Click Whore

Many moons ago, I used to post on a site called "Blogit". It was under a different name, so don't bother looking for me there. . . . there are just some things that should remain anonymous. Anyway, Blogit was a blogging community where you got pennies for page views, but the real thrill was to make the top ten in the various categories.

Well, I say it was the real thrill because A., I'm competitive and B., I made about 80 bucks after practically living on that site for 6 months. I quickly learned that the best way to get page views - and my name on the top tens - was to name check other bloggers in my posts. Eventually it got to the point where I just started a blog called "Click Whore" to separate my power-grabbing, name-dropping writing from the real stuff.

When I ventured out into the real blogging world, I did my best to avoid click whoredom. Any mentions of other bloggers were heartfelt and any comments I made on other people's blogs were genuine. I slowly built up my readers to a certain point. Then I got distracted by other (paid) writing work and three kids and the blog sort of stagnated.

Which was truly okay with me. I didn't need hundreds of subscribers or thousands of page views! I wasn't going to spend all of my family time blogging! As long as a few people were reading, I was FINE.

Then, one day last week, my traffic spiked. Tripled, to be exact. Just for one day. I searched to see if someone supercool (wait, everyone who links to me is supercool) famous had linked to me or dugg me or whatever, but I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find a trackback, either.

The only thing I knew was that the spike had happened when I posted about The Fresh Beat Band.

And now I've become a click whore. I mean, I don't even know if it was The Fresh Beat Band that got me the readers, but I'm stooping to mentioning them. Which may not even work. Like whoring myself out to a guy who'll pay me with his gambling money. . .if he wins.

Suddenly I can see it all so clearly. . .

She stumbles out of the seedy hotel, leopard print mini-skirt flipping, long red wig slightly askew. "Damn it, that poor bastard didn't have enough. . .Why didn't he win? I need more, more. . .just one more day with all that traffic and then I'll be done, I swear.. . . . HEY YOU!" She takes off quickly but slows down when the the transparent heel of her stiletto breaks off. A man in a trenchcoat runs in the opposite direction. "Wait! Foot fetish pictures! Angelina Jolie naked! With Levi Johnston!" She starts to cry as the man disappears. Just as she finishes wiping her nose on the sleeve of her pink faux angora (fauxgora?) sweater, a young woman approaches her.

"It doesn't work that way anymore, ma'am. But if you just come over here the Wal-Mart, we can take your picture and you can have internet fame of a different sort. . . "