What the heck is Klout?

Let me tell you what I think about Klout...

In case you don't know, Klout is a website service that calculates your online influence. You give it your Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and other random social media information, then it spits out a number between 0 and 100, ranking how influential you are on the internet.

Firstly, why have we become so obsessed with how we influence others??? Why does it matter? Didn't our elementary school teachers always tell us to just be ourselves? In middle school, didn't we learn not to care what others think about us? And then high school only reinforced that no one actually does any of that... BUT WE GET TO COLLEGE and realize that, hey, it actually doesn't matter as long as you're happy, right? RIGHT?!

Apparently not, or there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of Klout users.

Whatever. People wanna know how they influence people. Okay, fine, I can deal with that. But then you have to look at how Klout actually scores you.

The more you check your Klout score, your score goes down. And the more you use Klout, the harder it is to improve your score. Why? Because you suddenly care what your score is, so you are less influential.
What the hell?
Continuing on, there are these bizarre things called "Klout points" that you can earn by doing stupid shit like visiting certain stores or sharing certain links. I'm sorry, but this is literally the oldest trick in the book. Klout is just dangling the carrot in front of people. They keep reaching and reaching for these Klout points by basically advertising random businesses for free; then they get points; then check their score... BUT OH WAIT, because they checked their score, it goes down. So why did you go after those points in the first place? Oh right, free advertising?

Then there's the name, the actual name of this thing.
Klout.
Like "tout," meaning brag? Or "lout," which means idiot? But, ohp, we added a "K" in there so it's super cool, right guys?! Sooooo 21st century.
Personally, it just reminds me of the word "clot" as in a blood clot, just stopping the flow of everything. As in, stopping the flow of the internet. As in, rubbernecking, since everyone is just looking at what a disaster their score is.

I have to admit, I've checked my Klout score. But not through Klout! There is a super-sneaky way to do it, as I discovered this summer. What is it, you ask? Oh that would be telling... and besides, I'd have to dock you points for that :P

xxo, S