually, some of the best commercial carvings I came across in all of my travels. I just wasn't good enough at bargaining. This photo is quite worthy of its many many views. It looks great zoomed in on!

#7) I Want you to Want Me

550 views

Just one of the many images that will haunt me if I ever go into politics. Even if I delete it today, I'm sure 17 weirdos have it saved to their hard drives. Or I can so hope.

#6) homemade satellite dish

611 views

Nothing like a rusty satellite dish made from an old cooking wok and a tin can to spark enough interest to push this to number six in the flickr charts. This is actually a much better homemade satellite dish photo from the same Chinese village. Check out the hens hiding from the rain under it. (9 views as of this posting).

#5) galaxor nebulon clowning around

633 views

Caption: "ryan hughes caught in the middle of what could have been his most popular antic ever." Another copyrighted image bringing in the viewers!

#4) A Backpack and a Keyboard Logo

673 views

Again, the caption pretty much says it all. "A vanity logo for a vanity blog."


#3) Nappatizers

794 views

The menu from the restaurant in Tomorrow Square, Shanghai. With Dad.


#2) Nappatizers?

848 views

Dad's trying to make something of this too. Welcome to the five-star JW Marriot in downtown Shanghai.

#1) Jeni and Clara Kissing

1,506 views

"Jeni and Clara Kissing" has been ranked at the top since the very first day I posted it. If you didn't think I was a flickr whore before, I hope I've changed your opinion. Go ahead. Look at those girls kissing. Girls! Lesbian hot action girls kissing!

Check back in a few months to what statistical impact including those key sex terms have on the hit count of "A Backpack and Keyboard."

Labels: flickr, photos