Won't Someone Think of the Pornographers?

Used to be, porn and the internet went together like . . . well, apologies to RZA, but . . . like cheese and cheddar, like jeans and sweater, like mo' and better.  Turns out, market research firms like Hitwise have been tracking the data and concluded some time ago - as reported in The Economist (April 19, 2007 - subscription required) - that social networking sites and related searches would soon overtake visits to porn websites.

See?  Lookit the graphy thing I grabbed off the web somewhere.  They didn't attribute it to The Economist but I've been stuck in enough airport lounges to recognize one of their graphics anywhere.  I could be tied face-down underneath a rickety bus in rural China and I'd still recognize that magazine if we ran over it at 60 miles an hour.  So, it's from The Economist.  Don't sue me, you uptight twats.

Well, friends, what should be a red-letter day for asexual prudes and ummm, maybe eunuchs or clones with no genitals . . . has finally arrived.  Hitwise's own Bill Tancer in a recent interview indicated that "surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 per cent of searches from 20 per cent a decade ago, and the hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites".

Take it with a grain of salt because he also says people have an irrational fear of elbows.  I said huh?  I mean, come on people. Elbows?  You have a phobia regarding bony, wrinkly, dry skin? You think some rotten old hobo is gonna jump you while you're out for a promenade, jam his saggy, yellow elbow-flesh in your mouth and say lick it like that, bitch? 

On second thought, that sounds nasty.  Put me down for that one.

How mysterious that this momentous event coincides neatly with me joining Facebook.  Once again, I'd like to take full credit for this demographic upheaval. That's right, it was all me.  Actually, I'm not surfing any less porn.  I just spend even more time on Facebook.