Wilfers of the world, unite
May 30th, 2007 by francis
Britain is becoming a nation of aimless internet users, spending an average of two full working days a month surfing the web without any real purpose, a study claims.
The English language has acquired a new verb: to wilf. Wilf is coined from the phrase that many surfers utter when they realise that they’ve just been watching five minutes of monkey tennis on Youtube, and that they actually went online two hours previously to do some specific and important thing…but What Was I Looking For? Too late, it is gone, swept away in a tide of blog posts and videos and Flash games that always merit just one more go, to try and beat my highest score. Stick cricket, or Korean games where you have to try and break wind at a bus stop without the other passenger noticing, ah, the stuff of lost hours.
(photo thanks to KageyB)
This is news to gladden the heart of anyone interested in the joys of aimlessness and rambling diversions through places that are not at all important. Wilfers are the twenty-first century flaneurs, ambling through the boulevards and taking pleasure in looking at not very much in particular. The hundred and one variations of human foolishness, and amazingness, and genius, and idiocy, the exciting and the mundane. It’s all there to see on your stroll, at your pace, in your time.
Of course, some people don’t like wilfing. They want to stamp it out.
Channel 4 quote Pete Cohen, ‘life coach and TV personality’ as saying: “Not allowing ourselves to wilf takes a mixture of planning and willpower.”
Well, yes. But look Pete, monkey tennis!