:: Saddle sore ::

Saturday, December 27, 2003

Have you been to Madpony? I visited a while back, many months ago. I liked it, and I still do. Since then, I randomly see a link to Madpony about every two weeks. Yesterday, I was reading over Busblog and noticed that Mr. Pierce was a Madpony chum. Fine, I thought, the whole world is linking to Madpony, and I must return. So I went back to take a look.

Madpony gets almost 2,000 unique visitors a day. That's a huge, gigantic number for a personal blog. Hell, that's 10% of what Gawker gets and Gawker's a red-hot topical blog with repeated mentions in major national publications. It's the entire student body of an average-sized public high school. And 2,000 people drop by every single day just to see what's going on with these two sisters from Oklahoma. Why?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's because they're hot, and men are lecherous.

Don't get me wrong - It's funny, it's engaging, it's personal but not uncomfortably gushy. Kristen and Lauren are clearly in a blogging rhythm, and they haven't let their popularity go to their heads. I can't fault them for being successful, and they're not exploiting themselves. In fact, I can't really say anything bad about the Madpony girls at all. They genuinely seem like they're having a blast, and it reminds me of my own, distant and fading college / high-school years, but with a more eloquent and cohesive narrative. And more shoes.

I wouldn't even bring this up were it not tied to a fresh memory from last night.

I grew up in LA, but when I was living here I was never quite old enough to drink legally, and that stymied my bar-hopping ability considerably. Consequently, whenever I return and am looking for a taste of the night-life, I find myself at a bit of a loss. My main man Grant solved this quickly by taking me to a nice joint in West Hollywood. Several hours passed amidst conversation of olden days, and as people piled in, the joint started swinging. Across the aisle from us, three very fetching ladies sat down, began talking amongst each other, and looked to be having a fine time on their own.

Enter (or should I say "cue"?) billiards-troll alpha.

Billiards troll alpha looked pretty much like I'd expected given what I'd observed from his behavior at the pool table. He'd mastered the sleazeball aesthetic, his appearance and demeanor perfectly harmonious. I've found that there's a nice, dependable, geographically-agnostic baseline for types like this, both in terms of form and function, with little deviation, so I was pleased to have my prejudicial suspicions confirmed.

Billiards troll alpha sat himself down in the fourth seat of the booth occupied by the three fetching women. He did it so casually I thought for a second he must have known them. With half an eye still on the green coin-financed felt to track his game's progress, he proceeded to hit unrelentingly upon any and all occupants of the booth. When it was his turn to, um, stroke, he handed off to his partner, billiards troll beta, who would dutifully keep the seat warm and fend off any other would-be suitors. These fellows wanted nothing more than an evening of racking balls and balling racks [Editor: crass Mike, really crass]. Alas it was not to be. Given their first opportunity for escape, just as billiards trolls alpha and beta were unable to extricate themselves from some pressing pool-table discussion with their opponents, the three harried females quickly rose to depart. I made eye contact with the nearest.

"Was it that bad?" I slurred. She flashed a resigned half-smile and nodded solemnly.

Which made me think of Ashleigh.

Ashleigh is a faux friendster identity, or "fakester", I created with a friend as a social experiment. We plucked a picture of some attractive nubile anonymousness and whipped together a quick profile which fleshed her out. She was a sexy English ex-pat with a penchant for biking and baking cookies. Her occupation was "homewrecker". Within a few days, Ashleigh had more people in her social network than I did. She received multiple friend requests and unsolicited messages from such savory characters as "Pimpmaster Bling Bling". I've posted some of the better ones here. Every guy wanted to be Ashleigh's friend. Every one of them creeped me out. I felt, albeit through a fictitious digital avatar, what it must be like to be hit on incessantly, and I (surprise!) didn't like it.

Ashleigh's profile was fairly terse. There wasn't much from which to draw anything substantive about her as a person, but message after message kept coming making reference to her being English, biking, making cookies, or being a homewrecker. Mountains of pretext; she got hit on because she looked hot.

Friendster can be one giant singles bar sometimes, so I guess I can't wholly fault Pimpmaster et al for trying in that context. But it happens with blogs too. I remember having a conversation with one blogger/globe-trotter in particular where she mentioned that random strangers would email her responses to prolific entries about Angkor Wat or Peruvian street food and attach a postscript tantamount to "oh btw, you should post pictures of yourself."

I can't even imagine the kind of emails the Madpony girls get.

Posted by morland @ 04:59 PM

:: Comments ::

nothing makes my heart sadder than reading that the only reason we get traffic is cause we're hot.

two things to ponder. there are lots and lots of very pretty girls with picture-laden websites out there. lots. who get no hits.

and second, very true, that many of our readers are guys who like to look. but as someone who pays attention to these things, i can honestly tell you that they are only a fraction of the people who read madpony. i would venture to say that half or more are women (as a shoe/sorority/reality tv blog would likely attract,) and lots of kids and adults with families.

for every creepy email i get, i get three that are simply kind compliments on our writing or the site in general. usually, they are from girls.

being pretty helped. being pretty did not do it alone.

Posted by: kristin on December 28, 2003 09:21 AM

Kristin, i enjoyed your comments. Now, please, take off your top.

Posted by: Billiards troll beta on December 29, 2003 08:41 AM

Kristin's right: I oversimplified. For that, I apologize. Everyone go see for yourselves.

Posted by: morland on December 29, 2003 11:39 AM

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