Here’s the Rest of the Story

The story so far: WoW is insanely popular and more addicting than ammonia-soaked crack, owing to the pathos-based attack it unleashes upon its players (outlined briefly above). Fan fiction, meanwhile, appeals only to a specialized audience. It’s a bit confounding, then, that my reasonably well executed, visually slick, rhetoric-laden WoW blog was not just beaten, but outright dominated in popularity by a visually-equivalent-to-a-Botox-less-Susan-Sarandon, rhetorically deficient fan fiction account. I’m left consoling my bruised ego and trying to make sense of it all. Ultimately just a handful of conclusions occur to me:

*Fan fiction is more popular than I thought.
*My blog really blows (or conversely, my fan fiction is just that much better written).
*Rhetoric is not a magic bullet.

Regarding the first contention, sure, it’s a possibility. Maybe there are, oh, say, half a million Shaman King fans who, by some bizarre coincidence (and much to the delight of beleaguered English teachers nationwide) all write and read fan fiction. Assuming even that far-fetched scenario is true, need I remind you that there are (to beat, flog, flail, and pulverize the dead horse) NINE MILLION active WoW accounts and counting?! Nine $%^&ing million, for @#$%^&* sake. I trust the point needs no further elucidation…

As for the second, well, you’ve seen the blog. It may not be, to use the vernacular, pimped out, nor is it festooned with, in the street parlance, bling. (“Festooned with bling,” there’s a descriptor I bet you’d never thought you’d read.) It is, however—and if you’re not a WoW player, you’ll just have to take my assertions at face value—at times insightful, occasionally humorous, and above all, rhetorical. The fan fiction is at about the same level. It isn’t Shakespeare, but on the other hand it’s free of mechanical and spelling errors (obviously; I nveer mkae misteaks) and usually tells a fairly compelling story.

So we arrive at the inexorable truth, then…