So... that Mark. I think I've worked it out. :)

[elisi]

(Karen Gillan in my icon is doing a Mark impression...)

First of all, then many thanks go to gabrielleabelle for suggesting that Mark is so... OTT in his Buffy reviews because he expects angst. Because suddenly he was easy to diagnose. Basically he suffers from pre-Traumatic Joss Syndrome.

His tagline is 'You're Not Prepared', but this actually misleading. I don't mean that he's spoiled, but he is prepared. Here are my approximations of his mindset for various things:

Buffy:
'OH NOES IT'S JOSS AND HE LOVES TO STAB PEOPLE IN THE BACK WHEN THEY FEEL HAPPY! EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE PERPETUAL HEARTBREAK, ANYONE COULD DIE AT ANYTIME! WILL IT BE THIS EPISODE THAT BREAKS ME FOR GOOD? OR THIS ONE? OR THIS ONE? OR...'

Lord of the Rings:
'OMG EVERYTHING IS EPIC AND EVERYTHING IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL FANTASY THAT COMES AFTER AND HOW SHALL I DEAL???'

Moffat Who:
'EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE CLEVER AND COMPLICATED OH NOES WHAT-IS-GOING-ON-I-CAN'T-WORK-IT-OUT-HELP!!!!'

Twilight:
'THIS IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE RUBBISH AND TERRIBLE - AAAAAAAH! IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN I THOUGHT! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? AND IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE...'

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that at least the basis of the emotion is genuine... but the guy is writing two of these reviews a day, five days a week. It's a job to him, not a hobby. So yes, it gets formulaic at times. He's discovered how to monetise his feelings.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, very much so. Did you know there's several online sites and how to guides on how to make a living blogging?

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/how-to-build-a-high-traffic-web-site-or-blog/

In these two posts, Steve Palina points out how you can make a million dollars from blogging and how to get traffic to your site.

What Mark is doing is three things: 1) talking about himself and what he knows and lending a personal context, 2) speaking in a language that the bulk of his nitch readership would understand, 3)posting frequently.
He is controversial at times - because that increases blog traffic. The Twilight posts - certainly did. He basically follows what is stated in
Palina's posts to the letter.

He's not blogging for the reasons we are, this is his profession. Will he make a million off of it? I doubt it. Too nitch. And too many other people doing the same thing. Also a bit trendy. But - if he can change with trends and reinvent himself as Palina states, who knows?

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Is he controversial? I mean, he knows his audience are fans of X (or in the case of Twilight, anti-fans of X). And he enthusiastically LOVES X (or HATES it). If he had some unpopular opinions about the shows/books relative to his audience, I'd say there's some controversy, but he's pretty innocuous. Hence his popularity.

(Though I really do wonder if that will stay the same in, say, S6. There, any opinion is bound to have a good chunk of fans vehemently disagreeing with you)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Apparently he got some negative comments on his Twilight read through.
(I noticed because he apologizes every time he brings up Twilight on his blog. And referred to it.)

They are public posts. The moderators kick people out who are disruptive.
But yes, controversial. I've noticed that just in the post I did on Being a Fan - a lot of people responded regarding their annoyance with the whole "Xander bashing" bit in his journal.

But no...not as controversial as your posts or some of mine for that matter. LOL! It's a fine line, I think.