Menschenskinder…
[edited with a PPS below…]
It’s clear that mentioning the p-word (porn, long & short form) will get you more google search hits than most any other thing. This creeps me out, especially given some of the mindboggling searchstrings that people are putting into google, which, weirdly, result in visits to my blog. How’s this, for example: the p-word, “torture” and “devices” (together), names for female genitalia, “insert,” and “exploding,” all in one string? …There are some seriously twisted puppies out there.
I also can’t believe how slow some of this variant of fandom is. On August 8th — eons ago, in other words — I wrote a brief note about an imaginary biotech invention (whose name I don’t want to mention here, as it will just generate more hits, but which incorporates the “L” word that rhymes with glove, with the lump-y description of its appearance). This “invention” (by an Emily Carr College of Art affiliate) is a send-up of high-tech / bio-tech, and apparently some of the p-surfers now noticed it. Starting about 10 days ago, my referer stats went off-balance as the L-lump meme began making the rounds on the p-oriented sites. I keep getting hits to that August 8th entry: apparently, the L-lump scared some afficionados because they thought it really existed, while it appears to have turned others on, and both camps are visiting my blog entry for information regarding its source. Au wei. Do me a favour and crawl back in your caves people. Please.
It’s bizarre to consider that so many words potentially become triggers — taboos, in effect — for contamination with matters you don’t want to be associated with. I have never used the words porn, torture device, exploding, insert, vagina in a single entry. I have undoubtedly used these words singly, but someone was looking for them in combination. Is this a harbinger of the web’s power to spread knowledge and enlightenment, or of renewed myths that spread darkness and fear? Myths of taboos and bogey-men, vs fearlessness and freedom? But why would anyone think that knives cut only one way?
Postscript: The number of hits I’m getting from one site (something with oioideej or something) is exceeding the number of hits I got the one time that Scripting News linked to my site via a picture of Shadia Drury…. Follow the money, follow the money…. Porn is $$$. That’s all. That’s everything.
PPS: On second thought, perhaps the number of hits are about even (I think I need to add them up over days, and I didn’t keep track of Scripting’s, and I haven’t kept tabs on these new ones). The p-ones are from several sources and have been showing up over the past 10 days or so. Whatever, doesn’t really matter to me as such, but what I find really odd is that the main site (oioideej) that’s driving these hits to my site is linked to by only 4 other sites, according to technorati. What does this mean in terms of the power of so-called A-listers and the power of porn-oriented sites to drive traffic? Are we missing a couple of pieces in the quest to determine “popularity,” traffic, resonance, whatever? Just asking…
I guess we’ll have to use homonyms and paraphrases to avoid this. I’ve just blogged about doing this today as it happens, but in a different (1984) context, Yule.
Comment by Stu Savory — December 10, 2003 #
I saw that (“just ice”), Stu, and nearly dropped you an email, but didn’t have time. I was curious as to how you knew the visit came from them, too. Well, at any rate it’s part of writing online, I suppose — not every visitor is one you’d like to invite for dinner…
Comment by Yule Heibel — December 10, 2003 #
Of couse of you had no ethics you could always set up an anonymous site and claim to be selling the LL – collect a bunch of money and never deliver 🙂 serve the freaks right who search for and patronize such sites 🙂
Comment by Doug Alder — December 14, 2003 #
Your site is realy very interesting.
Comment by Anonymous — September 17, 2005 #