Self-Aggrandizement: instant expert

As with most web users, when I set out to research something, Google is my inevitable first stop. As a result, that site holds great power in designating expertise. Show up as a top result for a search string, and it's assumed that you know something about the topic that led the searcher to your site.

As I've previously written, that's not always the best assumption. While I continue to pick up a dozen hits a day on 'urinal etiquette', a topic I have written about in depth, I also draw equal numbers from searches like 'fat naked guys' and 'lesbian self-photography', topics that, while obviously enthralling, fall a bit further outside my area of expertise.

Apparently, even people who should know much better are using Google in this way. A Newsweek editor, for example, emailed a couple of months back while researching an article on specialty teas. And while the extent of my contribution to that area of knowledge is essentially limited to occasionally talking shit about Starbucks' decision to sell sub-par Tazo, I still managed to get my father quoted in her article as a result.

I've been particularly amused, however, by the recent spate of visitors arriving at this site by searching for the string 'asdjf'. I mean, that's not even a word - it's what you get when you smash your hand down nonsensically on the center row of a keyboard. Still, each day I get thoughtful, dorky questions like:

"I would like to know what words that appear to be just a random sequence of letters, usually containing elements of the set {a, s, d, f, h, j, i} mean. Sometimes the "words" are separated by semi-colons. Examples are "asdjf," "asf," "asdfkl" and "sldfjasjkdf." Teenagers and young adults use them on the internet and chat rooms, many times in conjunction with "grrrr" (which I presume to be an expression of anger.)"

To which I can only say: aas;lkdfj alj;fsdk kljalfsd a;sldkfjads;fkl.

instant expert Filed Tuesday, August 17 2004.

instant expert
Filed Tuesday, August 17 2004.