Above, art by this year's winner, IFNB.
An autograph hunting fan laps up his hero's generous gesture.
~
According to my Blogger 'hit stats', out of all the mitchmen articles published to date,
those registering the most total hits since publication are as shown below.
Table 1 mitchmen Articles With Most Hits Since Publication to end 2022
Posn (last yr) | Title of Post (& link) | Year of Pub'n | Cum Hits | 2022 Hits |
1 (2) | | 2018 | 44,570 | 8,964 |
2 (3) | | 2017
| 43,879 | 9,847 |
3 (1) | | 2012 | 41,771 | 3,166 |
4 (5) | | 2008
| 34,305 | 3,347 |
5 (4) | | 2010 | 33,058 | 2,073 |
6 (6) | | 2018 | 23,391 | 2,374 |
7 (7)
| | 2009
| 22,133 | 1,277 |
8 (10) | | 2018
| 22,042
| 4,555 |
9 (8) | | 2016 | 20,871 | 1,451 |
10 (9) | | 2010
| 19,077 | 966 |
11 (11) | | 2009
| 18,517 | 3,830 |
12 (12) | | 2010
| 14,034
| 912 |
13 (13) | | 2009 | 13,475
| 1,074 |
14 (-) | | 2020 | 13,314
| 6,189 |
15 (14) | | 2015 | 13,020
| 1,451
|
16 (15) | | 2019 | 12,891
| 2,041
|
17 (18) | | 2018 | 11,628
| 1,820
|
18 (19) | | 2009
| 11,468
| 1,964 |
19 (17) | | 2009 | 11,400
| 1,199 |
20 (-) | | 2008 | 11,077 | 6,027 |
Stats compiled 31/12/22
I am pleasantly surprised by the enormous, sustained interest in the IFNB article which must be partly due to the disappearance of the original IFNB blog (for reasons only it's author will know). The mitchmen follow-up article, '
IFNB Revisited' also posted a significant rise in 2022 to 68th position from 96. I hope to publish more images from my IFNB collection in 2023.
The other notable development this year is the arrival of
The Art of Amalaric 1 - A Slave To Passion in 14th position having risen 26 places since last time with a hit score which, if repeated, will propel it much further up the table next year, although not enough to worry the top 5 for a while. As lead article in the Amalaric series, it attracts most of the hits, others in the series are still lagging some way behind.
The other new arrival was
A-Z of Fetish Artists - Brick. It's a surprise to me that this talented artist wasn't present in the the top 20 already. His rise of 46 places was partly fuelled by a referral by my friend
Metalbond who had the privilege of hosting the release of Brick's wonderful new pictures in 2022. These demonstrate great advances in the artist's technical and erotic skills.
Brick is the latest of mitchmen's all-time greats to join this table. The Priapus of Milet article, relegated to No 3 this year, now heads a trio of long established artists who have been ever-present near the top of this table for many years now. The continued interest in A-Z of Fetish Artists – Mike Carcel (a former winner) and A-Z of Fetish Artists – Cavelo, both of whom are both relatively inactive now (I believe) shows that their technical and erotic qualities continue to attract new fans. The destruction of Yahoo! Groups seems to have taken down the fan clubs for these artists with it, but if anyone knows better please let me know via the comments facility.
These two swopped places in their long-running private tussle but there's still barely a sheet of Bronco between them and it's a big gap below them down to 6th place so no-one is likely to catch them soon.
Their nearest challenger (apart from Amalaric - 1) is the
Homoeros Gallery Guide which posted another good count in 2022 and climbed two places to cement it's place in the top 10. Homoeros – 6 (Art of The Cross) achieved a similar feat towards the foot of the table. I think this artist's alluring crucifixion imagery is the basis of his popularity, largely transforming a bdsm genre that has tended to be cautiously academic in the past (for obvious reasons).
Homoeros is one of a tight bunch of six articles chasing the top 5 in 6th to 11th positions. Four of them feature classic and vintage bdsm artists - Jotto, Etienne and Malex who were joined this year by
A-Z of Fetish Artists - Franco which unexpectedly posted a particularly strong performance for which I have no explanation although his popularity is entirely deserved. There's another group of veterans further down - Martin of Holland, The Hun, Kalabro, Julius and newcomer Brick of course who displaced another one, Heredia, from the chart. They all turned in substantial scores during the year, a heart-warming tribute to the 'old school'.
Last but not least, hanging on to 15th position (much to my delight), was my own 'A Christmas Criminal'
. It is by far the most successful of my own works at mitchmen, my next best, 'Last Chance Saloon' languishes at 85. 'Criminal' matched the performance of other mid-table articles, but like them is menaced by newcomers coming up below.
This year we lost from the top 20, A-Z of Fetish Artists - Heredia, 2009 which was only a tokenistic selection of that artist's age-sensitive art and My Initiation, 2012, a uniquely sexy image to bdsm fans which actually increased it's hit rate in the year but was ultimately ousted by the two high-flyers of 2022 - Amalaric and Brick
~
The entry level to this all-time top 20 is now 11,077 about 1,700 more on last year. That increase alone exceeded all but t
he top 4 scores of the 2022 new posts. It's also sobering to reflect that the cumulative total is more than five and a half times the score of the 2022, New Post winner, New 'Slave Academy' Pictures by Brick illustrating the long slog is needed to join this elite. Last year's winner Come and Get It! rose 149 places to 76 this time but is still only half way to matching that entry bar (which will probably be higher by the time it get's there).
All of the older articles which still make up the bulk of this table were originally posted when the levels of visitors to mitchmen were much lower than they are now, which makes it all the more remarkable that so many are still holding off the 'new order'. Their on-going scores are probably helped by the mitchmen 'Index of Artists' page which reached 77,515 hits at the end of 2022 (19% up from last time). This growth was less than last year but is really quite remarkable in a year in which overall visits to the blog were a tad down. It would have earned it top spot in this ranking if I counted it as a post.
mitchmen blog was first published in 2008 and ten of the fifteen years since then are now represented in this survey, the missing years between 2008 and 2022 are shown below
Average hit rates
The total cumulative hits method I use for assessing the all-time popularity table above is obviously biased towards older articles which have had longer to accumulate their hits. However, the higher traffic counts in recent years are eroding that advantage more and more, enabling the best of the newer articles to contest the top positions quite quickly. That effect is evident in the table below based on average hits per year since publication, which gives a more balanced view of long-term popularity.
In this list I have left out the 2022 posts because they don't even have a full year yet and their initial surge (if you'll pardon that expression) produces ridiculous hit rates that are unlikely to be sustained. They are covered by a table of their own (MPP1).
Table 2
Articles with the Highest Average Hits per year Since Publication
Article | Published | Ave Hits per year | Position (& last year) | 'Total Hits' position |
| 2018 | 9254 | 1 (1) | 1 |
| 2017 | 7477 | 2 (2) | 2
|
| 2020
| 5657 | 3 (5) | 14
|
| Homoeros Gallery Guide | 2018 | 5443 | 4 (4) | 8
|
| Milking Factories - 3 | 2018 | 5076 | 5 (3)
| 6
|
| 2012 | 3900 | 6 (7) | 3
|
| 2021 | 3722 | 7 (-) | 76
|
| 2020 | 3560 | 8 (6) | 24
|
Etienne - Index of articles at mitchmen
| 2016 | 3393 | 9 (8) | 9
|
| 2019 | 3256 | 10 (9) | 16
|
The Art of Roa 1 - The Conquered Hero | 2021 | 3230 | 11 (-) | 128
|
| 2020 | 2945 | 12 (10) | 34 |
| 2008 | 2742 | 13 (13) | 4
|
| 2018 | 2661 | 14 (11) | 17
|
| 2010 | 2643 | 15 (12) | 5
|
| 2020
| 2425 | 16 (15) | 67 |
| 2020 | 2213
| 17 (14) | 82
|
| 2018
| 2203
| 18 (17) | 26 |
| 2019 | 2034 | 19 (18) | 45
|
Another Milking Factory No2 | 2018 | 2023
| 20 (-) | 28
|
In this table, the top 2 articles kept their positions but 'The Milking Factory' was one of only three articles that raised it's lifetime hit rate this year. The others declined as would be expected from the natural effect of aging which was reinforced this year by the overall fall in blog visits. The other exceptions were Art of Amalaric-1 which jumped over Homoeros into third position and Cavelo which stubbornly held on to 14th. The Cavelo article has a long tail of low scores on account of it's age and it's current annual hit scores comfortably exceed it's long term average so it's position in this table seems assured for the immediate future.
The 'Milking Factory' collection increased it's presence in the top 20 to 5 articles this year with No 2 in the series entering in 20th position. Nos 3,4 and 5 all lost ground but only slightly. The other big group in the top 20, the 'Art of Amalaric' series, showed a similar pattern with the leading article strengthening it's position and the others suffering small drops, however The Art of Amalaric – 7 Institutional Slavery slipped out of the top 20 altogether.
The highest placed new entry was The Royale Studio archive notice 'Come and Get it!' which came in at No 7. It benefits from the fact that I republish it whenever I add new material to the Royale archive. As a result it's 2022 score was more than in 2021. This article is the only one based on photography in these tables unless you count Amalaric's photo-manips. Two others from last year were knocked out by the new arrivals. A New Life For Our Air Force Boys (2017) and IFNB is most popular new post of 2018. dropped to 21st and 22nd places.
Another 2021 article, 'Art of Roa No 1' entered the chart at No 11, a good performance that was foreshadowed when it finished second to 'Come and Get It!' in 2021's New Post poll but it's early days yet for both these articles.
The rest of the table did not change very much but most articles were shuffled downwards by Amalaric's jump and the new arrivals taking up their positions. Two notable exceptions were the 'old-timers' Priapus of Milet who bucked the trend by rising one position to 6th on the back of a slightly improved hit rate in 2022 and Cavelo who held onto his 14th position with a similar strong showing. The other member of the pre-2017 'big three', MCarcel, dropped three places after showing a more significant decline.
The cut-off point for joining the 'hit rate' table dropped a tiny amount this year, from 2092 to2023 hits per year. Only two articles in the 2022 New Posts table beat that total this year and then only marginally so. They face a major challenge if they are to join this company next year. Although this method tends to benefit popular, newer articles in the short term, their score decays more quickly than the older ones if they don't keep up their initial post-publication surge.
~
The articles I post to this blog are very much based on my own interests and fancies but the results of this survey do help me plan future offerings. My readers preferences doesn't always match my own (where are Les, JoeT and Link?). Nevertheless it's gratifying to see such interest in the great artists who often have a fairly low visibility on the web.
Remember, this comparison is only made for entertainment, since I don't really know how accurate Google's stats are, they don't seem to add up to the overall hits at the blog and I suspect they don't count the activity of people who just browse through the blog roll.
Thanks to all of you for your continuing interest and support.
This annual set of articles is made up of 3 charts
MPP1 - Most Popular New Post of the Year MPP2 - Most Popular Post during the Year (All articles ) MPP3 - Most Popular Post of All Time (i.e. cumulative performance)
that's this article!
Charts and reviews for earlier years can be accessed by clicking the 'MPP' label
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