So you have probably noticed I don't just slap any ole thing up in the forum. I recently searched for my name +journalist, and there I was splashed at the top of the Google results for my writing on aalbc. Although I have my own website, when Muckrack, the journalism aggregation website, found me -Mel Hopkins's Profile | Medium, Substack, Ebony Journalist | Muck Rack, again, it was all my popular comments from AALBC. When I write book reviews on AALBC, they become AALBC famous on the net. I've been thinking about writing excerpts from the time I flew the friendly skies - and if I were most folks, I'd probably post on Patreon and Substack - but I'm not, I'm going to post about my crazy escapades on AALBC and maybe Patreon too - but I betcha the most views will come from AALBC.   

Thank you, @Troy

In short, Claude AI had a lot to say about AALBC. But here's a snippet: "In other words, AALBC's forum is functioning as a consensus-building document for who you are as a writer and thinker — and AI search is now reading that document alongside Google."

Aside: @Pioneer1 and @ProfD y'all were genius to remain anonymous 💓

6 minutes ago, Mel Hopkins said:

Aside: @Pioneer1 and @ProfD y'all were genius to remain anonymous 💓

I don't know if I'd call it genius over just being typical men....lol

Most men like to keep a low profile.
Many of us have learned....whether it was from dating, working, or highschool homies....that the less personal information people know about you the less "ammunition" they have if they ever decide to come at you, lol.

I'm constantly getting on the females in my family about posting all of their business on social media.

Posting their pictures.
Posting their activities.
Posting their full name and family history.
Posting their children's pictures.
Posting pictures of their new house or new car.
Posting from their job letting everybody know where they work.
Posting themselves in their underwear.
Posting themselves laying in bed with a cold.
Just putting out ALL of their information.

I've warned them over and over again to stop putting all of their business out in the street like that, but most of them don't listen UNTIL something happens and they end up regretting it.

They act like their can't possibly be some creepy mofo sitting in a dark room eating mushy frootloops with chocolate milk and building a profile of them to be his next stalking victim.
The thought of it NEVER crosses their minds.

Now about that photo...........


🤔 -Seems like I saw somebody who looks JUST LIKE her....in LL Cool J's "Around The Way Girl" video....lol.

4 hours ago, Mel Hopkins said:

Aside: @Pioneer1 and @ProfD y'all were genius to remain anonymous 💓

Well sista @Mel Hopkins ...you must be a better writer or more substantive than myself.

I just sit in this proverbial AALBC armchair giving my opinions about everything. 🤣😎

12 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

I'm constantly getting on the females in my family about posting all of their business on social media.

I had not considered there may be gender component to doing this. I’ve known so many women, over so many years that post so much personal information on social, that I have long since given up even commenting about the activity to them.

That behavior will not change anytime soon, as social media creates all types of incentives for people to share as much as possible about themselves. It’s one of the reasons I deleted my original Facebook account.

But going back to the point of this conversation 🙂

I’ve considered the fact that something that I, or someone else, has written here could be taken out of context and come back to bite me in the real worl. I’m not anonymous, because it takes some effort to do it, and I’m too lazy to maintain anonymity.

@Mel Hopkins I might stop short of the word “love.” but if you consider the fact that AALBC.com is almost 30 years old with the boatload of content and there’s increasingly less competition from other website, AALBC really should rank high in search be referenced by aggregators.

But I still feel that Google search has done more harm to the web than it has to benefit it. I think AI will do even more harm so much more that it poses and existential threat to the WWW we know today.

I’m not confident what we get in return will be better than what we have today.

3 hours ago, Troy said:

I might stop short of the word “love.” but if you consider the fact that AALBC.com is almost 30 years old with the boatload of content and there’s increasingly less competition from other website, AALBC really should rank high in search be referenced by aggregators.

Yep! "Claude" mentioned the age of the site and the fact that AALBC has something like 200,000 VISITORS per month gives it incredible status Wait let me just quote Claude

"AALBC.com was started in October 1997 — which in internet years is practically Paleolithic. Founded in 1998, AALBC is widely recognized as the oldest, largest, and most frequently visited website dedicated to books by and about people of African descent, reaching up to 200,000 visitors each month. That founding date is load-bearing for everything else."

12 hours ago, ProfD said:

Well sista @Mel Hopkins ...you must be a better writer or more substantive than myself.

Brother @ProfD I think it could be age - I've been posting here since 2010 😉

7 hours ago, Mel Hopkins said:

've been posting here since 2010 😉

2010 -- Wow!

Another thing I noticed as I get older, besides loosing someone every five minutes ☹️ is that my perception of time has really sped up! It is hard to believe 2026 is already half over!

14 hours ago, Troy said:

I had not considered there may be gender component to doing this. I’ve known so many women, over so many years that post so much personal information on social, that I have long since given up even commenting about the activity to them.

That behavior will not change anytime soon, as social media creates all types of incentives for people to share as much as possible about themselves. It’s one of the reasons I deleted my original Facebook account.

It's most certainly a gender thing.
Not totally, but for the most part.

It seems as if most women....even older mature women...don't seem to take their financial or personal safety seriously when it comes to online behavior.

I warned my stepdaughter so many times about posting all of her information online years ago, she ignored my warnings and ended up with an ex-boyfriend who stalked her and took her through an ordeal.
She told me I was right and after the drama with her ex was cleared up she started being more cautious....for maybe HALF A YEAR.....and then went right back to posting all of her shit on Meta and TikTok again!

She's her own paparazzi.