Just a question:
What would make someone read my blog and then put pornographic search terms into the search box?
It happens all the time.
Does this happen to other bloggers? Does this happen to male bloggers? I’m just asking. Do male bloggers have people putting stuff like “pictures of your cock” in their Search box? I’m truly asking this because I don’t know the answer.
The porno search terms feel hostile to me. I’m not losing sleep over it – it happens too often for me to get really bothered by it – but I have to admit, I don’t get it. Why would people think they could find nude photographs of me here? Is it something in how I write? But … that can’t be. How could you look at what I write and think that I’m THAT kind of blogger?
This is why I say that those search terms feel very very hostile to me.
If it were an isolated incident I wouldn’t even mention it … but it happens all the time.
I don’t believe these people are really looking for nudie pictures of me. I don’t believe these people really believe that I would post pictures of myself having sex. I think that they read what I write, and somehow it either pisses them off (which is so bizarre … what, they can’t stand Cary Grant fans or something?), or, more likely: there’s something in me that they don’t GET … and that bugs the SHIT out of them … so to ‘get back at me’ they put words like “pussy” and “pictures of your cunt” (I woke up to that one this morning – thanks, dude!) in my search box – knowing that I will see them. Knowing that I will see them and … what … have a moment of shame and humiliation? They want to shame me. They want me to have a moment of shame. They look forward to that. They look forward to bringing me down. Or something pathetic like that.
I still don’t understand why this is the case. I have my theories. Oh, I’ve got theories!
I just ban their IP addresses and as I do so I shake my head, thinking: “Man. Another loser jag-off at his keyboard who has no life.”
But still. It’s curious to me.
I wonder if it’s some kind of bot. You know, like the ones that crawl around looking for e-mail addresses. Because you’re right, no one who reads your blog would expect to find those things. Is your search bar a plug-in? Maybe you could ask about it. I’d continue to ban the IPs but I wouldn’t take it personal.
As a long term reader of your site, I can’t figure out why anyone would think you were that type of person, but, as you know, the internet is basically the wild west, i.e., there’s no control over what people say or do. I’m sorry you’re “assaulted” by these losers, but I think your attitude of basically ignoring them is the right answer. Keep up your excellent work. 99.999% of us appreciate your insights and humor. Being Irish doesn’t hurt either… :)
I don’t think my search bar is a plug-in. I don’t even know the answer to that! How would I find out?
I don’t really take it personally, Laura – at least not in a way that upsets me – I just do find it curious and wonder why.
i agree with you that it’s hostility. misogynist hostility from the looks of it. is there a way to report the IP addresses to their ISPs as well as banning them? or find out who they are and if they’re someone you might know of?
beth –
feh, it’s not worth it. If it was just one person doing this, on a daily basis, then I might report his ass – but as it is, it just doesn’t seem worth it.
Again, I have my theories.
One theory: I think it has something to do with how personally I write, and yet also – how much I DON’T reveal. It’s that SECOND one that drives some people bananas.
That’s what drove my stalker-dude crazy. The one I reported to his ISP. He just wanted more from me, it was like he was peering through the cracks of my words, and he thought I was being “a tease” on my blog (his words, not mine) – because of what I DIDN’T share. he said my blog was full of “red herrings”. Uhm – depends on how you read my blog, loser.
Take, for example, the post I wrote the other day about the man I loved who came to visit me in NYC.
If Stalker-dude were still around, he would have immediately emailed me:
“So was the man in the story the one from your acting class that you mentioned, or the one from that one Diary Friday entry when you played pool, or was he the guy you took you to the Greek restaurant …” Like – listing all of these random posts back at me … to show me how much he was paying attention.
He wouldn’t have taken that post I wrote on Sunday as: “Ooh, let’s see what Sheila’s talking about today …” No. It was part of a puzzle – and I was making it HARD for him to put it all together. He would read it and get frustrated with me … and wonder: WHICH GUY WAS IT??
Like: none of your fucking business, loser.
Whatever I revealed was NOT ENOUGH for him. He saw everything as some kind of coy tease.
And I think that might have something to do with why this happens to me – with a certain type of people. People who have no life.
I also think it has to do with some of the blog-rolls I appear on.
I told you. I got theories!! :)
Laura’s right. It’s probably a bot or someone who writes those bot scripts seeing if his spam comments made it on to your blog. Banning the IP address is probably a waste of time and energy. They disguise that.
Rob – yeah. I don’t bother to check the IP address to see if the person has ever made a comment on my blog because I don’t know of any expedited way to do that.
Is there a way to do that, by the way?
Again, it’s not even really a hassle – I’m not upset or anything – it just seems kind of curious and I wondered if it happened to other bloggers.
But it would be interesting if there was a way to cross-reference IP addresses … any ideas?
A large majority of my Google hits (like, nearly half sometimes) come from people looking for “pretty feet”, based on one post that I did a long time ago linking to a picture of someone’s feet. Apparently there are a lot more foot freaks out there than I had ever imagined. And of course the name of my place invites pretty much any search that includes “hard”. But overall, I don’t see that many nasty search strings…maybe they ARE just picking on you heheheheh.
Yes, there’s a way to do that. In MT’s main menu, go to Import/Export. You can export your entries to a text file. Save it and then search it with Wordpad or a similar editor. My guess is your text file would be way too big for Notepad.
One note: It’s going to be a large file. My considerably smaller, less active blog exports out at 2.6MB. Yours will be bigger.
That file will also double as a backup.
skillzy –
I’m actually talking about terms that people actually type into my Search box on the right-hand nav of my blog. I get a ton of weirdo Google search terms as well – but this is different.
Rob-
awesome advice! Thank you! It would definitely come in handy.
Yeah, look at one of those IP addresses from one of your ridiculous search terms and search for it in your blog text file. You may end up with a name. If they’re reading these comments, we may have put a chill in that activity, though. It might lose some of its amusement value for you.
And here all I ever searched for on your blog was “Dunkin Donuts.” I guess I’m relatively boring that way. ;-)
dave j – hahahaha I saw that!! Makes PERFECT sense!
Oh god. Now I feel terrible for typing “hot gay elf sex.” At least for the few hours that you didn’t know it was me.
emily – bwahahahaha
How ’bout you putting “Hey, I heard you could get naked pictures of David O’Hara here” in the search box? hahahaha
I think it’s even more disturbing that when you do search for “hot gay elf sex” on my blog, a ton of entries come up.
Well, now, you have a new phenomenon, red. Sorry about that.
The David O’Hara one I knew you would get as a joke – it was after you posted about him and someone doing something similar. I know freaky searches can be a little unnerving, though Bill McCabe and I had a small war with our mutual search engines a while back. I’ve started vile rumors there about his secret love tryst with Orlando Bloom in Yankee Stadium.
hahahahahahahahaha
I can’t wait to see what “mooning nuns” is going to bring up over at your pad Emily.
cullen – hahahaha
Yes – but let me reiterate: this isn’t about Google search terms. It’s about people – random people – typing stuff into my little search box. I pick it up when I look at my Search Box Activity Log – and there they all are. Some are normal. People are looking for old posts of mine – or looking for themselves – I see old boyfriends searching for themselves, for example – tee hee – they’re trying to see what I said about them – or people want to know what I think of, say, Edgar Allen Poe.
I’m not talking about people getting to me by Googling random things – although those are weird too.
I cannot tell you how sorry I am that I once linked to some crazy story I read about people who throw “enema parties”. Dudes, you have no idea how many people are out there looking for enema parties.
So yeah, we’ve got the weird Google search but there’s a big difference between that, and some random person typing the words “pictures of your pussy” into my search box.
It’s creepier. It feels directed at me personally.
I remember once Googling the word “enema” after a friend of mine wouldn’t shut up about how wonderful they were.
I do not even want to discuss what came up as the most popular sights.
Not my blog, I hope …
No. Nothing remotely close to your blog. Trust me, you have never, ever written anything that remotely resembles the sorts of things that human beings are willing to do with poop.
emily –
woah. i am so tempted to Google it now … but I just had lunch so I think I’ll wait.
Damn the Germans!
That is not to say that every German is into weird, kinky enema-related stuff. But it is to say that a great majority of this stuff seems to originate in Germany. Thank you (/sarcasm) Something Awful for making me aware of this.
I think the Japanese are really into the whole kinky enema thing, too. Or so I’ve heard.
Oh, funny Japanese story … we lived on the economy in Okinawa for about 6 months waiting for a place to open up on the nearby Air Force base. Well, apparently prostitutes and houses of prostitution advertise freely in the newspapers and mailers.
So, we get one of these little mailers one day and my wife lost it on me. She thought I’d signed up for something or other. It took another week or so — until another one came in the mail and I could show her that other people were getting them — for me to fully convince her otherwise. Gotta love the cultural differences.
That’s funny. Yes, dear. I signed up for a cathouse newsletter and told them to post it to the same house where I live with my wife.
hahahaha
Like Duh. You think I’d have had the sense to send the cathouse newsletters to the same place I sent the Cannibal Home Journal.
well, I searched for Barbara Tuchman once on your blog because I thought I remembered you talking about one or another of her books, but nothing came up.
I don’t know. If I were getting weird/hostile search terms I’d be really ooged out. I’m glad you’re tougher than I am.
(It is probably pretty likely it’s ‘bots. If not, there are some really sick jerks out there. You know, on second thought, if it were happening to me, I’d probably take some kind of a picture – either a really neutral type of landscape picture and name it “picture of my p*ssy” just so that the searchers would be directed to it. Or a picture of a hand giving the middle finger. Or maybe a picture of a cat in a sickeningly cute costume [picture of a p*ssy, get it, ha ha?])
(Asterisks inserted because I don’t know if comments are searchable and I don’t want to try to give people the satisfaction of actually finding something).
ricki – oh my GOD, that is such a great idea!!!
hahahahaha
Sheila,
Ya know, it’s all your fault. You are the ultimate pornographic temptress, having something so disgusting on your blog as a SEARCH BOX (emphasis on BOX). What do you expect guys to do when such a thing is put in their face? If I had ever noticed the search thingie, you can believe I would have have remembered those late Friday nights watching “Skinamax” and come up with some search terms that would make Ron Jeremy blush.
I hope that it it not necessary to write this, but I’m going to anyway: JUST KIDDING! Reading the above actually kinda creeps me out. Your post just reinforces my assertion that there is a small percentage of people that need to have there cranium ventillated.
And off topic…this Cashel kid sounds like a hoot, a real character. Thanks for sharing your stories of him and your obvious love for him. I would say that you should post pictures of him but then we get back to the creep part that your post was about, so obviously not a good idea.
Anyways, take care.
Jay –
hahahaha You know, it also occurred to my dirty mind: “Hmmm. There’s something a bit … sexual … about the phrase: ‘putting terms in my Search box'” – I tried to re-word it a couple of times, but alas, to no avail. … It IS provocative of me. You’re RIGHT.
How dare I have a Search box???
And yeah – no pictures of Cash-man – I almost caved last year when we got an INCREDIBLE picture of him flying a kite for the first time, and RUNNING. Cashel? Running? Huh? Did my eyes deceive me? Awesome photo – but I just don’t feel right about it. Too many WEIRDOS OUT THERE.
And doesn’t this topic reenforce that feeling. I put up those extremely cropped photos of my young-un’ and that was hard.
Cullen – I know!! I see people who keep these elaborate baby blogs – and am amazed at their trust – with putting up all these pictures of their offspring. I’m sure 99 times out of 100 everything will be fine, and no one will be a weirdo – it just … I can’t do it myself.
I think you were smart to crop out their full faces – even though I, personally, would have loved to see their cute little faces.
Everyone should only do what they’re comfortable doing but I’m curious. What does a picture do for a weirdo that our stories and descriptions don’t do?
Rob – I’m not sure, but people seem to get more attached if they can PICTURE you. They get fixated on the image.
I suppose its one of those things. If you post them, people call you irresponsible. If you don’t, people call you irrational. I respect both sides but call me irresponsible. :)
//Uhm – depends on how you read my blog, loser.//
this is why i think you’re awesome.
weird–i am always someone who takes things unnecessarily to heart–like, i assume i’m being yelled at or feel guilty for things i didn’t actually do…i think i’d be a compulsive confessor if ever put in a situation like that…but trying to figure out if one guy in one post was the same guy from the acting class or whatever…that just never occurred to me.
i know what you mean about people thinking you…not *owe* them something, but can give them something, i guess. it’s started happening to me, too, every so often. very bizarre.