Phantom WordPress “Likes”
Image Credit Wikipedia
Hello readers of practicallyserious.com. Paranormal Blogging-Investigator Bob Wickipy here with my videographer Lawrence Tolchin. Sorry we’re so late but please understand we’ve been terribly busy since the last time we visited this particular blog. Lot of paranormal activity lately in wordpress. It’s getting scary out there. Strange goings on.
Example: Ever notice how sometimes your blog’s orange indicator light indicates your latest post has gotten a “like.” But then, when you look at your stats to see how much traffic came through your site, you discover that, like normal, no one has visited your blog all day? How can somebody have “liked” your post if no one visited your site all day? Kinda a hard thing to do, wouldn’t you say?
Kinda a spooky thing to do.
This is a very real WordPress phenomenon.
If this event sounds familiar, WordPress friends, then you have been visited by a sadistic paranormal demon-entity we like to call “Lyker.” In life, Lyker was probably just some under-appreciated post on somebody’s oft-neglected WordPress blog. Somebody one day mistakenly thought they had enough interesting thoughts to start and sustain an ongoing blog, and then three weeks later the well went bone dry and the spiders moved in. Maybe Lyker was one of that doomed blog’s last, best offerings. Maybe a really good reaction from that blog’s dozen or so readers would have inspired the writer to push harder, dig deeper, and the failing blog would have lived well into old age. But day after day for poor Lyker: nothing. No “likes” even on the first day of publication. Nothing. No love. No appreciation. So when that failing blog finally died, Lyker became a disembodied spirit hell-bent on teasing dedicated, deserving bloggers with blind, empty “likes.” Just to remind these hard workers that, in reality, NOBODY ACTUALLY READS THEIR STUPID ANNOYING BLOG!!!
If you have a WordPress blog, then you have been visited by Lyker. He’s out there, teasing the unsuspecting with a rush of desperately-needed validation, and then cruelly yanking this blessing away.
Well, 82 followers of practicallyserious.com, get ready for this. It is our intention—Lawrence’s and mine—to commune with Lyker. To lure him into this blog and have an actual discussion with him/her, and to have Lawrence here film the WHOLE THING on his grainy infrared camera.
Yes, yes, we’ll also do our standard investigation for EVP’s (electronic voice phenomenon) and other generic spirit-attacks, like doors slamming for no reason and old player-pianos just starting to play all by themselves even though nobody is in the room at the time. We’re well-aware that this blog has yet to be “Freshly pressed” and that ghosts are obviously the reason. The blog-ghost that messed with me and Lawrence last time we visited this blog—not to mention the one that recently spooked Derek’s 100th post celebration—is still at large. Do not worry. We’ll do our best standard investigating.
But let’s face it: Lyker is the rockstar. If we can hold palaver with him and find a way to facilitate his passing into the afterblog, than maybe the Asterix spirit and the “three identically creepy pale little girls standing abreast” and all the others will take a cue and leave us alone for a few centuries.
Sold yet? I thought so. Here’s how we make this happen. After months of studying grainy infrared footage, Lawrence and I came up with a plan to lure Lyker into a future practicallyserious.com blog-post. And we believe that if Lyker falls for our trick, he’ll respect us long enough to hold palaver. Me and Lawrence will take it from there, because we’re the professionals with the microphones and the consumer-grade video equipment.
Okay. So here’s how it goes. Easy stuff. You, the reader, must simply “like” the hell out this post, and maybe throw up some links on your own blog or Facebook or whatever. If we get more “likes” than any other post in practicallyserious.com has ever gotten before (not a terribly difficult task), then Lyker will not be able to ignore the screaming irony of it all. The “fakeness” of all those “likes.” Because let’s face it: this post SUCKS!!! If this stupid-ass post should get more “likes” than one of Derek’s blogging-masterpieces like “Attack of the Giant Beast,” Lyker will simply HAVE to show up and see what’s going on. Then he’ll see that he’s been tricked, and instead of “Redrum” on the door he’ll write, in the exact same font, “Respect.” He’ll talk to us. We’ll talk some sense into him.
But listen up! If we don’t get the “likes” he probably won’t come. He’ll continue to haunt the blogosphere, molesting the dreams of so many insecure writers. Derek doesn’t like entangling alliances, and he’s not happy about the potential commitment of having to write a whole post about me and Lawrence palavering with Lyker. Derek doesn’t want “likes.” He could care less. He is an artist.
Never mind him, then! Just remember: this is an unprecedented opportunity we’re offering here. You, the reader, can maybe be a part of blogging history. Imagine a blogosphere without the cackling shenanigans of Lyker!
It’s possible my friends. And we know you want to help. But good intentions aren’t going to get the job done. You must reach out to the optical mouse next to your keyboard and aim and click the cursor on the WordPress “like” button and LIKE THIS POST!!!
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This has been the final episode of Scary Blog-Posts to Tell in the Dark. Hope you enjoyed, and Happy Halloween!
If you’d like to experience the first time Bob Wickipy and Lawrence Tolchin visited practicallyserious.com, click on this link!
