I woke up late this morning, and not being in any hurry to get to work, I lazily surfed the Daily Blog Tips site, looking for advice and suggestions that I could apply to my own blog. I came across one post that linked to this article on how bloggers can use social networking sites like StumbleUpon to boost their traffic. So with nothing better to do 10 minutes before I had to head on to work, I submitted my blog post about women emulating men, yawned, then went to get dressed. My jaw unhinged and dropped when I went back to check my stats one last time.

The result of that seemingly innocuous submittal was the biggest traffic count I’ve ever seen since I started this blog. I generated over 50 visits in just under 15 minutes, and it was still going strong by the time I left for work.

I think I may have stumbled onto something here (uhhh, no pun intended). To be honest though, I wasn’t able to wrap my head around the appeal of social networking sites, partly because I couldn’t understand exactly how some of them worked. Sites like StumbleUpon, Flickr, YouTube and Last.FM (all of which I belong to) were easy enough to figure out, but places like Del.icio.us, Digg and Reddit made less sense to me. I think part of it might be because I wasn’t interested in what the most “digged” articles or highest ranked posts of the day happened to be. That perspective might change though as I give these sites a harder look. But one thing that will never, ever change is my utter disdain for places like MySpace, and other social networks that emulate them. The ilk you find at these online ghettos is something I just can’t abide by.

After thinking about what I wrote earlier about being set apart, I realized it isn’t people I don’t want to associate myself with: it’s ugly people. Not physically ugly mind you, but people who just don’t know how to be civilized. You see it all the time on MySpace and YouTube sites. People who drop f-bombs in comments for YouTube videos that show nothing more than a harmless clip of Big Bird singing on Sesame Street. People who feel the compelling need to take snapshots of their hairy buttingtocks and moon me on MySpace. Why? Why do they do this? Why must people always be so utterly depraved and tasteless? All I want is a little civility, to be able to enjoy surfing to a Peter Cetera’s MySpace page without seeing disgusting, lewd (and illegal) photos in the comments, or enjoy a YouTube video without some schmuck cluttering up the comments with mindless f-bombs. Crikey mate, get a grip you psychotic blokes.

Fortunately, though, I may have stumbled (again, no pun intended) onto a way to draw some of the better quality Internet surfers out there to my home on the web, all by making legitimate use of the social networking tools. I have to figure by doing so, eventually a few gems will end up at my doorstep and become regular readers, even if it means they had to ride a wave of sewage to get here.

Paradoxically, the kind of people I’d like visit to my blog would actually be those who are unfamiliar with Internet usage. I know it’s strange, but I think I’d enjoy the perspective of folks who rarely use computers (much less the Internet) more than those who basically spend their entire lives online (like I do). My hearing loss precludes me from being able to enjoy a healthy and active social life, so to compensate I do a lot of my talking through the keyboard. Still, I think it’d be nice to meet people (specifically a hot babe), who could pull me into the real world, and help me enjoy all that it has to offer there.

But until then, gotta keep on surfing.