Reading Blogs to Get Lucky

Posted on March 14, 2006

Can reading blogs improve your sex life? That's the gist of this article from Can West which cites a recent Ad Age article.

Nestled among the media's meditations on the popularity of blogs is a theory that lends new meaning to "cyber sex." According to Simon Dumenco, a prominent U.S. media analyst, people read blogs at least in part because they "want to get laid."
In this week's Media Guy column for Advertising Age magazine, Dumenco contends that knowledge of the hippest, hottest blogs can increase hook-up opportunities and boost sexual attractiveness. He maintains some people are using niche blogs such as Gawker.com and Defamer.com to gain pop cultural insights that make them more socially desirable and ultimately more likely to get lucky.

It probably depends on who you meet. If you meet someone who also likes to read blogs, especially similar blogs, then it really might boost your chances of making a love connection. But Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, offered up this buzz-killer.

"You're starting to hear conversation openers that have clearly been lifted from that day's blog,'' he says. "It's kind of like going into a bar and having someone ask you what your sign is the cue is just taken from somewhere else.''
Thompson agrees that, in certain circumstances, people seem more attractive if they're up on the latest news. But he says getting that news exclusively from blogs, which are largely cribbing from other media sources, cheapens the effect.
"On some level, that kind of approach to life makes you less interesting,'' observes Thompson. "Ultimately, reading more blogs won't help you any more than reading Lord of the Rings for the 50th time.''

We have to agree with Ad Age's Simon Dumenco on this one and not the Syracuse popular culture professor. Reading blogs and staying in the know is sexy.