"Who are we?"
"What is known about the collective presence on the Internet that you are a part of right now?"
"Why so much pornography?"
These are all questions that were put forth by the Institute for Internet Research, a non-profit division of Randy Shandis Enterprises that is dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the Internet community. The report which you are about to read is the most comprehensive survey into Internet behavior ever undertaken anywhere at any time since the sixteenth century.
The Approach
There are many sites on the Internet that let you observe, in voyeuristic fashion, the requests other "netizens" make on search engines such as Yahoo, Lycos, Excite et al. We collected a random sample of these requests for three different time periods. There time periods were: Wednesday afternoon, Friday night, and Sunday morning.
We assumed that browsing the Internet is not a social activity and is usually done in an almost sad loneliness. Much like writing a report about what Internet users seek. We also assumed that the majority of netizens usually know where they are going, and that those using search engines are experimenting, or trying something new. Finally, we assumed that the majority of netizens using American English-based search engines are American.
The Hypotheses
The made the following hypotheses for each time period:
Wednesday Afternoon: This is the middle of the work or school week and the typical workers/students are seeking technical or educational information that will improve their efficiency and expertise.
Friday Night: Time to cut loose, let down the old hair and get nuts, alone with your home computer. We expected to see requests for cocktail recipes, movie, concert and theater reviews and show times, travel information, and maybe, just maybe the occasional inquiry about a racy subject such as nude sunbathing.
Sunday Morning: Normally a time for atonement and introspection. We expected browsers to be seeking hangover recipes, the locations and times for church services, and classical music programs.
All three of our hypotheses proved to be false. What we did learn is that America's love affair with the car is over. America is now deeply in love with pornography - particularly that of the hardcore variety involving animals, farm equipment and members of other countries' royal classes. Americans are also, on average, atrocious spellers, and somewhat sad, uncreative folks.
The Data
Wednesday
Wednesday afternoon's total number of observations: 723
First, let me point out that we assumed that the person requesting "chicks with dicks" was not doing work-related research. Also, if you were the person asking for information on "Benny Hill show GIFs", you can rest assured that you were not the loneliest person with Internet access on our first data collection day. No, that award goes to the people asking about "Chess Camp" and "ROTC".
We are not sure what to make out of the request for things such as "Flaming Dog Crap." Whether this person wanted actual flaming dog crap, to see images of flaming dog crap, or to learn how to engulf dog crap in flames is unclear. But, no matter how you slice it, it is pretty damn weird.
And speaking of weird, let's spend a little time discussing the requests for pornography. Gay and heterosexual pornography and nudity made up 11% of the 723 requests. We took the liberty of placing some requests into the pornography category because, although they were not specifically pornographic, they seemed that way. These include "Muppets with Girls" and "Fisting King Juan Carlos." Others were undoubtedly the efforts of the lonely folks seeking sexual gratification through their computer monitors, asking for such things as "Huge boobs."
5.5% of all requests had a misspelling of some sort. These included a someone seeking "Play Boy Magizine" who will continue to seek until he or she learns to spell. Others were "Hott Babes," "Victoria's Sceret," and the mysterious "btr plc."
The following table breaks down the Wednesday afternoon data. It is separated by type of information requested. The first row represents the number of requests that fell into that category, while the second row is the percentage of the total. The third row is examples of requests in each category.
Gay Pornography |
Weird Pornography |
Nudity |
Computers |
Travel & Geography |
Elvis Presley |
Movies & Television |
Music |
Sports |
Other |
| 11 | 41 | 27 | 111 | 45 | 11 | 31 | 26 | 24 | 394 |
| 1.5% | 5.7% | 3.7% | 15.4% | 6.2% | 1.5% | 4.3% | 3.6% | 3.3% | 54.5% |
| Gay Leather, Hot Gay Studs | Nasty jokes, Fisting King Juan Carlos, smut young, 69, spanking stories, boy love, chicks with dicks, muppets and girls, sluts, free smut |
Huge boobs, beautiful woman, big boobs, cheerleaders | Robotron x, chat rooms | Colorado, California beach rentals | Death cert. Elvis Presley | Television, Benny Hill show GIFs | Megadeth home page, tori Amos, Lilith Fair | Scuba, Professional Bowlers Association, Bass pro shop | People, sawmills, revenge in the Bible, Bad boys, Vavoom, Anarchy Jolly Roger, Holy stuff, Decapitate an angel, flaming dog crap |
Combined, pornography and nudity comprised almost 11% of all requests. And this is during working hours. What's not shown in the table are the 5.5% of all requests that were misspelled, such as "Victoria's Sceret," "Play Boy Magizine," and "Hott Babes."
Friday
Friday evening's total observations: 658
If our hypothesis for Wednesday was work, our hypothesis for Friday night was "cut loose," or cut as loose as a computer lets you cut loose, if you either choose not to or cannot get away from it. What did we actually learn? That almost 20% of the requests coming in on Friday night were from lonely men looking for the warm company of "Wet Teen Panties," and "Calendar girls from the Urals."
While the person looking for Ural poster girls is surely a lonely and pathetic person, the most pathetic request of the day goes to the person requesting "Whyite Power Skinheads" who was separated from his calling in life by his poor education. In fact, all requests that we observed for "White supremacist" material had a misspelling in them somewhere. That makes us wonder. In total, misspelling rose to 8.2% (from 5.5% on Wednesday), which suggests that only idiots are on the web on Friday nights, or that people get drunk by themselves and then browse the net.
Gays are not left out of the loneliness, despite what you may read about the strength of the gay community. Gays requested information on "Butt darts," and "Queers in action." Our suspicion is that the person that requested the "queers" may be not be openly gay yet, but is using the Internet to explore his sexuality without the rest of the trailer park knowing about it.
Requests for information on travel declined significantly, from 6.2% on Wednesday to 1.7% on Friday night, as most people abandoned their dreams of a fun weekend and settled into the same, miserable, insignificant routines of, obviously, looking for free pornography.
As we expected, many of the people online on Friday night were fully cognizant of their sad condition. One person even entered "Why do you hate me?" This indicates that the requester either a) hates him/herself and is role-playing with the search engine, b) believes the search engine hates him/her, or c) thinks his/her computer hates him/her. Regardless, it would be interesting to see what the results of the search were. Other odd Friday night requests included folks seeking information on "Jan Michael Vincent," "Scout Songs," and "Satanic pages." Perhaps weirdest of all was the request for "Kidney jokes."
The following table breaks down the Friday evening data. It is separated by type of information requested. The first row represents the number of requests that fell into that category, while the second row is the percentage of the total. The third row is examples of requests in each category.
Gay Pornography |
Weird Pornography |
Nudity |
Computers |
Travel & Geography |
Elvis Presley |
Movies & Television |
Music |
Sports |
Other |
| 10 | 83 | 35 | 121 | 11 | 1 | 28 | 23 | 19 | 327 |
| 1.5% | 12.6% | 5.3% | 18.4% | 1.7% | 0.1% | 4.3% | 3.5% | 2.9% | 49.7% |
| Butt darts, College gays, Queers in Action | Where can I find facial shots?, Wet Teen Panties, Pee Annex, Big Thick Bush, Mature slut, Old slut, Up my skirt, Busty chat, Calendar girls from the Urals, sensuous miniskirts | Huge boobs, beautiful woman, big boobs, cheerleaders | IBM Apple web, Real Audio, Toshiba 501cdt | Lisa Marie Presley | Batman and Robin, Jan Michael Vincent | Napalm Death | Bowling | Time travel, Smart, Kidney jokes, Dogma, Grain prices, Ant farm, Scout songs, Why do you hate me?, 11 year old jobs that can be found, Antenna design, Bridal shower games, Can you become employed by the Net?, Homemade bombs, Satanic pages |
Sunday
Sunday morning's total observations: 500
The Sunday hypothesis was that people would seek atonement and reflect upon their mortality as they felt Sunday morning coming down. We were not that far off in that there were a significant number more religious requests, such as ""Old Testament," "Church," and "Christian music." Not everyone reflects in the same way, however, as the person that asked for "Young jailbait" will surely attest.
Pornography requests dropped to only 11.6%, but the perversion factor was still high. So was America's ongoing fascination with panties as someone asked for "Free celebrities missing their panties." Other pornographic requests of interest include "British spanking videos," and "Spanking bondage stocking garters." Perhaps even the perverts were thinking about atonement on Sunday after all.
Our most pathetic information seeker of the day is probably the person that typed in "Neu York." But then again, maybe it is the guy that entered "Get a girlfriend," or the sad little member of society that sought to learn more about the "NPHS tuba line." It could be that we are ignorant, but we doubt there is much good data on tuba sections of local high schools' marching bands available on the Internet. And if this is someone seeking more information about a particular guy or girl, we advise him or her not to court high school band members unless he or she enjoys Dungeons & Dragons , Surge Soda and Star Trek reruns.
On Sunday morning, misspellings plagued 7.0% of all requests as people dealt with hangovers and overwhelming depression.
This brings us to another topic in our research. Many people type in requests that indicate a complete and total lack of understanding in how search engines and databases work. What did the person that typed in "Grumpy with the Feds" expect to learn? Or "United States?" "Women Weights?" "Can you become employed by the net?" These requests indicate that some people believe computers are magic boxes that will understand what they really mean. A search using the last of those examples may result in information on canning, cans, collectible cans, becoming any of a variety of things, employment information, information about people already employed, fishing nets, fishnet stockings, and Internet slang, but definitely not internet job opportunities.
The following table breaks down the Wednesday afternoon data. It is separated by type of information requested. The first row represents the number of requests that fell into that category, while the second row is the percentage of the total. The third row is examples of requests in each category.
Gay Pornography |
Weird Pornography |
Nudity |
Computers |
Travel & Geography |
Elvis Presley |
Movies & Television |
Music |
Sports |
Other |
| 5 | 37 | 16 | 76 | 22 | 0 | 32 | 8 | 22 | 282 |
| 1.0% | 7.4% | 3.2% | 15.2% | 4.4% | 0% | 6.4% | 1.6% | 4.4% | 56.4% |
| Gay studs, Swedish boys | Rape pics, Young jailbait,British spanking videos, Feet tickle, Free celebrities missing their panties, Sea cadet chat line, Spanking bondage stocking garters | Ulrika Johnsen topless | Tomb Raiders, Computer networks | Caves in WV, Europe | Victory television network, movies | Christian music, Alanis | Child photography, Old Testament, Port Hope buzzards, Church, Disco animations, Get a girlfriend, Grumpy with the Feds, NPHS tuba line, ponies, Prince of Peace Catholic, Sam Hill, United States, Yoyo tricks |
Conclusions
What did we learn? The most important finding of this study is that we should never think Americans have become predictable. They defied all of our logically developed hypotheses with their unswaying desire for hardcore pornography and loneliness. Just when the rest of the world thinks America is weakening and getting lazy, it will use its great ingenuity to design the most powerful porno movie, or porno car, or spanking apparatus to catapult it once again to the status of "most powerful nation."
We feel bad for the people we studied. spending time on the Internet is for many of them the only social outlet they have. Is a group of researchers sitting and surreptitiously observing them for a report on internet searching habits any less lonely or pathetic? The answer is a resounding yes, we are much less lonely and pathetic. We are actually dynamic, fun-loving people that you would really like to hang out with if you got to know us. Send us some e-mail and maybe we can get together in the "swedish Nurses" chat room. That's where you'll usually find us. It's for another study.
