Top Stories by Year

Below are lists of the most popular stories on the site by 2022 views and by 2022 star-votes. There are three sets of lists: (a) top stories overall by 2022 views and by 2022 star-votes; (b) top stories updated in 2022 by 2022 views and by 2022 star-votes; and (c) top BRK stories by 2022 views and by 2022 star-votes.

Posted 30 December 2022: This year’s top-stories lists are set up pretty much the way they were last year: the top stories by views and votes are first listed unfiltered; then only with stories updated in 2022; then just with BRK stories. As previously, the lists are weighted by diversity of IP addresses, so that stories that are getting attention from a wider range of visitors get more of a boost in the rankings.

The lists all boast a pleasing diversity of theme and tone, which is exactly right for the site. It’s also gratifying to note the mix of multi-chapter epics with shorter stories that contain their passion within a chapter or two. A lot of work and creativity goes into producing an erotic story for others to appreciate, whether it’s a thousand words or 50 thousand, and every story on these lists reflects that. Stories posted to Metabods got seen more overall this year than ever before: the total overall recorded story view count for 2022 was just shy of 6.0 million, up from 4.9 million in 2021 and 4.5 million in 2020.

As for my own stuff: for those wondering, it’s never been a surprise or a matter of chagrin to me that I don’t top the tallies on my own website. For one thing, as I’ve noted before, my views and votes are distributed across the scores of stories I post every year: the 96 chapters I wrote this year were distributed across 47 stories (compared with 106 chapters/49 stories in 2021 and 86 chapters/37 stories in 2020). More to the point, Metabods exists to share all sorts “alternative gay erotica” (as I’ve taken to calling it) from as many writers as possible, not just me. Even so, I have six entries in the top views and seven in the top views for stories updated in 2022, a change from the last two years when I only had three stories in the top views list. The one-off Vignette Party tales account for a lot of the BRK story count; leaving those aside I mostly continued ongoing stories this year, which might partially explain my boosted presence on the views list. Four recurring stories accounted for 32 of the chapters I posted in 2022.

Below are lists of the most popular stories on the site by 2021 views and by 2021 star-votes. There are three sets of lists: (a) top stories overall by 2021 views and by 2021 star-votes; (b) top stories updated in 2021 by 2021 views and by 2021 star-votes; and (c) top BRK stories by 2021 views and by 2021 star-votes.

Posted 31 December 2021: This year, I decided to run three different kinds of lists. First, I did the standard most-popular lists by 2021 views and by 2021 votes. These lists, especially the by-views list, always contain a number of “evergreens”—vintage stories that get consistently a lot of views despite not having been updated in many years. This made me curious to see what the lists would look like including only stories updated in 2021, so I did another set of lists that way, counting down the most popular 2021-updated stories by 2021 views and by 2021 votes. Finally, I did a set of lists just for the most popular BRK stories by 2021 views and by 2021 votes. As previously, the lists are weighted by diversity of IP addresses, so that stories that are getting attention from a wider range of visitors get more of a boost in the rankings.

Looking at these lists, I’m gratified at the range and breadth of writing on the site. Metabods is a niche gay erotica site, but the writers drawn to this flame are bringing our visitors into so many different kinds of fantasies, with pleasures ranging from shallow and shimmering to deep and intricate. For me the biggest surprise was the presence of one of my own stories in the top ten of the views list—that never happens! My prolific output tends to avert BRK yarns showing up much in the year-end lists, as my viewer eyeballs are spread across a lot of stories over the year (49 stories and 106 chapters in 2021, up from 86 chapters over 37 stories in 2020). So I was pleasantly surprised to see “One Hot Summer” popping up in the top ten by 2021 views amidst all the evergreens, though as the story I updated the most last year it was the likeliest candidate for greatest visibility.

Below are lists of the most popular stories on the site by 2020 views and by 2020 star-votes. There are three sets of lists: (a) top stories overall by 2020 views and by 2020 star-votes; (b) top stories updated in 2020 by 2020 views and by 2020 star-votes; and (c) top BRK stories by 2020 views and by 2020 star-votes.

Posted 1 January 2021: As I did for 2018 and 2019, I’ve put together lists of the top stories on the site in 2020 according to the votes and views received during the last 12 months, which are shown below. There aren’t too many surprises, so think of it as a Golden Globes where you already know who’s been talked about so much they’re bound to be up on stage with a goofy smile and a weird-looking tux.

Last year’s most-viewed list was not just a straight view count, but gave weight to stories with views from more discrete IP addresses, giving stories with broad appeal some priority over ones that looked at more often by a smaller group within the overall cascade of views. I did the same thing this year. The list contains a number of evergreens that always get a lot of hits, of course, but I’m very glad to see new stories, some from authors brand new to the site, occupying a significant proportion of the list.

A view-count list like this tends to favor stories that keep getting updated with new chapters, so a story that was already a hit such as “An Unexpected Inflation” kept getting boosted (appropriately enough) by the frequent addition of new chapters. My own writing tends toward starting new stories over continuing old ones, which tends to limit my presence on the year-end tote board; the exceptions mostly are stories like “One Hot Summer” that I updated repeatedly thanks to ongoing Patreon commissions—but “Mind and Body”, one of my most popular stories and one I’ve been meaning to get back to, is in there too.

For the top-rated stories, I again weighted stories with votes from a wider range of IP addresses to goose those stories that had wide appeal. This list is based on votes cast in 2020 and includes stories with the highest star ratings that had at least 5 votes during the year. In both lists, IP addresses banned for abuse of the star system were excluded.

The ranking by votes, in contrast to the ranking by views, tends to highlight new stories that got a lot of attention and positive reaction during the year. My own presence on this list is stronger (and some of the BRK stories appearing here surprised me), but this list also calls out a lot of new authors who have made some valuable contributions to the site, and whose hard work is much appreciated by me and the Metabods visitor community.

Below are lists of the most popular stories on the site by 2019 views and by star-votes.

Posted 3 January 2020: For this year’s lists I’ve used the same methodology as before. The outcome on both lists is a great mix of different kinds of stories, reflecting a diversity of tastes, tones, genres, and interests. I’m also pleased that both lists boast several authors new to the site alongside the steady contributors with more familiar handles. There are even a few authors on the lists who’d shared stories with us before and returned this year after a long gap. As I said last year, though Metabods remains, from my point of view, first and foremost an outlet for my own writing, it will always mean a great deal to me to be able to provide a safe place for stories about men who exceed the confines of mundane reality.

With the most popular list, I wanted to show which stories were popular with lots of readers, so while I ranked the stories by page view count per story in 2019 I also factored in the diversity of IP addresses to a small extent so that high page views come from primarily from the same happy visitors gave some ground to stories that pleased a lot of people. This should result in a list that more directly shows actual popularity with site visitors as a whole this year. IP addresses that were banned for abuse of the star rating system were excluded.

As I noted last year, my own showing on this list is partly the ironic result of my being the site’s most prolific contributor. Most authors write a small number of stories and keep adding chapters to them, piling their view counts onto a limited number of story titles. This year I wrote 62 chapters across 31 stories, 19 of them new. (Last year it was 56 chapters over 37 stories, 10 new, so I’ve written more, but slacked in my general resolution to continue old stories rather than starting new ones—though to be fair I did a pile of vignettes in June, and I had a few new commissions this year. My wordcount this year was 254,893, down 13k from 2018 but consistent with what I’ve been writing from 2017 on; the previous four years I was closer to 100k a year, and less before that.)

So my views are a lot more spread out than those of the other authors on the site. (If you’re wondering, my stories get about 11-12% of the site views every year.) I am happy to see “Touch” on the list—it’s one of my favorites out of my recent efforts, and I’ll definitely be returning to it very soon.

For the highest-rated list, I combined the average star ranking for votes cast in 2019 in a weighted formula with the number of votes, to reward the stories that have attracted a large number of positive votes. Again, banned IP addresses were excluded, as were stories with 5 or fewer votes in 2019. In the list below, the stars reflect only 2019 votes.

Below are lists of the most popular stories on the site by 2018 views and by star-votes.

Posted 27 December 2018: For the most popular list, I wanted to show which stories were popular with lots of readers, so while I ranked the stories by page view count per story in 2018 I also factored in the diversity of IP addresses to a small extent. This had the effect of slightly lowering the ranking of certain stories, like “Medicine Show” for example, whose high page views come from primarily from the same happy visitors. This should result in a list that more directly shows actual popularity with site visitors as a whole this year. IP addresses that were banned for abuse of the star rating system were excluded.

The results aren’t too surprising at the top, in that the highest-ranked stories are ones that are both well-written and updated several times throughout the year, bringing people back for fresh chapters. At presstime the total number of nonbanned story views in 2018 was 2,843,059, which means that “All Good Things”, for example, got 1.3% of all the story views this year. Further down there are some sleepers, though, that hadn’t really been on my radar but that have had a broad and loyal viewership this year. To all the authors, well done, and to the readers, I’m so glad you found stuff you enjoyed on my site.

Am I shocked, or miffed, that my own stories didn’t dominate the rankings? Not at all. I tend to rotate my attention. It turns out I wrote 56 chapters this year across 37 stories; if I return to a story it tends to be months or years later, but the ones I did return to more than once in 2018, such as the bimonthly commission “Love/Shift”, do surface higher for this list. All told I have 174 stories on the viewership list for 2018, accounting for about 12% of the total story views.

For the highest-rated list, I combined the average star ranking for votes cast in 2018 in a weighted formula with the number of votes, to reward the stories that have attracted a large number of positive votes. Again, banned IP addresses were excluded, as were stories with 5 or fewer votes in 2018. In the list below, the stars reflect only 2018 votes.