It’s weird when something you write almost as a joke ends up getting a lot of unexpected attention.

It didn’t go viral or anything, but my rather cheeky piece about Stellaris has racked up more views in the space of a couple weeks than anything else on the site. I didn’t expect that at all. I figured it would be like my handful of other video game related posts: it might get a view once every few weeks, but otherwise go unnoticed.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was a recent post about a game that just came out, with a provocative title. Most of the traffic has come in from search engines, too. For whatever reason, the title and contents search well and presumably show up in results a lot. Searching for “stellaris slavery” in Google puts the post in question on page 2 of the results, which I suppose isn’t too bad (although my understanding is most people never click past page 1 of search results).

This is not to say I didn’t mean anything I said in that post, though. I do find the slavery mechanic in Stellaris unsettling, and don’t make use of it. The xenophobia mechanics are less bothersome, overall, except for the ways they interact with the slavery mechanics. But the most obvious effect of xenophobia is that you can never truly be friends with some species if they (or you) are xenophobic.

But this isn’t another post about Stellaris, just a post about a blog entry that became popular out of nowhere. I suppose it’s a good sign that the most popular piece shifts around from time to time–it means the blog isn’t stale, right? Thus far, each of these pieces has commanded the top slot, so maybe you’ll want to read them if you haven’t already:

  * [Autism: Beyond Awareness](http://www.resilientconstructs.com/2016/04/12/autism-beyond-awareness/)
  * [Why are Americans so Sick?](http://www.resilientconstructs.com/2016/02/01/why-are-americans-so-sick/)
  * [Whitesplaining Berniebros](http://www.resilientconstructs.com/2016/01/22/whitesplaining-berniebros/)
  * [Things That Shape History... That Aren't White Men](http://www.resilientconstructs.com/2015/11/04/five-things-that-shape-history-that-arent-white-men/)

After all, anonymous people who use search engines can’t be wrong!

There are no other changes to report, though. No new plugins or cosmetic modifications. Just fixed some broken links. I’m getting a bit tired of the current theme, though anything I switch to is going to be just as easy to read, and accessibility is always a requirement.

I’m planning on a Memorial Day post tomorrow. See you then, hopefully!