If you had asked me four years ago whether or not the future of my silly little blog mattered to me, I would have laughed in your face and called you a “fag” or “pussy.” I was interested enough in the prospect of sharing my ideas to sign up for a Blogger.com account, but beyond that I pretty much figured it would only keep my attention for a month or two. Like every other project I’d started in my life, a website was something intended to kill a few hours between classes, or provide me a hobby other than popping pills and drinking Makers Mark. When I started, I promised there would be no advertisements, but that was when I was in college or living at home. I didn’t need money. I promised to never use capital letters, too. I think I even promised that I would reward anybody who read this website. Granted, my readership has increased by roughly 7000% since then, but I still plan on rewarding you for reading this. My point is, there came a time during my tenure as administrator of this website when I actually began to…care.
Until recently, phrases like “Google PageRank” and “Quantcast” and “search engine optimization” meant nothing to me. I simply wanted to learn that bands I didn’t like knew of my existence, and maybe a marginally successful actress or two would read that I wanted to sleep with them. That was good enough for me. Now things are different. Ian showed me a website the other day that calculates an estimated worth for any website. According to somebody, Swan Fungus is worth roughly $6,000. When I first saw the amount I thought it was a bit on the cheap side. To be honest, I expected a lot more fake money for the pure golden genius products my mind has conceptualized throughout these 1,944 blog entries. Granted, website value estimation is an imperfect science. Another website valued my page at $47, and one offered a slightly-more-generous figure of $211,000. If that figure were accurate I would kiss this blog goodbye and never touch it again.
I think about how to increase my visibility daily. My tenuous grip on the Internet is no longer arousing; I want to put a stranglehold on the web. So if anybody has any ideas about how to optimize this page or increase my various rankings (Technorati, PageRank, Alexa, Quantcast etc.) feel free to offer me your services. Otherwise, don’t. I’ll solve it on my own someday. Last night Ken told me about alt”” tags to stuff more keywords into a page. That was a cool tip. If anyone else knows an easy trick I would be equally grateful. As for my specific numbers and ratings and rankings, I’ll discuss those more in-depth when it comes time for me to pen my next State Of The Blog address.
Right now I want to write about my brilliance, and how it is being co-opted by people in position to make money and headlines. I don’t even think “co-opt” is the correct word to use for such thievery. I am being stolen from. Have you read about the Hollywood producer who is paying homeless people to hold up posters advertising his new movie? If you have, I assume you quickly realized that I have been running this advertising campaign since the beginning of the summer. Do you recall The Great Swan Fungus Bum Advertising Push Of 2009? David Permut does. Not only does he recall it, he literally stole the idea from me. He even had the gall to pay his homeless person $100 so that they would hold up a movie poster for him. Journalist Scott Wampler doesn’t think the idea is clever. Wampler feels that, “You don’t exploit those that can’t defend themselves or afford to defend themselves because you’ve got a wacky comedy to promote.” Uh, who said anything about my idea being exploitative? I gave homeless people new clean t-shirts. They happened to have my face on them, and some contained the URL of this website. If anything, my bum rush advertising campaign (which continues today) benefits the homeless because it provides them with a basic human need. I also don’t see how paying someone standing on the street $100 to hold a sign is unfair. That guy is on the street anyway. Instead of asking for change or babbling on about Jesus, he’s standing their quietly holding a sign. OK, and maybe babbling about Jesus. Personally, I think the shirts are cooler than $100 because giving a homeless man money doesn’t mean he’s going to buy himself fresh clothes or something to eat. He is most likely going to buy crack with his money. He can’t trade a t-shirt for crack. Even if he does, so what? The t-shirt is still circulating and someone will be wearing my face in public. That’s why my idea is so amazing. I can’t wait until the next time someone steals one of my ideas.
As for Mr. Wampler, he should have written more about the intellectual property rights theft which occurred when that loser David Permut stole my god damned concept, and less about his own worthless opinion. Wampler’s quote, “As someone who’s volunteered from time to time at homeless shelters and soup kitchens…” is the “I’m not racist, one of my best friends is black!” of classism. Who the hell cares if you’ve volunteered at a shelter? Isn’t that exploitative because you’re using people less fortunate than you to feel better about yourself? Why does one’s financial improvement automatically equal improper treatment of a less fortunate person, but one’s emotional or psychological improvement is perfectly acceptable? I smell a hypocrite. Next time Wampler shouldn’t be so quick to take a moral stance against something that isn’t unquestionably amoral. And if either the dumb critic Scott Wampler or the thief David Permut are reading this and want a free t-shirt with my face on it, go right ahead and e-mail me your address. I’ll send you one.
The Residents – Die In Terror
Ethan Rose – II
Zombies – Leave Me Be
