When I started this blog I was just a little bitterling in a really huge pond. I had no other intention except to express my feelings about all the bitterness in the world. A few co-workers knew about it, because they were the ones that called me Bitter Ben. They knew I was bitter about all the customers I dealt with on a daily basis. I posted six times that day and man, did it feel good pound my keyboard and get all those bitter feelings on the internet.
Fast forward 4 or 5 months later and I finally got my first few followers, including my wife and parents, who finally discovered I was doing it, and people actually thought I was worthy of a follow. I kept doing it, and several months later I reached the peak of my bitter powers. Most of you don’t remember that WordPress did a thing called Freshly Pressed. All of my blogger friends had talked about it, and many of them had recieved the coveted feature spot on WordPresses front page. When that happened people would flock to your page for a week or so, and you would get all kinds of views.
I got the Freshly Pressed spot, viewers flocked to my page for about a week, then they forgot about me. Then, in April the next year, I did to celebrate the miserableness my 40th birthday was by doing a post called 40 things that make me bitter. (I continue the tradish to this day for each birthday). I got nomiated again for this post. I decided to make a huge promotional push this time and that day and the rest of the month became the highest viewed month in my history. It’s all been downhill from there.
Some of it is my fault because I got busy with school and work and unemployment stress and guilt about not writing as much, and sometimes I only wrote once a week. But for the most part it is the rest of you people’s fault. You have stopped your blogs, and stopped following each post, and stopped commenting as much. None of you has given me any money (okay not true, one of you has and you know who you are), or submitted any of my work to publishers, or sent my best posts to famous people to read.
I haven’t been reblogged in a long time, I haven’t had any people comment about how this blog has changed their life from a life of happiness, to a life of bitterness in a while either. I look to my past and dredge up some posts to make you feel guilty. I once did a post years ago that legit got 250 comments. I had months where I was getting close to 70 or 80 likes on each post and some upwards or 100 to 115.
Something has changed and it hasn’t been me. I keep coming up with mediocre ideas and even more mediocre writing and execution. I was just as bad in my heyday as it is now, and yet you are all slacking. So because of that, I’m not giving you my best work. I was up last night at 2 am because of an attack of acid reflux and I had a killer blog post idea, but decided not to use it, because of your lack of audience participation.
So take that. I going to hold back my brilliant post that would have gotten a Grammy or Emmy or Oscar, and all my other best stuff because I’m speaking to a metaphoric stand-up comedy audience that is on their phones all night, not paying attention to the bitter stand up comic. When you start paying attention again, then I might start giving you my bitterest work, but until then I’m going to pout and whine like a bitter 45 year old little baby until he gets his way. And send it to a publisher who will reject it because I forget to leave a comma in the right place.
ARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH
Bitter Not Gonna Share Ben
Just woke up to this bitterness and realized that my new workday is really gonna suck. Can’t wait to share with my colleagues. Thanks for this kickstart to realizing how horrible everything really is. Any chance you can share this with POTUS. His cheerfully repeated “Make America Grate Again” is getting annoying. He could use some of your realistic bitterness.
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I am always glad to share my bitterness with others and make it permeate every workplace including yours.
I’m sending this to the POTUS and just waiting for his tweet to come back.
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Frankly, I blame myself…
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Next time if you are nice, I will post some of my best work. Just kidding, I don’t have the best work.
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Plenty out there for you to be bitter about, Ben … thankfully! This one well up to your best standards. I help by not reblogging it, just like both of my readers don’t …
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I’m sure both of your followers would appreciate it.
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Ah well, mighty oaks from little acorns grow …
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That’s right. Just how my bitterness grew. From a tiny crankiness as a baby to my full blown bitterness now.
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Btw, speaking of money, what happened to the DND we agreed on?
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I forgot to sign it like an idiot. So then I made it even worse by putting it on this blog for all the world to see.
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😎
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I’m bad at following directions.
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This is some top notch bitter. Like over-brewed tea.
I love over-brewed tea.
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If someone asked my wife what it was like living with me, she would say I was overbrewed tea.
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So WordPress doesn’t do ‘Freshly Pressed’ anymore? I can imagine you being bitter about that.
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Nope, they do something stupid now called Discover. It’s a very watered down, nobody-cares-about-it replacement.
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Well, that’s a bit sucky. I’m bitter about that.
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I am too. It is terrible and no one even reads it anymore. Honestly I only look on there every couple of months or so. I think they need to go back to Freshly Pressed.
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I’ve definitely been slacking, but you’ve still changed my life for the bitter 😊
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I’m glad you life has changed for the bitter, but I’m going to need a little more participation from you. More reblogs, shares on Instagram and Facebook, etc. All that so I can be a bitter influencer.
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Well holy cow, BB. you are in a mood! Good for you! I’ve never been freshly pressed and I ooze bitterness from each pore because of that..btw, thanks for telling me what that means, I wanted it but it’s like Pistachio ice cream you know, like, do I really? Go ahead and give us your less than epitome bitterness, we will take what we can get. Don’t mention the money again, we had an agreement. :)(
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Yeah, sorry about that $10,000 you promised to send me but haven’t yet. I will use that for Ben’s Bitter Basement so I will have a cave of developing more bitter thoughts. Also thanks for the idea for a post…. that I may or may not share, because it will be good or whatever.
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It’s in the mail ! God, so bitter.
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I’ve been waiting by the mail box ever since you told me this. I’m a little impatient.
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Getting bitter are ya?
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I’m always bitter, just like the Hulk is always angry.
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The blogosphere has been a little empty lately. What’s the next new trend? Maybe we should move on to instagram?
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Instagram is good if you are like you know, good looking or whatever, but since I just a scary old dude, nobody will want to follow my scary face. That’s why I just do jokes and funny pictures of my son.
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Hey. At least you GOT freshly pressed—twice. And lots of views and comments. Not me. No sir. Never. Thanks for you help. Not.
#bittererthanyou #bitterestspiritualdirectorever
😁😉
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And now it is too late for both of us, because they got rid of Freshly Pressed and made this weird Discover thing that nobody really cares about anymore. BRING BACK FRESHLY PRESSED!
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I thought I was the only one becoming bitterly disappointed. These readers are not coming through the way they used to and it’s affecting our ability to produce quality sarcasm. I mean, why bother going to the extra effort to insult people when they don’t even appreciate it? I have to say, you still do it better than I ever did, and certainly more often. Don’t know how you’ve kept it going so well – probably bitterness supplements.
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It has definitely been down from the heyday. I think I still do it because I assume that Rainne Wilson will read my blog and decide that he wants to buy the rights to my blog for $20 mill and the movie rights as well. Just a few more days and I can quit this racket.
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Reblogging this.
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It’s about time. People just don’t do those anymore. I assume you will just reblog all my posts from here forward, and retweet them on Tweeter too.
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Sure let’s say that. 😉
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Sounds good. Can’t wait to see all the results.
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Reblogged this on Books, Books and More Books! and commented:
Ben is feeling unloved, so please show him some comment love and a like! Because he is the King of Bitterness and he makes us laugh!
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He is pretty bitter, definitely. Maybe is a whining baby, or maybe he just had a bad piece of pizza last night and felt the need to tell people off.
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You know we love ya🤗🤗
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I know you should all be bitter with me at least.
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Thanks for not sharing, Ben. Makes me feel bitter all over.
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Yeah, and now I may never share it. On the other hand, I could have been terrible. I mean, I did come up with it in the middle of the night, while having an acid reflux attack.
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You sure it was an idea? It might have been just a burp.
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It probably was a burp. Or just a dream that it was an idea.
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In my defense, I was afraid all the positivity was going to make you…ya know…positive. So, you’re welcome.
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I guess that is a reasonable excuse…for now. But from this time forward, I expect more vigilance and doing stuff for me always.
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