HOLLY CULP
Arts Editor

If you are like me and are absolute shit at navigating the Internet, can’t figure out how your pals are finding all this wicked cool stuff on the web or somehow think that you’ve seen all the Internet has to offer, you have to try StumbleUpon.

Not since ChatRoulette have I been this excited about the Internet. But unlike ChatRoulette, StumbleUpon is nearly completely devoid of penises. StumbleUpon allows you to create an account and specify your interests and then you can start stumbling around the Internet looking at sweet sites that are specified to your selected interests. You can further tweak your preferences by liking or disliking certain pages.
There are positives and negatives to anything and with StumbleUpon they lie in the fact that it is contributor-based. Good because you can help to make it a great site; bad because you can also help to make it a shitty one.

There is a fair share of hokey ad-type sites, crappy meant-to-be-funny lists that made the rounds in hotmail accounts circa 2001 and other useless things. But for every crap site you may get, there are five more with hilarious conversations, cool videos, art, articles, cartoons, photographs, speculations on how many dead bodies there are on Mount Everest and endless fuel for whatever it is you are procrastinating on.

The existence of something like StumbleUpon seems to illustrate the idea that the Internet has grown too big for us to manage and that we now need websites to find websites to help us waste our time.

If you’re looking for something random in a specific field of things, you can narrow your search. Some may occasionally limit their interests to simply food and cooking and stumble around for recipes. Whereas I would probably narrow my search to something having to do with kittens, it’s the same basic concept.

Another handy feature of StumbleUpon is that you can follow your friends on it. Just like on any regular social networking site, it will suggest people for you to follow and you can become privy to all of their favourite sites.

So, what are you doing right now? Rather, what should you be doing? Well, whatever it is, promptly forget it and check out StumbleUpon and waste time like a pro.