Every now and then I check my site stats to see who’s visiting what and where they come from. In something that is perhaps not a surprise and is totally expected given the crap quality of what I create here, there are not many visitors, though there seem to be a little more lately. Perhaps the most highly trafficked page is one where I call out Akimoto Yasushi for being a bit of a… not so nice person. Perhaps the second most one is the one where I say why I think J-Pop sucks. Not perhaps the finest foot forward on this site, but it is what it is. I’ve never been one to moderate my opinion just because it might piss someone off.
But what has always, since I started this page, befuddled me is how few visitors I actually get from Japan. In fact, I get far more visitors from the US than Japan.
Perhaps this is because I don’t write the page in Japanese, and that would be completely reasonable. Perhaps it’s because people in Japan aren’t really interested in what I think about their country, culture, or language, which would be completely reasonable as well. Perhaps it’s just because they hang out elsewhere and don’t use WordPress, which is also understandable (I wish there were better options, as I’m often wondering when WordPress will go the way of Patreon, etc., and start censoring people). There are many likely reasons, but the simple fact is this: they’re not interested in, can’t find, or understand what I have to say.
I suppose that’s fine, but in some ways, it’s rather boring, dontcha think?
Or perhaps I’m not talking about anything interesting to the Japanese. I mean, they live with their culture every day, and I’m not saying anything particularly new, am I? They know how to speak Japanese, they know what sakura trees mean to them, they know about J-Pop and other media, far more than I do in many ways. And my perspective is probably not very useful to anyone but me.
Maybe someday I’ll say something interesting to the Japanese, and they’ll come here, and tell me something interesting back. Maybe someday. But right now, I guess I’ll keep yelling into the wind.