My very own international WTF mystery

One of the things about blogging is that it is an endless international WTF fest. I know I'm not the only person who has observed this, but lately a new breed of weirdness has popped up in the comments area of a post of mine from a couple months ago entitled A totally non-spoilery discussion of A Hint of Wicked. It's all these comments in Japanese!

At first I was flattered. I thought, Wow, maybe that book has released in Japan, and Japanese readers really really love that post! I mean, every couple days a new Japanese comment would go up. People appeared to return and leave additional comments. Then one day I decided to translate them using an online translator.

Here is the first comment:

女性会員様増加につき、当サイトの出張ホストが不足中です。女性の自宅やホテルに出向き、欲望を満たすお手伝いをしてくれる男性アルバイトをただいま募集していますので、興味のある方はTOPページから無料登録をお願いいたします

Translation:

Concerning woman member increase, the business trip host of this site is in the midst of insufficiency.To go into the home and the hotel of the woman, because the man part-time job which does the helping which satisfies desire at present is collected, the one which has interest requests no charge register from the TOP page.

I thought, well, in AHOW, Sophie's husband, Garrett, was off at war (the business trip?) and came back with certain emotional "insufficiencies," and maybe "hotel" is the estate, and so forth. But frankly, who am I kidding?

Here is the translation of the second message:

Recently, in the leaving home bulletin board which is introduced with the various media, you stay and message of the leaving home girl whom you are walking the net coffee and the like of all parts of the country is written in large number. Because she there is no money, it seems that directly goes to play with the man who knows each other with the bulletin board. Don't you try returning the reply to entry.

"Leaving home girl" could be Garret, who again, went off to war, but I'm starting to sense something off about the comments. So I followed the links, and yes, it's some creepy porn thing.

Curiouser and curiouser

Here's the really weird thing: it's not just porn. They also seem to come from sites offering tools for self-insight. For example, one of the commenters is a site where you can check if you are S or M. In my experience SM means either a registered service mark or Sadism/Masochism. I think we have to be talking about Sadism/Masochism here, don't you?

Here is the SM individual's comment, translated:

Your degree of S M the can it is it is checking the natural disposition which is hidden with diagnosis and the degree of SM checker! The serious that daughter and as for the night [do] S queen, [tsundere] that child to tell the truth there is [iji] [me] [te] desired wish whether!? Rising in the party and drinking meeting you are not wrong everyone it probably will rise funny with the tool

As you see, I've included a screenshot of the landing page for your perusal. Is it possible they actually have a test to help you decide whether you're into Sadism or Masochism? Call me crazy, but it seems like one of those things you'd be able to decipher without a test.

I'm also wondering what "will rise funny with the tool" means. Then again, it's probably one of those things that's best not to know.

I have three theories on all this.

Theory #1:

Certain individuals are communicating about prostitutes and the eternally confusing S or M issue in the comments area on the AHOW post. And really, they do seem to be conversing - there is a definite back and forth. Maybe they don't want evidence in their email folders at work or something.

Theory #2:

A spy thing. I know it sounds silly, but I should point out that my statcounter doesn't even track these commenters. I mean, the last comment was left at 2:07 am, and there is no evidence of a visit at that time, or any Japanese visitor landing on that page whatsoever! I didn't do an exhaustive search of the other comments, as I do have a life, but I did vaguely poke around to find clues, and I got nothing. Seriously. Like Ninjas! Like they were never there!
Think about it. You're an international spy and you want to send a message to somebody. So you agree on this area of The Thrillionth page. The messages are coded and disguised as a porn thing. And the seven interlocutors are all spies from around the world. If somebody follows them to a coffee shop where they use the computer, the worst that that can happen is that the enemy laughs at their reading tastes.

Theory #3:

A computer glitch. Maybe some words in the post triggered spam. But why from 6 or 7 different individuals? And why in an English Language blog? The demographic targeting here is so off!

There were 16 normal commenters: Lea, Lisabea, Taja, Kati, Kiera, Lori, Leslie, Stacy, Orannia, Jill Sorenson, Renee, Kaetrin, Rfp, Hilcia, Simone, Kwana and Blodeuedd. Do they see us as being need their matchmaker or SM detector services?

What do you think? And should I be taking these down?