Let’s say someone is looking for porn and they put “wife caught her husband cheating,” into Google. There are a lot of porn sites (and some news sites) with that title. So Google has to decide which order to show them in, because most of the time, people pick something off the first few pages of Google.

Google wants to have the very best “wife caught her husband cheating” (or whatever else you search for) sites on the first page of the search. Google has several ways to try and decide which site are the best, but one of them is that it looks at how popular it is by seeing how many other websites link to it. If a lot of other sites are linking to it, it was probably useful to them, so Google will put it on the front page.

So if I’m a sleazy pornsite owner, I could create like a thousand websites and make them all link to my “wife caught her husband cheating” site, and act like a whole bunch of different websites thought it was pretty great. They’d be like “xdfgt .com”, “xdfgy .com”, “xdfgh .com,” just nonsense addresses nobody else was using, or whatever. I’d try to make Google think my site was awesome, because all these other websites are linking to it.

But Google has already caught on to that. Google would know “xdfgt .com” was a crappy fake website, because nobody else is linking to “xdfgt .com”. Any website that is only linked to by crap websites is also crap, as far as Google is concerned. Google won’t put it on the first pages of search results.

So instead let’s imagine the sleazy pornsite owner creates a thousand fake tumblrs instead, like “xdfgt.tumblr .com” and “xdfgy.tumblr .com” and “xdfgh.tumblr .com” and just puts one or two posts on them to add links to the “wife caught her husband cheating” porn site. Google can still tell those tumblrs are crap websites, because nobody else is linking to them. But the difference is … on tumblr, the sleazy pornsite owner can make your website link to him.

Let’s say your tumblr is “mostlyaestheticandfunny.tumblr .com”. If “xdfgt.tumblr .com” likes one of your posts, there’s link on your blog to “xdfgt.tumblr .com.” Somewhere on “mostlyaestheticandfunny.tumblr .com” it will say “xdfgt liked this” with a link from your blog to “xdfgt.tumblr .com.”

Google’s bot looks at “mostlyaestheticandfunny.tumblr .com” and it sees that your blog is a good website. People are linking to it (talking to you or reblogging from you), you write like an actual human being, you have nice pictures, you update sometimes, you aren’t a bot. So Google decides your blog isn’t a crappy scam website. Then it sees the link to “xdfgt.tumblr .com” and it thinks “oh hey, a nice website with good stuff written by a real human linked to this “xdfgt.tumblr .com” I guess maybe “xdfgt.tumblr .com” is a decent website too.”

Then it looks at “xdfgt.tumblr .com” and it sees the link to the porn site with “wife caught her husband cheating”, and it says, “well, I guess that “wife caught her husband cheating” site is a good site. I know that because there’s a good site linking to it here at “xdfgt.tumblr .com.” I know “xdfgt.tumblr .com” is a good site because “mostlyaestheticandfunny.tumblr .com” linked to it, and I know “mostlyaestheticandfunny.tumblr .com” is a good site because it is updated and writes like a real person and people talk to it and link to it.”

So basically the porn bots are using the fact that you have a good blog to make themselves look better and to try and trick Google’s bot into thinking they’re very popular and it should put them at the top of its list when people search Google for porn.

It’s really annoying! It would be really nice if the people running tumblr figured out a way to not be free advertising for every sleazy porn site on the internet

Helping out the little kitten to drink water

Nothing has ever given us such an immediate boost in listeners

Women who have facial hair, have thick or “excessive” body hair, have broad shoulders, have “masculine” facial features like angular jaws, have deep voices, are taller than “average”, have receding hairlines, are muscular, etc are immediately assumed to be men because they don’t fit white European ideals of womanhood. And these standards do affect white women of course, whether they’re cis or trans, but they mostly target Black and brown women.

There’s a reason why Black women, particularly athletes, are the ones who get targeted with so many accusations of being men. Why they’re expected to undergo hormone testing. Why they’re accused of having “excessive” testosterone. Why they’re expected to undergo physical examinations to “prove” that they’re “real” women.

If you are willing to believe that “men” (as defined by white cisheteronormative standards) are inherently, genetically, irreversibly predisposed to be more violent, less intelligent, less compassionate, less morally “good”, less worthy of existence/safety/resources, less human, then it will be that much easier to slowly convince you that the same is true for any other groups you feel threatened by (regardless of how irrational or bias-based that feeling of threat might be). Black men. Black women. Asians. Latinos. Indigenous people. Jews. Muslims. Disabled people. Immigrants. All those others, the people who are not you, the unknowns. That ideology of essentialism, once it gets you to buy in to the base idea behind it (that our genetics are the final and most important determinant of our worth), can then sell you a pitch that feels validating and encouraging for your fears on any and all groups of people you have some kind of discomfort about.

From there it is easier to convince you that you are one of the special ones, who is predestined by your special perfect genes and your special perfect (white, normative) body parts/physical characteristics to be “good”, that you are superior, that the world is yours because of how you were born.

It is easier to convince you that it is your obligation to engage in some kind of great struggle of violence against those who are inherently “bad” and universally threaten “good” people like you.

It is easier to convince you that you can spot these supposed threats on sight simply because they do not look like you, that there is a universal roadmap of physical characteristics and telltale cultural signs that can predict who will enact violence against you.

It is easier to convince you that people with those characteristics (that mix of genes) cannot be trusted, that the only morally acceptable course of action is proactive violence, that you will never be safe until these threats (never people, always “threats”) are eliminated from “your spaces” once and for all (and this ideology will tell you that because you are one of the Good Ones, because you are chosen and blessed and Right, that your spaces are everywhere and everything, that is is your world and they are just living in it).

It is easier to convince you to enact that violence throughout your life without hesitation, and to believe that you are righteous and good in doing so.

It is easier to make sure you don’t think twice about how you got here from where this began.

Jumpy boy

All aboard the guinea express

This is page 45 in the book "Females" by Andrea Long Chu.