The Latest Numbers (And Some Statistics!)

I have, up to now, posted pictures of 572 different women on this blog.  And that's not all I have to share with you today.

Since I started the A-Z round of new subjects that I just completed, Blogger.com has been upgraded and redesigned, allowing me to see not only how many people have visited this blog, but what the most popular posts are.  Here's the big number: My blog has been viewed 610,979 times in the past four years (May 2008 to May 2012), which is as far back as available statistics go.  This means that this blog has been viewed 27 times for every one time my writing blog, Miscellaneous Musings, has been viewed in the same period!

What was more surprising is which of my entries on the blog you're looking at right now were the most popular.

Here are the ten most viewed entries on my blog in the past four years from 9:15 PM today, May 12, 2012:

Excuse me if the print is a little too hard to read.  You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it.

The results of these statistics were quite illuminating.  The most popular post by a wide margin is my post showing pictures of model/actress Joan Severance, while my original post devoted to eighties model Sheila Johnson was a respectable second.  Now, Joan Severance is certainly gorgeous, and  she hasn't done too badly as an actress despite her inability to get on the Hollywood "A" list (which I don't believe is her fault, since she got good notices for her role in the TV series "Wiseguy").  But I didn't think she was as big a name as some of the other high-profile fashion models from the 1980s.  Likewise, Sheila Johnson was rather ubiquitous in that period, but her face was more recognizable than her name.  Which makes sense, considering - as I've noted before - that she was routinely credited in Avon catalogs as "Our model."

How do I explain the popularity of these two posts? Here's my guess: In a decade best remembered by model fans for Kim, Christie, Carol and Kelly (if you're a fortysomething chap like i am, you know whom I'm talking about), fans who overlooked Joan and Sheila - or fans who remember these two women but didn't see enough of them - are taking advantage of the opportunity for another look.  And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. :-)

The other results have led me to various conclusions, a few of which I'll share here.  There's obviously a great well of respect and reverence  for eighties TV star Erin Gray, as affirmed by the 1,770 people who stopped by to look at that post.  Kaley Cuoco and Piper Perabo are obviously bringing  in the younger generation.  And the 2,316 pageviews of of my post devoted to Crystal Egger only confirmed what I suspected: She's the Weather Channel's new movie-star personality!

But the biggest - and happiest - surprise was finding my post on Bonnie Bedelia - currently playing the family matriarch Camille Braverman on NBC's "Parenthood" at number ten.  Despite the fact that I included all of the younger actresses on Parenthood who play Camille's daughters and daughters-in-law - including Lauren Graham and Monica Potter - my audience clearly prefers a woman of maturity. :-)

So long as she's an American.  For some reason, my posts of pictures of veteran European actresses of the past four years, such as Catherine Deneuve and Sophia Loren, didn't get on this chart.

But it's quite a revealing chart. :-)

I'm going to spend the rest of the month posting pictures of fashion models who have already been featured here.  I have more pictures of them in my files, and I have to clean house again before I can continue with new subjects.  I hope they include your favorites, just as they include mine. :-)