Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Here we are again … celebrating another year of blogging lesbian Pittsburgh. Yeah, I don’t really know what that means but it seems catchy.

I was pondering the impact of my most recent year of blogging.  I haven’t been consistent, but I’ve been paying attention even when its been a little silent around here.

Here are a few posts that seemed popular.

Blog for Equality Pgh  2011. 21 bloggers spoke out about marriage equality. Fortunately, the “marriage protection amendment” hasn’t made it out of committee. Yet. Heartening how each year the number of bloggers participating in this little project of mine has grown.

Our post about The Advocate’s tongue in cheek ranking of Pittsburgh as the 5th Gayest City in the nation continues to be very popular.   Yeah, I didn’t realize it was tongue in cheek either until the “math” didn’t add up and I contacted the publisher. They very nicely told me it was intended to be all in good fun and there was no actual science or method to the rankings. I was just relieved that the “Pride Theater Festival” isn’t real. (They assured me it wasn’t.) Pgh’s LGBT community has gained a lot of mileage out of this. I’m not sure everyone has caught on to the joke. 

Another frequently visited post was our take on Lucille Prater-Holliday’s campaign to unseat City Councilor Ricky Burgess.  BTW, he didn’t support PrideFest this year either. Yeah. I’m pretty sure his team gets the joke about Pittsburgh being gay friendly. 

My wandering thoughts on the emerging lesbian social “scene” makes the list. 

Where are all of these folks coming from?

Facebook.  Infinonymous. And google. 

Interesting. NetworkedBlogs autopublishes my posts to the PghLesbian Facebook page and I occasionally post a link here and there, but it generates more visitors than any other source. The blog Infinonymous is a close second (I was “listed”) and Google ranks third.

Three other local blogs drive traffic to my site – 2 Political Junkies, Angry Drunk Bureaucrat and The Pittsburgh Comet.  The Post Gazette’s “Early Returns” blog also generates many of our hits (we are on their blogroll.)

Lesbian blogging is inherently political even when I’m discussing potlucks and gay cyberbullying?

What are they seeking?

The top 20 searches are some twist on the search for lesbians in Pittsburgh. Then a slew of inquiries about Pittsburgh “celebrities” who may or may not be gay, Pittsburgh community folks who are in fact LGBTQ and a lot of interesting questions about me.  

“How to get rid of bed bugs” drove more people to my site than “Adam Ravenstahl.” What could that mean?

None of that is particularly deep or meaningful. What resonates the most with me continues to be the fact that the act of blogging itself  – as a lesbian – is political. My existence, my identity, my thoughts and my opinions are political because any voice from the second class citizen ranks threatens the status quo. That’s a lot of power.

I also find the role of social media forms beyond blogging to be interesting. I use Facebook A LOT to toss out ideas, stories and links I might otherwise highlight and explore on my blog. So while my blogging decreased, my social media presence was amplified as I explored Google+, YouTube, Chime.In and beyond.  I just joined Pinterest this week, in fact.

Our biggest change this year was our migration from Blogware to WordPress. I’m enjoying the new layout and still learning my way around the widgets and plugins. I haven’t crashed the site yet!

All in all, six years is an interesting juncture. We aren’t the oldest LGBT blog (Jason Cable has that honor) in this region, but we’ve certainly carved out a unique little niche.

Thanks for reading!