Farrell Forgotten

Things are pretty stale over at Farrell Till country these days. The last new articles by the weasel were added in May 2008. Prior to that there were single articles added in February and September 2007. 2006 was the last year there was any serious activity.

Over on the forum, things aren’t much better. The last message was posted in 2009, by one of Farrell’s regular sad sacks, who wrote rather plaintively:

I think it's just a shame that this board is here but is going to waste. Not only do I think it's a good place for members of the list to meet and continue discussion here, but it might draw new members and attention to Farrell's website as a whole.

New members? How droll. Prior to this desperate shovel, the last post had been nearly two years earlier, and there had been only 27 posts since the whole thing started. That’s not counting all the messages that were once there by Viagra spambots. Maybe Farrell should invite them back.

It’s not too hard to see why Farrell used to scream until his head burst demanding that I link to his fundy-atheist foolishness. My reply as always is that such people need to get traffic the Smith Barney way – they need to earn it. Farrell knew he couldn’t do that, and the results are clear now that he’s being ignored.

Oh, there are reasons his production is down, I’m sure he’d say: He’s gone the way of writing fiction these days (though I would say that’s not actually a change), as I just now uncovered a blog of his in which he offers a single post in January, 2010, pushing his fictional writing (he now has two fiction e-books out). Interestingly, he tells the reader of that blog:

Those who may want to read my religious writings can Google my name and find them listed there, but this blog will focus only on my fiction.

They can Google his name and find them? Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all this time? Can we now call him Farrell “No Links” Till?

The aforementioned blog isn’t much more inspiring, though. It has had just that one entry, and one obeisant comment, not surprisingly by the same sad sack that last posted on Farrell’s forum. I also found another blog with a single entry dated April 2010 in which Farrell complains about grammar and spelling errors in letters sent to him by his e-book editor. This blog entry has only 4 comments, 1 by Farrell himself and one by a spambot selling lottery prizes. Those spambots sure do like him.

But all that’s not any sort of explanation for why he isn’t getting any sort of persisting legacy, as he no doubt hoped he would. It doesn’t look like anyone cares about the fiction books, either, and they’re not helping him any. He once bragged about how a Google search turned up so many more hits for him than it did for me. These days a Google search for “Farrell Till” brings up a mere 3,290 results.

It wasn’t hard to anticipate that someone whose primary weapon was the 10,000-word off-topic bloviation would end up this way. One reason I said I’d not respond to him any more was because it was clear that he was one of several who leeched parasitically off those they responded to in order to draw attention to themselves. As expected, now that no one is responding, no one is paying attention either. Bloviation just doesn’t have a very good shelf life.

Farrell’s right where he should have been all along – with a disappearing legacy that was never bigger than his mouth in the first place.