Do we really need... Free Dildos and Vibrators?

I'm currently in the process of sourcing products from Alibaba - I know, I'm scum.  Fact is - it's hard to find a manufacturer in the U.S. that isn't already selling to the end user.  That's not the point of this, though.  When you're at the homepage, putting the cursor in the search bar will bring up a list of popular searches - and this most recent time something caught my eye:

Source: Screen Cap

Free Dildos and Vibrators?

Who the f*ck is searching for this?  OK, first - how dumb do you have to be to think you'll find something free on a large eCommerce platform.  Secondly, who the f*ck is trying to find free sex-toys?!?  Is it me, or does the word free in this context almost suggest: "gently used?"

Am I the only one who believes that if you're looking for an item to provide sexual pleasure, you should probably have some proverbial "skin" in the game?  And we haven't even touched on the fact that enough people are searching for this to appear in popular searches!

Another thing that pisses me off is that it completely overshadows Virgin Brazilian Hair.  Who the hell is searching for hair?  I could write endlessly about how ridiculous buying hair online is, but no.  Free dildos and vibrators had to make the list too and take all the attention.

I'm not sure how this makes me feel about continuing to search on Alibaba.  Well, not until we have one of those "sexual predators in your area" maps for people navigating the same website as you.  Although - having a service like that will undoubtedly force me to stop exploring the depths of 4chan, so it may be more of a double-edged sword.  It may be best to continue happily flying blind on the net......  for now.

Do we really need.... Open Letters?

Here is my plea to everyone who has felt the need to pen an open letter (in the words of Felonius Munk): Stop it B.  I've never really noticed this phenomenon, but it's been happening right in front of my face for at least the past 5 years.  I was recently browsing Medium and came across an article titled: An Open Letter to My Daughter.  You want to know why I didn't link to it?  Because when I Googled: "An Open Letter to My Daughter", it came back with 181,000 f*cking results.  One hundred, and eighty one thousand f*cking results.  And notice I used quotes to ensure each word will appear in every search result.

Source: my Google search results.

Couldn't you just tell your daughter face to face?  Especially the letters to the "unborn daughters" - f*cking serious?  That girl is, literally, at least 10 years out from comprehending anything you've written, 15 years out from being able to search for it, and by then - the blog you're housing it on might not even EXIST by then.

That's not the goal of the open letter, though.  No one expects the open letter to actually reach the intended recipient.  The goal of the open letter is to put on display how deep and insightful the author is, or how strong and willed they are.  It has nothing to do with whom the letter is actually written to.  I'm not sure what people with Mensa cards do all day (or the people who receive MacArthur grants), but I know they're wasting their time not conducting an in-depth study to find how often the person the open letter is written to actually reads the open-letter.

Moving Forward

Feel compelled to write an open letter?  Follow this

1. Start writing the open letter
2. Finish the open letter
3. Kill yourself before posting it to the internet.

No, the irony is not lost on me that this is, in fact, an open letter of sorts.