Well, here he is. Apparently. I am not sure how you get a reputation like this from a few dodgy business moves. There are worse business results out there from so called professionals than this young chap has perpetrated. Whatever those moves, he has generated a phalanx of detractors who seem hell bent on getting a pound of flesh out of him. Worlds Most Hated Blogger? That is a tall order to fill.
Do I feel sorry for him?
It’s a week for the underdogs perhaps. Paul Potts goes his winning way and I am cheering him on, then Casey emerges with a hard luck story, slipping down here in Australia, hiding from his detractors and trying to get his life back on track. Sounds like he should get a sympathy vote as well. Then you discover he is attracting not insignificant traffic to his blog (300,000 + visits per month), the advertisers are doing OK out of that and you wonder if marketing is his skill even if real estate is not. And that this “worlds most hated blogger” tag is a clever promotional effort. You can be anyone and anything on the web (even a pickled eel), so who knows?
Then you figure that whatever the claims, and whatever his faults, and whatever the merits of the business plan, he deserves his shot at winning, just as much as the rest of us. After all, the Pickled Eel opened his business account ten years ago with nine dollars in loose change (and we have a long way to go yet). So there is a strong sympathy vote from me for a guy trying to make something out of nothing. Casey, the secret is “don’t blink.”
Casey’s website is here(looks like it is melting down this evening). And Sydney Morning Herald coverage here. And to whom I acknowledge the source of the photo.
Thanks for reading. This blog is an opportunity for me to capture some of the diversity of my writing interests. My muse tend to appear on my shoulder as I board an international flight although not all of my writing is inspired by travel and foreign places. These blogs have been the basis of a novel (Flowers of Baghdad) but there are a few other writing projects in progress besides. Please feel free to leave a comment. Or two.