Yahoo Answers

I was surfing the net the other day and ran upon Yahoo Answers. It’s a site where people can ask and respond to any questions on any subject. At first, it seemed like a compelling concept. Plus, it was too hot to play golf. So, I decided to waste some time investigating the interspatial relationships between diverse cultural nonentities.

I first asked who put the bomp in the bomp sha bomp. In less than ten seconds, I got the answer. Someone responded that he didn’t know but he made my baby fall in love with me.

Wow. What a random answer from the first person who responded. And, remarkably, the answer was correct.

So, I thought I’d attempt to answer a random question. I liked the tilt of the one which asked why you can’t pull the mask off of the old lone ranger. I answered immediately that Jim Croce was saying that you better think of the consequences of your actions before you act.

So, two for two. This site (as they would say in the current vernacular) rocks.

However, as the hours went by and it got hotter and hotter outside (Hey, did you know that last week in central Florida, heat rising from an old man’s bald head collided with a cool breeze from a sea gull flying overhead and created a hurricane powerful enough to be named aleph?), I started to notice that in addition to the great questions about fifties and sixties rock and roll songs, some mutants had started to infiltrate the site.

I started seeing questions like “If the devil could get one wish, would he wish he were God?” I guess that question wasn’t too bad. There is some deep underlying philosophy that one could ponder if he attempted to answer that question.

But, then I started seeing things like “Am I a racist if I think that black people can jump higher than white people?’ Man, I wouldn’t touch that one with the proverbial ten foot pole, or anything else.

To my chagrin, the site continued to dummy down itself. Somehow, the readers were becoming more and more stupid. I was leading that pack, obviously, since I had just spent two hours on the site.

One of the last questions I read was “Who is the logest?” Man, that’s a stumper. I had to assume that the guy didn’t click the spell check button before he clicked Submit.

So, I decided to ask the big question which was in the back of my mind. I asked “What is the I.Q. of the average yahoo answers reader? I’m betting 89.”

I received eleven answers in thirty two seconds. The best one was “Well, I’m twelve, so that’s probably it.”

I can’t wait for fall.