Syd Barrett Rising

By: HILOBROW
February 17, 2011

In January 2010, HILOBROW’s Patrick Cates published a HiLo Hero item about ex-Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett. The item received 128 hits that day, then faded away, traffic-wise, into obscurity. Nothing unusual, there.

But then, in late July, the item started getting more traffic — about 25-50 hits per day. And the traffic has continued to swell: in August, the item reached #8 on HiLoBrow’s top-10-most-visited chart, in September #9, in October #8, and in November #9. In December Syd fell off the top-10, but then in January 2011 — a year after we first published the item, and perhaps not coincidentally the month of Barrett’s birthday — it reached the #6 spot on our monthly top-10 chart.

What’s going on? We’ve heard about the long tail effect, of course — but this particular tail is getting bushier by the month. This diamond is shining on ever more crazily. And other metaphors. Any idea, readers, why this is happening?