Writers Versus Content Creators

June 9, 2014August 3, 2015 Joseph Lyttleton2 Comments

I am a writer.

It used to embarrass me to say that because it comes across as so utterly pretentious. Anybody who’s published a poem on Poetry.com can call themselves a writer, which pretty much dilutes the word. I’ve only felt comfortable calling myself a writer in the last few years, partially because I’ve published nationally and some of my stories and poems have appeared in journals. But the more basic reason that I feel comfortable using the ‘W’ term for myself is because I work damn hard at it.

I edit. I edit like a ~~motherfucker~~ professional. Not a single post goes up on this site that hasn’t been read and re-read and edited for typos and grammatically confusing phrases and then rewritten again to make sure that it isn’t all just one big rambling mess. If an article goes up and I spot a typo after the fact, I pretty much can’t do anything until I’ve fixed it. And that’s just for blog posts. You can’t imagine how much time I spend on short stories and the longer pieces I work on. I’ve been editing a completed novel for years. It’s been finished, I’ve submitted it to agents (no interest found), and yet still I return to it in hopes of improvement.

Editing is only one part of being a writer. A very, very, very important part of it, but still not the whole shebang. A writer should also care for craftsmanship, the interplay of words and sounds. One needn’t look far to see that very little of what is written online has been crafted in any manner. Even if we’re ignoring the gibberish that gets posted in the name of SEO and Google analytics, publication on the internet is largely about filling space. Websites don’t employ writers, they employ content creators.

CONTENT IS KING(?)

“Content Creator” is this era’s greatest Orwellian euphemism, presenting the mindless sputum of the half-literate as ‘content’ and declaring the banging of one’s head against a keyboard as ‘creativity.’ Internet content is, by various definitions, valuable, even when it only exists to point the reader to the work of a superior thinker or artist. Unfortunately, the chained up monkeys who type this stuff, while still unable to reproduce Shakespeare, have learned how to market their smeared shit so effectively that we all stop and look.

A great many articles published online contain barely 100 words worth of original content all in reference to someone else’s video, photographs or article, copied whole cloth from another website or news source. So content-less has content creation become that the only real purpose of any creator is to slap up an attention-grabbing headline to bring in the hits. With headlines like “This Video Will Change Your Mind About Everything” and a screenshot strategically frozen to reveal cleavage (yes, Upworthy, I see what you’re doing), sites get your clicks and your shares, spreading their empty content like the mental herpes it truly is.

A content creator might push back and say, “You’re just bitter because you’ve failed as a writer.” To which I say, yeah, probably. But what is a writer if not someone who has failed at everything else in life.

WRITERS WRITE RIGHT

I am not criticizing the Internet. I have no qualms saying that the World Wide Web is the greatest scientific achievement in all of human history. Yes, even beating sliced bread. Counter to common belief, I don’t think the Internet is making us worse people, or even less social. The Internet didn’t turn us into assholes, we already were assholes (slavery, anyone?). This tool is transformative and quite often magnificent in the way that it brings together ideas, cultures, experiences and, most importantly, people. Blaming the Internet for our shortcomings as a species is like blaming the automobile for car crashes. In a certain light, it’s vaguely true, but it’s obviously missing the larger picture.

I know a lot of writers personally. Some I like and some I don’t, while some like me and most… tolerate me. Most of the writers I have known over the years have, at some point or another, stopped writing. At least, in a serious way. They may toss out a poem here or there, or loosely maintain a blog. Many of these writers have attempted to get their writing published and found out the hard way, like I have, that it is really, really hard to get published in this age, especially if you’re not writing erotic fan-fiction based on someone else’s creation.

It’s… disheartening. I’m not saying it was ever easy to be a writer, but I don’t think anyone would dispute that this is the hardest age for a writer to find a faithful audience and make a living by it. The Internet is, somewhat, to blame for that. The other party at fault is us, the writers. We have grown to accept the truism that no one will pay us for our writing, like we’re all part of one global internship and our bosses are waiting for their coffee. I’m not saying this isn’t true, just that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course no one’s going to pay for what they’re getting for free. Remember what your mama said about buying the cow? Yep, we’re all sluts.

This is truly a shame because nobody has changed and shaped history more than writers. Great ideas and revolutionary movements spread through the written word. As much as Twitter gets a bad name for its 140-character limit and seemingly frivolous content, it actually serves a tremendous function because it helps spread messages. It lets us share the word.

Writing has value. Content doesn’t.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

We’re a headline culture, so it’s no wonder that we believe all human knowledge can be reduced to a series of bulletpoints for easy consumption. The epidemic of scientific illiteracy that has created the Anti-Vaxxers, the Climate Change Deniers and the Intelligent Design Movement is largely based on these various groups believing that if they read a couple of headlines, a Wikipedia article and a science study abstract, they’re suddenly as informed as a person who has devoted their life to the field. You can’t reduce hundreds of years of research into an afternoon and then call yourself an expert.

The more reductive we become, the harder it is to convey anything meaningful. Even the flashy content creators are shoving extra information into their headlines (“#16 Will Blow You Away” “#3 Will Literally Get You Pregnant” “#10 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”) because the fire-hose torrent of hyperbole is losing its ability to draw eyes. Everybody is screaming with ALL CAPS that what they have to show you is worth your 5-second attention span, and in reality almost none of it is.

Which is why it’s time for writers to fight back.

Don’t give in to the easy pull of content creation. Don’t aim for the lowest common denominator. Don’t over-hype your work with misleading, exclamation-filled headlines. Be a writer. Craft your words with care, edit them to perfection, and if the world doesn’t care, do it again. And again, and again. The world doesn’t owe you an audience. As a writer, though, you owe it to yourself and to your work to actually give a damn about the quality of your writing. The word will remain long after all the content has been banished to the unlit alleyways of internet obscurity.

So what are you? Content Creator, or Writer?

#WritersVsContentCreators

This May: Spread The Love

April 2, 2014June 1, 2015 Joseph Lyttleton

Art is nourished by criticism. An honest and educated appraisal of a work’s strengths and weaknesses helps us better appreciate art, both as creators and consumers. I say this up front so it is clear that what I am about to propose is not attacking art criticism or art critics. It is a worthy profession, an important one in the right hands, even a noble endeavor for a select few.

Criticism, though, is becoming angrier and duller. As the adage goes, everyone is a critic, and this has never been more true than in the Internet Age. This wondrous invention that allows us to experience the world from the comfort of our bedrooms is filling up with poison, and we’re all responsible for it.

We use Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, blogs, forums, and innumerable websites to spout off on all manner of experiences, and with inevitable frequency, we are voicing displeasure. We can’t simply click past, our disapproval must be known. We feel compelled to inform the creator that they have failed and then troll the fan base. The world cannot be allowed to spin another minute without it being known that this random thing that you, of your own volition, experienced did not live up to your satisfaction.

So here is my proposal:

For the month of May, let us refrain from negative criticisms.
Instead, let’s focus on the positive and ‘Spread the love’.

This will not be easy, I know.

For all of May, refrain from criticizing Youtube videos, skip the Facebook bashing, don’t tweet about a movie you loathed (or its stars) and let your disdain for a TV show subside. Don’t even hit the thumbs down button on Stumbleupon. Just move on. Criticism is not all bad, but maybe, just maybe, we’ve become so obsessed with what we hate that we’re losing sight of what we love. So, for 31 short days, why not refocus our energy on enjoying art?

Suggestions for things to do as an alternative to criticizing:

1. Share a favorite work of art with a friend or stranger.

2. Read positive reviews of art you’ve never experienced and consume it.

3. Write a positive review of something you loved.

4. Request art recommendations from friends.

5. Close your browser and go outside; see a live band or go to a movie theater, or get cozy in a chair at your local bookstore and read two to three chapters.

6. Watch porn.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter, just expend the energy some other way. Be cool.

I know it will be a struggle for most people, it will be for me, too. But I think we need a hiatus from our jobs as the world’s critics. It’s not like it pays well.

Before I’m accused of squashing Free Speech or I’m dismissed as a ‘Love Is All You Need’ hippie, let me reiterate that I’m not proposing the abolishment of all negativity. This is a finite challenge I’m proposing for all of us, like a New Years Resolution or Lent, except instead of trying to lose weight or fasting for spiritual purposes, we agree to refrain from spewing hatred for one month. And then, in June, we can return to our regularly scheduled vitriol.

I assure you, the world will not stop spinning if you delay telling Dave Matthews fans how much he sucks, nor will a new ice age befall us if the failings of the new Spider-man movie aren’t thoroughly documented on your blog. Terrible art exists and it deserves to be called out for its shortcomings, but for the month of May we can ignore it in order to celebrate the truly great art.

To address some other possible concerns:

1. This challenge is about art. Politics and science require constant scrutiny. Which is not to suggest that art is lesser than politics or science – not by any means – only that art’s impact on the world isn’t as immediate or dire.

2. If you make your living as an art critic, it might not be feasible for you to only write positive reviews. Then again, maybe your editor would be on board if you devoted May exclusively to spotlighting your favorite works. This should be easy for non-professional critics.

3. Even if you’re not someone who regularly discusses art, use this month to spread the word on what you like. You may just introduce someone to their new favorite band, book or show.

4. If you enjoy the idea, don’t feel like you have to limit yourself. Spread the love to other realms of your life.

5. If you think this is an insipid, meaningless gesture, maybe you’re right. But why not give it a try for a month anyway, what could it hurt?

Don’t think of it as giving up criticism. Think of it as a month’s vacation from things you don’t like. So this May, practice the fine art of saying something nice. You might even grow to like it.

If you like this idea and plan on participating, please share this post and use #SpreadTheLove to keep it trending. What could one month of positivity bring about?

You Are Not A Genius

March 17, 2014September 28, 2014 Joseph Lyttleton1 Comment

Let’s start with a very basic fact: If there is an average intelligence, somebody has to be below it. An average, or mean, is not the number that is most common (that’s the mode), or the number that is smack dab in the middle of all the numbers (that’s the median). No, the average is the value we get when all numbers are added and divided by the number of numbers. In this case, those numbers are I.Q. points.

Theoretically, if there was just one massive, industrial-strength moron on the planet, and everyone else were of an astronomically higher degree of intelligence, everyone (but that one) could be higher than the average I.Q. But that isn’t the case. Without any practical way of giving the whole planet an intelligence test, we can be fairly sure that the average and mode for I.Q. points is damn near the same.

I don’t care how good you are at Minecraft (whatever that is), you my dear reader are, with high statistical likelihood, not a genius.

Uh, Fish Are Pretty Dumb, You Ninny

Have you seen this fish quote? It’s the quintessential quote for the internet age. First of all, it’s frequently attributed to Albert Einstein, but was never said by him (basically, if you have some banal sentiment to express, claim Einstein said it), secondly, it doesn’t really make any sense (expecting humans to have basic reasoning and problem solving abilities isn’t the same as expecting a fish to climb a tree), thirdly, if everyone is a genius, then being a genius is suddenly not special. Who cares?

And fourthly, fuck the guy who did say this. I get that we’re worried about self-esteem and people being made to feel bad about themselves, but telling everyone they’re special isn’t the solution, it’s the problem. While you’re assuring your kids that no matter what they do, they’re a success, reality is waiting in the wings to show them that you can’t buy lunch with a glowing sense of self-worth. People fail. That’s how they learn, and grow. Ever met an adult who was coddled their entire childhood and never made to work for anything? They’re the worst.

There is a kernel of truth in the idea that judging everybody on the same scale fails to truly appreciate a variety of skills. A musician shouldn’t be judged on his ability to do spreadsheets, nor would you reject a doctor if she wasn’t good at watercoloring. I’ve known intelligent businessmen who couldn’t write an intelligible literary essay to save their lives. We all have a limited amount of space in our brains (as I’ve noted before, the 10% idea is a myth), so we prudently save room for the knowledge and skill sets that most benefit our profession.

That’s what separates us (I include myself) from the geniuses. Geniuses have minds that are capable of functioning at a level beyond the grasp of us mere average schmoes. A genius isn’t just someone who is a talented guitarist or knows how to program a computer or write an enjoyable book. Those are all excellent skills to have, particularly if your line of work is guitarist, programmer or writer. But they don’t elevate you to the level of genius.

Well, What is a Genius?

After being so adamant that you are not a genius, I’m going to admit that defining a genius is kind of difficult. If we’re talking about I.Q. points, there doesn’t seem to be one consistent metric, though anything above 140-150 is generally considered genius or gifted. I’m not sure how common I.Q. testing is anymore, especially since the tests have often been accused of having a cultural bias. I’ve never taken a test (not a real one; I’ve done the online ones, but those aren’t legitimate gauges of anything), and I don’t know of many people who have. 100 is generally considered average, and most people fall somewhere around there, which is why I.Q. points are often represented with a bell curve.

But when we use the term genius in casual conversation, whether referring to Steve Jobs, Vince Gilligan, David Bowie or some other public figure, we’re not concerned with their intelligence quotient, we’re referring to their achievements. Which is why the term genius is hard to define, and why it’s becoming so overused. We should guard against conflating our personal admiration of someone with objective acclaim. Which is not to say that Jobs, Gilligan and Bowie aren’t geniuses, only that when we’re basing a judgment on a person’s output, it’s really only the historians who can make the call.

Indeed, the old adage is true: Genius is never truly appreciated in its own time. Except, that’s not a lament, it’s a recipe. Achievement can only truly be appreciated with perspective.

The World’s (Not) Full of Idiots

The flip side of the fact that not everyone is a genius is that not everyone is an idiot.* I hear it all the time, on average once a day: “The world is full of idiots!” I had a roommate who pretty much peppered that phrase into every discussion he had (though, when I called him out on it, he denied any memory of ever saying it). Read any political site or article and you’ll learn that Republicans are idiots, and so are Democrats. Liberals and conservatives, all idiots.

It’s not just politics, though. Fans of The Big Bang Theory are idiots, as is anyone who listens to Dave Matthews Band or reads Twilight. Basically, if someone does or enjoys something that you don’t, they’re an idiot.

There have been studies that show correlations between intelligence or success and musical and literary tastes, but no such study could ever hope to prove causation, and bias almost inevitably enters into such surveys. Comparing the fan base of The Big Bang Theory, which is the most highly watched sitcom on TV, with that of, say, Community, which is poorly rated but critically adored is a fool’s errand. As a huge fan of Community (and a person who has next to no interest in TBBT), I would love to believe that my preference reflects some sort of mental superiority. In truth, it just speaks to my sense of humor.

You Are Not A Genius. Deal With It.

Be content with your average-ness. What choice do you have? You’re certainly not going to read books on new and difficult subjects to expose yourself to original ideas and educate yourself. Who’s got time for that? Accept that you will always be somewhere in the middle, with the vast majority of the population. At least you won’t be lonely.

And learn to deal with the mindblowing notion that people who hold different beliefs, have different tastes and enjoy different experiences aren’t lesser than you.

Or, you know, don’t. Idiot.

*Just as there really are geniuses in this world, there are idiots, too. They’re just not as numerous as you think, and most of them are probably refusing to get their children vaccinated for fear of autism, so evolution might weed them out anyway.

A photo of Martin Manley, a Kansas City sportswriter who blogged about his suicide.

“My mom said I was always a happy baby.” The Suicide of Martin Manley

August 19, 2013August 11, 2022 Joseph Lyttleton

[This post obviously deals with suicide. Do not read on if the subject makes you uncomfortable.]

Martin Manley killed himself.

This in and of itself isn’t so unique. Thousands of suicides happen without much notice. Manley was a public figure, a former sports writer for the Kansas City Star and editor for the website Sports In Review. However, what makes his suicide bizarre is that he created a website (no longer active; going to the URL now could subject you to a virus) to explain his reasons for his actions. The final thing he wrote was a post for SIR.

In his final post, Manley explains:

The reason for my departure is 100% within my ability to control. You see, earlier today, I committed suicide. I created a web-site to deal with the many questions a person would rightfully have. It’s called martinmanleylifeanddeath.com. It went live today. In my opinion, there is no question which you could conceivably ask that I have left unanswered on that site. My goal with this post is closure for SIR.

Martin Manley shot himself in front of a police station. His final post touched on some of his reasons, but mostly he seemed to just want to put everything in order. The website he created was split into 2 categories, ‘Life’ and ‘Death.’ I won’t try to summarize or pull quotes. There was too much there to be crammed into a single blog post. The man laid bare his entire existence, from beginning to end, and if people are interested, there are mirror sites where people can still read his writings.

There are two reasons this story caught my eye (besides for the sensational angle of it):

First, he was from Kansas. He says that he lived in Topeka and then moved to Overland Park. Both of these cities are about 30 minute drives (in opposite directions) from my hometown of Lawrence. While I haven’t lived in Kansas in years and I was never one to read sports stories in the newspaper, I have to imagine that I have a lot of friends and old acquaintances that were familiar with this man, maybe even regular readers.

Secondly, there was something he wrote in his Pictures section of the site:

These are pictures of me when I was around one. My mom said I was always a happy baby. It seems odd to me that would be the case considering I’m not sure I ever really learned what happiness was as an adult.

Emphasis mine. That really stuck out to me, because my mother has said the same thing of me. She says I was her “sunshine baby.” This has always struck me as odd because for as long as I can remember, I have dealt with depression. I’m sure for anyone who has dealt with lifelong depression it’s hard to remember a time when you could be roundly described as “happy.”

If this story blows up, and it likely will because of its odd, viral nature, it will almost certainly spur a conversation on suicide. I hope it does. But if the comments on related articles are any indication, the conversation may get buried in dross. As soon as a public suicide hits the internet, the opinions start flying: People should be allowed to kill themselves. People who commit suicide are idiots. Only God can help you fight depression.

Everyone brings their preconceived ideas to the topic and nothing of importance ever gets discussed. The conversation takes bunny trails off into topics such as “Is depression genetic?,” “Is suicide wrong?,” and “Is there a God?” Personal agendas get brought in and pretty soon no one is talking about what really matters: How do people who have suicidal thoughts cope?

There is no single answer for everyone, and I don’t feel like getting into my personal beliefs on the topic. (I’ve done so elsewhere.)

It’s that phrase that keeps coming back to me: “My mom said I was always a happy baby.” We all have loved ones in our life and we think we know them, we think that we know what they’re capable of. Part of the reason that suicides so often take us by surprise is that most of us pride ourselves on being perceptive, at least when it comes to the people in our lives.

The TV show House M.D. had an episode where a main character committed suicide. At the time, there was considerable online chatter about whether it was just for shock, many arguing there was no hint that the character was going to do it. But, as unexpected as the episode was for me, it also struck me as incredibly true. My own personal experience of suicide was with someone who I (and, I imagine, most of the kids who knew him) thought was the happiest, most well-adjusted person.

I wasn’t familiar with Manley. I’m sure as people unpack his website and his backlog of articles things will come out that will make his suicide “obvious” and easy to predict in that perfect 20/20 hindsight sort of way. And maybe he had hinted at it to his readers for a while, I don’t know.

But the broader truth is that suicide isn’t something we usually can predict, especially not with our loved ones. There are those who display early warning signs, but for every person on suicide watch, there is a ‘happy baby’ who takes their families and friends by complete surprise.

I think what Manley was trying to do (what the writers of House were trying to do too) is bring this difficult conversation to the forefront and get people talking. Your opinion on Manley’s actions are irrelevant. It happened. Where do we go from here?

If there is any one person in culture having this conversation the right way, it’s the stand-up comedian Maria Bamford. She talks openly in her routine about her Bipolar Disorder and suicide. One of her best bits is called “Stigma” and you can listen to it on Spotify. I can tell you that for someone with depression, it is one of the funniest, most cathartic comedy routines I have ever listened to.

I don’t know if society will ever be capable of taking on this topic in a way that doesn’t fall back on preconceived judgments and fears, but I hope that if anything positive can come out of Manley’s death, it will be a willingness to look at this subject with fresh eyes.

Let us not hide from this.

#Twitterpated

June 4, 2013November 4, 2014 Joseph Lyttleton

I’m on Twitter. I don’t post with it all that much and I honestly don’t have the knowledge or the inclination to build a larger Twitter presence. It’s a kind of social networking proficiency I’ll never grasp, and that’s okay because for me, Twitter is more about what other people are saying, not what I can say. I’m a little too wordy to ever effectively utilize the medium.

I was one of the countless people who absolutely shit on the idea when I first heard about it. A kind of Facebook Status Update minus all the other features and with a limit of 140 characters? Who would use that, and more importantly, why? It seemed designed for the kind of banal, self-centered, grammar-challenged postings that are the bread and butter of teenagers. Why would anyone want teenagers to have even more ways of expressing their pointless ‘opinions.’

Well, it turns out my kneejerk reaction was ill-informed and hasty. Twitter is full of teenage idiocy (and adult idiocy), certainly, but there is so much more to it than that. From interesting articles to hilarious one-liners and thoughtful conversations, Twitter is actually an impressive and useful amalgamation of all the best things on the internet (it’s also a collective for the worst things, because Twitter is essentially the Cliff Notes of the World Wide Web).

Today alone, my feed has been filled with a couple related but separate conversations that I found endlessly interesting. One was a debate that Michael Ian Black has spurred, anew, about ‘Rape Jokes’ and whether they are ever permissible (a topic I covered during the recent Daniel Tosh kerfuffle). This seems to be one of Twitter (and the internet’s) favorite topics of debate, and while it so often breaks down into histrionics, MIB was making some wonderfully un-hysterical points.

The other was a conflict between Patton Oswalt and Aaron Belz (a man I’ve never heard of until today) because of the latter’s apparent defense of Sammy Rhodes, who Oswalt accused of joke thievery. Rhodes has since taken the particular tweet down, so I don’t actually know which joke it was, but I spent a good amount of time going down the rabbit hole trying to find out. This basically came down to whether or not you were a fan of each respective joke teller, but Oswalt is a bigger name and a more talented debater, so the fight felt pretty one-sided (plus, joke stealing is never okay: If I see something funny, I retweet it directly).

As both topics are hugely contentious subjects among stand up comedians, I read each one of them with quite a bit of fascination (if not at least a little bit of schadenfreude). No, neither topic was going to be settled, but unlike blog posts or comment sections, a Twitter debate has immediacy to it. It’s as close as the internet gets to a coffeeshop debate. Granted, Twitter isn’t the best medium for finely nuanced discussion, but the character restriction does require that participants whittle down their arguments to their most cogent and relevant points (ideally).

I follow plenty of provocative writers and thinkers, including Ezra Klein, Cory Doctorow, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Anonymous to name a few, but comedians and humorists are clearly the most adept to and well-suited for the medium. This isn’t just because Twitter is a natural place for one-liners. As Shakespeare once wrote (or didn’t because SHAKESPEARE IS A LIE), “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Intelligent, funny people tend to know how to get the most humor out of concise thoughts, because nothing kills a joke like an endless, meandering build.*

Even a year ago, I would have said I could give or take my Twitter account. I only created it because I felt like I should have one. I was basically peer pressured into it. But, recently I’ve found that Twitter can be a limitless stream of humorous, insightful and/or challenging thoughts. It’s better than Facebook or Stumbleupon for presenting me with links of interest, not because it’s more refined in its targeting (its a whole lot less refined) but because the sheer number of posts is so massive. And unlike Facebook, it doesn’t attempt to weed out posts based on what it thinks I’ll be interested in, it just gives me everything.

Now, that can be overwhelming from time to time. Sometimes looking at Twitter is like having dozens of magazines and newspapers dropped in my lap. While I’ll never have the time or focus to read every single news item that looks interesting, it’s nice knowing that that repository is there when I want it.

And of course, the power of Twitter’s omnipresence can be both marvelous (See: Political uprisings around the world) and dangerous (See: The Boston Bomber Manhunt), but that’s true of any tool. And that’s just it, Twitter is a tool, neither inherently good or bad. Twitter is a lesson for everyone who claims that technology is ruining society: It’s not about the technology, it’s about who has access to it.

Consider me converted. Humanity created something that seemed solely designed for the frivolous and managed to elevate it to the level of profound discourse. And pictures of food.

Plus, when I just need a good laugh, my Twitter cup overflowth:

Um, follow me?

#

*Actually, long jokes are usually my favorite because they require so much of the listener, but you have to be an especially talented storyteller to pull them off.

Search Terms

November 1, 2011May 19, 2013 Joseph Lyttleton1 Comment

Thanks to a healthy bit of publicity, October was the second busiest month for my blog (the busiest month was due to a certain Scientology-related skirmish that drew out a horde of Atheists).

One of the niftier aspects of WordPress is that it allows me to see what words and phrases people are searching for when they are directed to my blog. The phrase “10 cities 10 years” is seventh on the all-time list of most searched terms, which tells me that a great deal of my visitors lately have been searching specifically for this blog. That’s good to know, it tells me the publicity is working.

But most search terms have little to do with my blog specifically.

“Ground zero” is the numero uno search term, thanks to this short story, which is certainly not what people were looking for when they went searching. This is followed behind by such cultural icons as Beyonce and Daniel Tosh (or, more specifically, Daniel Tosh’s Girlfriend). What can I say, I’ve got my finger on the pulse of youth culture.

What’s more interesting to me are the bizarre search terms that bring people to my page for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. Most of the top 50 or so are variations on the top 10, so I have to go down a ways before I really start to hit idiosyncratic pay dirt.

“Jesus humor” is a personal favorite, not only because of what it implies about my blog, but because it has been searched for 30 separate times.

But there are so many more great/bizarre search terms. Here are 10 of my favorite inexplicable search terms (bad language ahead; you’ve been warned):

1. ‘a pic of a person who has to use the bathroom in a cartoon’ – Why? What? How? So many questions are raised by this search term, but all I can really wonder is if this intrepid searcher left my blog satisfied.

2. ‘boobs bar’ – I’d imagine this would be a very popular bar.

3. ‘معني كلمهgtfo’ – What? Just, what?

4. ‘healthy sexuality comic strip’ & ‘comic strips about healthy sexuality’ – I’m not sure what this comic strip would look like, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be very funny.

5. ‘Whiskey shits’ – I know why this leads to my blog, I just love that people are typing this term into their search engines. It gives me hope.

6. ‘bird mustache’ – Again, I am aware of what this is referring to, but such an odd phrase to type.

7. ‘rule 34 cancer’ – If you don’t know what Rule 34 is, good for you. Don’t google it. But if you do know what it means, can you please explain to me why anyone would want to search for it in relation to cancer? What would that even look like? I’m almost tempted to search for it myself, just to see. Almost.

8. ‘carl motherfucking sagan’ – Yes, yes, yes.

9. ‘i will fucking punch you in the face’ – So much anger. Someone searched this term 3 times in one day. I hope they got laid soon after.

10. ’10 years fuck’ – This one is disturbing because I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean, or maybe because I think I do know what it means and I don’t like it. I will say this, though, ‘fuck’ is a pretty common word in my search terms. I can’t imagine why.

Well, here’s to more successful years of blogging and hopefully even more bizarre search terms.