Confessions Of A Hubaddict...

Hi, my name is Chris, and I'm addicted to hubpages..."

"Hi Chris."

Glad I have that out in the open.

I started off small, gateway hubs as it were, stuff I'd posted on my website but nobody read. It was about six, maybe seven months ago. A nice lady read a couple and made a comment.

Even better

She sent me fan mail...

I had progressed from having a reader to having a fan. And I had a follower, a bona fide, honest to goodness person who wanted to read more. She was joined in short order by a few more friendly people and I settled into a routine of writing four hubs a week.

I'd repay the favors shown to me by reading the hubs of those who were giving me the positives, following those I knew I'd want to keep up with, send a bit of fan mail myself, and hop at least ten hubs every time I posted.

The habit was growing...

One hour a day had grown into three, sometimes four, with jittery visits to my inbox to see if anyone had read my stuff, or someone was responding to a comment I had made.

But I could control it.

I knew I could stop anytime I wanted.

It wasn't a problem or anything.

The house still got cleaned and I still checked the job sites for a real position.

True, I'd sneak into my office just before I went to bed to check messages and speak to my Australian friends, and first thing in the morning I'd fire up the mac to see who was up and running, but, still not a problem.

I was getting my stuff from England, Ireland, and all over the US…

Then it all went hardcore.

I was reading poetry. I mean its not that I didn't like poetry, but I wouldn't go visit it in hospital either. And this wonderful lady traps me with her words and images that end up luring you deep into her beautiful world. Not only that, she writes long and meaningful responses to hubs that more than once have come close to making me get in my car and drive the gazillion miles to Texas to give her a darned hug!

And then there were the funny people. They understood me, kindred souls, (do satirists have souls? discuss...) but by feeding my habit with daily weird and the banter that started to fly back and forth between us all, meant there was little time left to actually write hubs.

Now humor is not a moneymaker, so I wasn’t like a dealer or anything, but I was craving so much more than money. Those little accolade icons became a bit of a problem for me. I needed a full set. I'd look at those one hundred hubscore people, and covet those little symbols. Ten hubs was a milestone, and the "Chris writes particularly engaging hubs" was like a hit of crack cocaine.

I finally recognized that I had a problem.

Winning three different hub nugget competitions didn't make life any easier (Yeah, thanks for that, guys…), traffic went up, comments became a regular thing and I started to notice my own hubscore. Creeping through the eighties, to become a regular in the nineties, all this just exacerbated an already critical issue.

So, I sent myself to hubcamp...

A balmy Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles had me meeting a small group of hubbers, and that was great. The problem was the headliners. The actual founders of hubpages...and they had read my stuff...and they spoke to me!

It didn't matter that they showed me graphs of how few people read humor, and that monetizing my hubs was akin to getting a fish to sing, not impossible but...

I was a hubber.

I listened and concentrated and edited my hubs, adding amazon links and titles that were more searchable. I encouraged a few new hubbers, knowing full well that my habit was being fed by theirs.

Then I got overly ambitious. I had 96 followers. The one hundred globe was in sight. My hubfriends generously eviscerated me in public, in a humorous and loving way, you understand, teasing me about my hubscore of 98 (a fluke as it turns out) and then, one magical day. One Hundred. The ton. The accolade globe.

I cry a little.

Tears of joy.

I went to bed happy and full of love for fellow hubbers.

I rushed up at the crack of dawn to look once again.

Ninety-nine.

I'd lost one!

Oh, the humanity...

Sensing my despair my hubscore plummets to ninety-three and I have a host of little blue arrows pointing down.

But do I succumb?

Not this hubber.

I crank out some really funny hubs, much to some of my colleagues' disdain, leaving them rolling on their laughing floors, asses completely laughed off, and creep back up into the high nineties and follower one hundred, followed by several friends...

Now I obsess over the buttons. Nearly five hundred funnies, over two hundred awesomes, oh, how good they make me feel, but then I worry, only twenty three beautifuls...

Wait, what?

Were those people smoking something… Are they nuts?

I aim to be awesomely funny most of the time, and there is that one series of serious, so I guess I’ve earned a few usefuls, but really, unless you are button-lexic there is no way you are going to click beautiful. But hey, I’ll take it.

A hit’s a hit, right?

And then there’s the worry over your followers, do they remember to click as well as comment? I mean, I know I’ve forgotten every now and then. So, I forgive you. But let's take a little break here for a click or two.

Go on. Scroll down. I’ll wait…

So,

I’m on my way to hub 100, then I’ll take a break, you know rest the funny bone, relax the old typing finger…

Or not…

I mean its not like I’ve turned down paying jobs or anything. I’m not on the streets selling body parts, I’m an aficionado. I'm not a junkie, I'm a fan, a bona fide hubber…

Who is just the teensiest, tiniest, bit semi-addicted…

Oh, who am I kidding…

If you enjoy this hub, please check out my book,

Homo Domesticus; A Life Interrupted By Housework,

A collection of my best writings woven into a narrative on a very strange year in my life.

Available directly from:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/homo-domesticus/12217500

Chris