Pensive Saturday Night

Should I feel flattered by these advertisers that "comment" on my blog?

I don't know if you've noticed, but a couple of my entries have, like, 2 comments, and when I go to look at them it's like "Nice blog. I have a blog about edible shoes" and then it gives a link to a site that tells you all about the comfort and tastiness of this particular brand of edible shoe.

My knee-jerk reaction was "Advertisers! They'll do ANYTHING to get you to buy their product!"

Don't get me wrong, when I have a product to sell -- say a dvd or audio story cd -- I'll be the exact same way! I will whore my stuff like a... a... whore. You know.

But my innitial inclination was "They're using my tiny little audience to sell their stuff!"

But then my ego jumped in and goes "HEY! That's a GOOD thing!"

And here's my reasoning:

TV and radio are all about advertising. I know YOU watch/listen because you want to see your favorite stories/ hear your favorite music. But why would, for instance, The WB show you SMALLVILLE for free? Philanthropy? Are they trying to sell you dvds? No. The dvds didn't come out until AFTER THE SECOND SEASON. They didn't even know they had a sellable ("saleable"?) property until the show was renewed, and then was a success it's second season as well!

The reason The WB shows you SMALLVILLE "for free" is that they're selling advertising slots. people are watching SMALLVILLE, and so advertisers buy the privilage to advertise their products during the time that you're tuned in to watch a show you like.

Same with radio. Say you like listening to Evanescence and System Of A Down. A tatoo parlor buys 30 seconds of your attention on a station that plays Evanescence and SOAD music.

So okay. There are some people who -- apparently -- read an entry or 2 of my blog and decide "I'm gonna leave a comment on this cat's blog that will direct his readers to my site".

Is that a bad thing?

If we produced an audio miniseries and sold it to a radio station, I would TOTALLY expect that station to sell ad space to recoup -- and hopefully make a prophet from -- the money they paid us to air it. Same with a TV show I wrote/produced.

So I wonder if maybe I should feel FLATTERED by the fact that someone would look at what I do and think that there might be enough people interested in it to get a few clients off the back of my endevors.

I mean movie studios and/or production companies -- cinema being the Odin of all entertainment forms, in my view -- only hire you if they believe your name or your work will make them a lot of money. Right?

I mean, it would be A LOT COOLER if someone said "We'll pay you X amount of money to keep writing your blog, provided that you also allow us to advertise our product there."

But still, there's something to be said about the fact that maybe someone actually sampled my product -- "my product" being my life as translated by me into the words which you are now reading -- and decided that I might draw enough attention to myself that some of it my spill over to them. Right?

I mean, it's not like you go to a singles bar with your homeliest friend, right? You go with the hottie, hoping that some of his/her leftovers will maybe take an interest in the quiet-brooding-friend, right?

So maybe some of these advertisers GET what a hoopy frood (read Douglas Adam's THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY for a definition) I am and CHOSE my blog as a venue for some attention.

I mean, it's also possible that these cats are just radomly attatching their "comments" to ANY blog that exists... But that explanation doesn't fondle my ego like MY explaination does.

Blah.

OOH!!! My friend Dominic turned my onto a FANTASTIC website: www.etymonline.com!!!

He didn't know about the site beforehand, but he's the reason I found it. See, we were areguing (I use the term extremely loosely) about the derivation of the phrase "the cut of one's jib". I asked him if he knew the "antomology" of the word, and he suggested that I meant "etymology", since "entomoligy" was the study of trees.

I rebutted that "entomology" was the study of insects, and that he was perhaps confused because of the characters of the Ents of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

So we both retreated to the Internet to prove our respective cases.

See, Dom's a smart cat, so when I argue real stuff with him -- "real" refering to matrers that have definite answers, as opposed to matters of taste, subjective matters -- I'm never on steady ground. I CAN'T TOUCH him at Jeopardy!

So I HAD TO KNOW how far off I was.

So searching for the correct spelling and definition of "etymology" and "entomology" I stumbled onto the site www.entymonline.com!!!

Dom was right about etymology, but I was right about entomology.

Though I didn't get to enjoy my victory because he had dropped the argument about entomology the moment he suspected I might have a point. (Smoothe move, if I'm honest about it. I would have had to go on arguing my point until I was proved wrong, then had to spend 20 minutes explaining my mistake...)

But what's so badass about www.entymonline.com is the fact that I AM SO ABOUT the etymology of words!!! This is something I got from my dad. Around 15- or 16-years old I used to come home from Horror or Sci-Fi movies and go "The special effects were so REAL!" And Dad would explain that the effects weren't "real" they were "realistic". And I think that was the beginning of my understanding that language doesn't simply provide clumbsy symbols for ideas, events and objects but provides SUBTLE, NUANCED symbols that can sometimes very effectively transport those ideas/objects/events CLEARLY and PRECISELY into the mind of the person one is communicating to!!!

And that's apparently what etymology is ALL ABOUT!!! "Etym" is Greek for "true sense" and "logos" is the ancient Greek word for "word".

Oh and, as it turns out, the phrase refering to the "cut"of one's "jib" is an old nautical term that refers to the cut of a ship's foresail (or "Gibb"), or even the shape of a person's face. An experienced sailor could tell a great deal about a ship's capability by the cut of the ship's gibb. And eventually a world-weary man could tell a great deal about a person's character by the "cut" of his/her face.

Turns out Dominic already knew this, too. (Though he arbitrarily chose not to share it with me...)

But I WAS RIGHT about entomology!!!

:)