Now is a great time to become a member, as it helps keep this place running and allows us to write more articles… maybe not these articles, though. Become a member today!
Now is a great time to become a member, as it helps keep this place running and allows us to write more articles… maybe not these articles, though. Become a member today!
Follow us on:
I read Autopian almost exclusively at work (ahem), so oftentimes what I do or don’t read depends a lot on how busy I am and/or how long/involved a read I think it’s going to be (i.e. can I fit this in right now?). On a busy day I might only get to one or two articles. If it rolls to the next screen page before I get to it, I will just accept to let it pass unless it had a really compelling headline.
Mondays I’m not at work so I read nothing usually until Tuesday.
It’s not that David’s kid saying “car” wasn’t sweet, it’s just that I’ve been through that too and I think it was a busy day, so I already knew where he was coming from. We still love you David.
Okay Matt, I challenge you to list the most read articles from the past 30 days.
I check the site daily, but I dont’ think I remember seeing any of these. I’m sure Tracy’s kid is great, I do remember that one, but didn’t read it. I just have a habit of not clicking any of his stuff because I don’t care anything at all about Jeeps.
Super interesting view behind the scenes, thank you Matt! The Lexus article was great and so was the art article, as almost all JT articles (in fact, I click on almost all of his and skip even the headline), except the Cold start commercial and wires, was too weird/ complicated for my simple mind
DT’s heartwarming tale about the joys of parenthood goes unread while Torch’s vicious and unprovoked assault on a beloved toy company rakes in the views can only lead us to the conclusion that everyone hates children.
I wouldn’t call Torch’s vicious assault “unprovoked”. Lil Tikes did make a beige cozy coupe, which provoked a strong reaction from many of us. Also, it was on behalf of the kids that he wrote the article. This clearly indicates that we love children, just not Delmar. Wait, that can’t be right.
To quote Dr. Jones Sr “You left just before you became interesting”.
I really liked the Pontiac art piece and the LC500 review.
I think the LC500 review would have done better framed more as a discussion of the death of Personal Luxury Coupes and Grand Tourers and less a review of the specific car
I am so glad my article ran more than 30 days ago. You gotta have thick skin to do this gig.
Me too.
I generally assume the number of people who read my thing is the same as the number of comments. Or, given some of the comments, less than that.
So I do have some data on that. Sometimes, the stories with the fewest comments actually have the biggest clicks, while stories with the most comments have the fewest clicks.
It’s not something that’s set in stone. For example, Brian’s article about the feds no longer prosecuting diesel deleters got mega comments and mega clicks. I recently posted something that got neither a lot of clicks nor a lot of engagement.
We do consider lots of comments to be a good thing, though. We love to see an active discussion going on across the posts!
Sometimes I read an article not logged in and thus, cannot comment.
I would always assume your clicks are way higher than the comments.
I think most people understand that goods are delivered by trucks that use diesel, and that increased cost of transporting goods leads to higher prices for those goods. Few words are required to communicate that.
However, I loved the heck out of the Pontiac art piece.
Delmar, STEP YOUR GAME UP SON!
Darn slacker kids, lazing around and relying on their parents for everything. 😀
maybe we keep calling for Delmar, but he doesn’t answer because it’s not his real name!
lol
You need to get Torch to teach him some words. That’ll get clicks.
I tend to skip articles I may not like on Thursday, and especially Friday when I’m busy trying to have a social life, so I can read them on the weekend, when there are few or no articles. At worst, I may skim an article, and slide over the fine print, but I read most of these.
I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from the Lexus review – it’s a 10 year old car that hasn’t changed much and you guys have reviewed it already.
I admit to not reading the diesel one because I didn’t expect any new ground to be broken in the comment section.
I skipped the Lexus one because i didnt think it was possible that the 2026 article would be meaningfully different than the one previous where you reviewed the copperish/pinkish one. We’ve heard on this site for months that the car is getting discontinued, so i have to assume that it it’s basically the same car as before.
Both Torchinsky posts and the one about David’s son read like surefire Webbie (is that what they call the worldwide web Oscars?) nominees to me. I really want one of the Canadian Pontiac brochures, but the ones on Ebay aren’t cheap!
I read most of these, but I’m not interested in Lexus, unless of course it’s A lexis TX :). I ignored the diesel fuel article because I don’t generally come here for economic news and I also didn’t think I would learn much from it. You’re on the money as far as the Mercedes leasing article. It was right there in the picture.
I read pretty much everything Torch writes, mostly because I love his sense of humor. The DT article was sweet, but appeals mostly because we’ve been watching him “grow up” over the years.
If I come back later to read the rest of an article, or read it more in depth, does it count a click every time?
A unique? No. A pageview, yes.
I read all of them except for the eSprinter, primarily because the thumbnail answered the question the headline asked. I generally don’t mind reading about commercial vans, but for some reason the eSprinter just didn’t do anything for me this week.
About Ditto
I clicked anyway, because I wanted to make a smart-arse comment on how it doesn’t matter what you drive as long it has the right badge.
Oof, I only clicked one of these. My bad.
The LC500 article made a major mistake. White? White?!?! Always present the LC500 in Nori Green. Always.
Nori Green or Ultrasonic Blue are the best, and in my opinion the only, color options for the LC500.
Objectively correct take.
wow, my clicks really do matter. I was on vacation and missed most of these articles. sorry
STOP GOING ON VACATION
Take us with you on vacation!
Some of us haven’t had a vacation in years!
And I thought one has the time to read all Autopian articles when on vacation
People are joyless.
Outside of this community here, it sadly seems that many are. What sad times we live in.
I often wonder how future generations will view us and the times we live in now.
Will it be “they had everything right in their hands and either didn’t know what to do with it or threw it all away over stupid shit?”
Or, “they were handed shit sandwich after shit sandwich, after previous generations sucked up everything good in the world until they got fed up with eating shit?”
Guess we’ll find out which shit comes out on top at some point.
Apparently having a high-fat diet promotes your turds to float to the top.
Sounds like material for an upcoming Jason Torchinsky article!
I’d argue that ALL the articles on this page were written principally for the author:
David autobiographical, Thomas high-end “foreign” car, Mercedes deep-dive auto-esoterica, and Jason “look what I noticed” is par for course. Probably the reason most of the members ARE members is our familiarity with your MO.
Theories you didn’t ask for:
* Thomas’s Lexus: too recent to tell
* Delmar article: only parents care about their own children’s milestones. The rest of the world dgaf
* Diesel article: there was a very similar article not long before. I almost skipped this newer one because of that.
* Podcast: the vast majority of readers wouldn’t be able to attend either. They’re the ultimate in niche content.
Also, a lot of readers are old guys who only read at work, and this was a good week to take a vacation. I am one of them.
I click every cold start no matter what. Jason should test what is the fewest clicks he can get.
Didn’t click. I’m happy for David, but stories about real people with fake names and emoji faces are an uphill battle. I did click the Will it Baby, even though a 3-row SUV obviously will. It was a good article.
Pretty sure I clicked, even though I don’t listen to the podcast. Might have even commented. Woodward, obvs. I’m a man of the people.
Didn’t click. Is there any brand more boring than Lexus? I submit: no.
Clicked because someone asked about it in the Discord, otherwise I wouldn’t have. The header image is somehow more beige than the beige cozy coupe.
Clicked, commented, had to get approved. The title waffles like a pack of eggo and we all know the reason why diesel is expensive.
Didn’t click. Yeah, you nailed it why.
Clicked on accident.
I’m glad someone said this. I wanted to say something after yesterday’s Mazda article, but held back because I didn’t want to seem douchy towards David (who I like, obviously). My main gripe was, if the people in all the photos don’t want their faces on the internet, and they need to be obscured by giant distracting yellow smiley faces, should they maybe just not be in the photo?
Given that a lot of these are family type photos, it might just be too big a hassle to tell family members “Ok, now another shot with nobody in the picture unless you want your face all over the Internet!”.
Also, Delmar is a first child, many photos get taken of the first kid. Then it often drops off, sometimes very precipitously. Just ask my younger
siblings. Also, trying to explain to one’s spouse that you didn’t take any (or at least not many) vacation, etc. pictures with them in it because “I might want to use it for work dear!” may not fly all that well.
While it’s goofy, I personally am not particularly bothered by the smiley face thing. More entertaining than a blur out.
That’s fair… I will adjust
“Hey fam, this vacation is actually a tax deductible business expense if we play our cards right” should be enough of a reason to get folks out of the car for 3-5 minutes to take article-worthy pics
I get not wanting to have your kid on the Internet. I get being an adult and not wanting to have your photo on the Internet. That is fair and reasonable. But it might mean you get 1 or 2 fewer clicks if you make family photos the centerpiece of your article when the family very clearly does not want to be identifiable.
If this story does better than any of these stories I’m gonna laugh.
I’m doing my part!
I didn’t care about some of those stories, but I do appreciate a behind the scenes story, so, yeah, this likely will do better.
I have to admit, I only read one of these. Jason’s – because you never know what might be there.
Tailights, turn signals, chainsaws, 2CV, Beetles, clams, Farm Use plates, antique electronics, old car brochures; it’s not hard.
You missed out poop and swear words.
My attempt with that diesel story was to go deeper than ABC, NBC, AP, Reuters, NYT, and so on. From my seat of studying traffic data for longer than I’m willing to admit, I also wonder if it was just one of those things where everyone and their grandson was covering it, so we were all fighting for the same eyeballs. A lot of our best stories are subjects that other outlets have not covered.
Then there was the fact that we covered the subject of diesel prices before it hit a record. So we tried two bites of the apple really close to each other.
My first instinct when I saw the headline and topshot was “didn’t I just read a Mercedes article about this exact topic, like, last week?”
I did not click. So I look forward to being heckled, booed lustily, and being the target of thrown rotten fruits as punishment for my actions.
I don’t blame you! I didn’t intend to write the follow-up, but the record was huge news at the time, so we took the swing anyway. Strike!