Thursday, October 2, 2008

Big Brother is Watching

I have to share something that has been both fascinating and disturbing to me over the past few weeks. For those of you that aren’t familiar with site meter, it is a nifty little tool that gives you a lot of information about people who visit your blog. Most intriguing to me is HOW they got to my blog, which in a general sense, site meter provides. So, let’s say you searched some key words in Google and ended up at my blog. Site meter would tell me that you came from Google and show me what words you used that made you “find” me.

On a side note, I must say that there are an excessive number of people who try to find out what movie the phrase “Winner winner chicken dinner” came from. Then, they come to my blog, where I ask them to tell me. I am sure that wasn’t what they were looking for, was it? One could assume maybe I’ve frustrated them even more, which I oddly find some humor in. To show you that I am not that horrible of a person, I’ll spill the beans. It was the movie 21 people. I heart Kevin Spacey.

Alright, now you are going to have to pay attention here, this one is a little more complicated. There are an inordinate, I repeat inordinate, number of people who Google either “how to be witty” or “witty things to say”. I find that curiously disturbing and have to tell you why. To start, when I Google “witty things to say”, there are 481,000 options that come up. Since I get about 20 people a day that find my blog through this particular search, one could only imagine how many additional people are searching for the same thing and ending up at the other 480,999 sites. That is a lot of people who have nothing better to do than search for witty things to say.

Additionally, I have to think that they are overwhelmingly disappointed when they end up at my blog during this search. I’m afraid I am not much help. I’d sort of like to play Mr. Obvious here though and point out that THEY were the ones who clicked on a link that clearly was labeled I Used to be Witty. To make matters worse, I am not sure that I ever really have been witty. It seemed a lot better to claim that I was and lost it than titling my blog: I Have Never Been Remotely Interesting at Any Point in My Existence. So, these poor Google-searches are really screwed when they end up here.

Now, the most important point I must make, is asking what these people do when they find a witty thing to say, or learn to be witty, via the internet of course. It is sort of like the person who professes to be cool and has totally discredited that with their own statement of coolness. Do these people keep a “witty mental note” and hope that the appropriate situation arises where they can “insert witty comment here”?

I find it irritating that I can’t stop obsessing over these people on some freak witty quest. Like the annoying person I am, I will share these frustrations here so you can obsess over them as well. Do you have any comments on this subject?

2 comments:

Jessica said...

You have WAY too much time on your hands! LOL

C. Beth said...

I love Site Meter! Although I get way too obsessive about how many people are or aren't visiting.

For the record, there are a lot of toddlers sticking play dough up their nose. And mine is one of the first sites that shows up when they Google that topic. I'm so proud of my little girl!