Sex, Drugs, and other Blogs

By M. Alexander

I was recently looking through the analytics on the “Addicted to Redemption” blog and noticed some interesting statistics.  One would think that the most popular blogs on the Jewish Journal would be about Torah, Israel, and the state of modern morality—but this is not the case.

The most popular entries have been about sex and marijuana—pop culture topics that I had thought would get the most traction on other Internet forums, but not necessarily on the website of a newsletter designed for the Jewish community.

I want to know why.   Why do these topics stir our attention and grab our focus while discussions of Torah lay by the wayside?  Maybe we are not so different from everyone else.  Maybe enlightened readers fiend for instant gratification just as much as gossip column junkies.  I wonder— what are the most popular articles in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker?  Do they follow this same trend?

I am not exempt.  I am certainly more likely to read a blog that has a picture of a marijuana leaf than one with an image of Moses hoisting two stone tablets, but I thought that I might be the exception rather than the norm.

Why are you reading this blog?  Is it because you thought it would be about sex and drugs?  Be honest…I’m not a harsh critic.