Boromir's Bloggish Bebotherments: Part 7: Scouring the net for all things Tolkienian in the age of AI slop…

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If you are new to the BBB here is a quote from one of the earlier posts:

As I was updating a blog post today I hadn't thought of for quite some time I thought this might be interesting to anyone planning to start a blog, get back to writing on a blog or trying to improve on an already existing and busy blog.¹

With this part I am also including my Steady blogging and particularly the Roving Ranger (Si apre in una nuova finestra) as this newsletter has become a central part of my Tolkienian efforts.

||| Earlier editions of the BBB: 1 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 2 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 3 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 4+5 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 6 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), what is the BBB (Si apre in una nuova finestra)? |||

Curating a newsletter and its issues in recent months

I will not bore you with a complete list of different sources I have been using to curate the Roving Ranger. Let me just say there are quite a few of them. It is impossible, of course, to find everything as I do not speak all languages nor do all languages find their way into the spaces I scour for information but obviously I am trying to be as comprehensive as possible.

One of these sources is Google Alerts (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

They were first introduced in 2003, mostly thanks to the efforts of engineer Naga Kataru (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [WebArchive] who more recently has been making waves with Ghost Social (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [LinkedIn]. And even though 2013 saw news that the service was no longer running reliably (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Forbes] it is still alive and kicking. I have 17 different alerts running at the time of writing.

There are no other truly free services like Google Alerts. Sure, a lot of people will try and tell you this, but essentially being notified of something on the net with your choice of keywords will cost you money. Which I do not have.

Having said this, I recently tried out one that was suggested by several websites: Talkwalker Alerts. Reason being that the Google Alerts I have been receiving in recent months have either delivered fewer search results or because - like the rest of the internet - they are being swamped by so-called AI slop (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Or maybe because Google itself has been devastating this free service with their AI summaries that are essentially destroying the internet (Si apre in una nuova finestra) as we have known it for many years. Or as this post’s headline so lovingly said it: At Google I/O, everything is changing and normal and scary and chill (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Platformer].

I am always hunting for new sources of reliable information so Talkwalker Alerts seemed like worth the try. I made myself do this for about two weeks with three major search tearms (‘Tolkien’, ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Hobbit’) and I can tell you now that it is not worth it - but not for the reasons I had expected. I have stopped using this service because their results were swamped by neo-fascist websites and podcasts (well, basically all the -isms you can imagine, to be fair). Here is my comparison of the Sept 1, 2025 results with an outlook at results from other dates.

Google Alerts vs. Talkwalker Alerts

Now, please keep in mind that the Google search algorithm - the function of which has made a whole industry possible (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Backlink.io] - seems to be favouring websites of long standing, regular posting, and appreciation from other websites (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Google]. Be that as it may, one of the advantages of GA is that you are being kept away, whether intentionally or not, from the crappiest parts of the web. Places and spaces you should never visit, irrespective of your own belief that you can do this. Just don’t.

If you are interested in the full results I can send you the emails.

Now, ‘hobbit’ as a search term opens up all sorts of avenues. Most of them really have nothing to do with Tolkien - like hobbit houses (read: film-based copies in real estate and/or rental²), the homo floriensis (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (most certainly not a hobbit), or the Honda PA 50 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

For me the term is very important as it also includes all theatre renditions of The Hobbit around the world and those have very much increased in recent years (splendid!) and any other hobbit-inspired event - in bookshops, libraries, and not for profits (Si apre in una nuova finestra), for example.

The GA email includes 25 links. None of them has any issues. None was interesting. Sure, if you like lovely tattoos you were all set (Si apre in una nuova finestra) or if have problems with your bonsai hobbit hole (Si apre in una nuova finestra), then these results were of interest. If you live in Lexington, SC, USA, then there would have been an interesting artisan market (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

However, given the topics I am looking for and due to the fact only truly relevant posts should end up in my curation these usually do not make the cut. Every week I go through way more than 1,000 items like these, often up to 1,500 and the final tally ranges from 25 to 45 on average. So something like 1-3% end up in the newsletter, depending on the week.

With Talkwalker Alerts (Si apre in una nuova finestra) you can choose from “news, twitter, blog, discussions.” The Sept 1 search offered 41 links. None of them were relevant. I went for everything, of course - even though I do no longer use Xitter (now X, formerly known as Twitter) as I do not want to support the extreme right in the world of the tech bros (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Science Direct]. I may skim over the results but my two-weeks-trial run showed me the number of relevant entries with Xitter is next to zero.

Let’s simply ignore for the moment that these results include torrent downloads (all in all a rather legally difficult element of the net) and links to obviously AI-generated Russian websites wishing to sell you real estate. And let us not worry about the fact that with some of the results the search term does not even show up anywhere.

The truly bad thing about these results is that they regularly include neo-fascist websites or places where hate speech of the worst levels is the gold standard. Now, 4chan (Si apre in una nuova finestra) may include some truly fascinating topics and information but you need to be aware it is not the nicest of places. (Don’t even think of going for 8chan.)

But they also give you results from Rumble (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the host to Trump’s preferred service Truth Social. Breitbart News (Si apre in una nuova finestra). The Imaginative and/ or the American Conservative. PJ Media (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Blaze Media (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Incel blogs. You may be wondering why you won’t find any of these links in the screenshot above - or in this post.

That is because I do not want to promote their hate mongering. Block the trolls and move on. But let me tell you - those two weeks going through these lists were more than depressing, they were emotionally devastating. Let me give you two examples but please be warned…

The PJ Media one (Si apre in una nuova finestra) I found hard to swallow, to give you a real example. Their concept of how to teach proper “masculinity” included many titles by Tolkien and Lewis. But this paragraph…

The phrases we use are damning — toxic masculinity, patriarchy, problematic behavior. And the message comes through loud and clear: There is something inherently bad about being a boy.

Well, no. Toxic masculinity is bad. The patriarchy is bad. And problematic behavior is bad. These things are being instilled into children by people whose mindsets are abusive and destructive. There is nothing wrong with being a boy, everything is wrong with abusing kids by turning them into racists, mysoginists or whatnot…

The War on Boys. Listen to yourself.

And one of my absolute favourites… Please note: Everyone has the right to fetishism/ kink etc., assuming that it is not lastingly mentally, emotionally or physically abusive in a situation of power abuse (Si apre in una nuova finestra) where consent is missing.

Little Hobbit In The Balls Description: Tall Queens Goddess standing 7 ft tall kick the little hobbit in the balls.

To show you I have not made this up… Here is a screenshot of the search for it on Google, made on Sept 22, 2025.

Be the search result as it may - but for a newsletter trying to inform you about events, publications, and the franchise in general, kink links aren’t what a search result for the search term ‘hobbit’ should deliver. And even if you argue hobbits could be kinky as hell (or should be!) - that would definitely be a different newsletter.

I do not want you to read Murders Rise As Publishing Houses Sell Violent LGBT Fantasies To Kids. The Federalist is either hyper-partisan right (Si apre in una nuova finestra), extreme right (Si apre in una nuova finestra), or just plain right (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Those are the search results that you get with Talkwalker Alerts. Don’t use it. It is effectively doom scrolling in news search result form. I tried it out because - as I said above - I am always looking at ways to make the Roving Ranger even better. This one is most certainly not.

Please note: I tried out a range of options with TA, basically in all combinations. “Only the best results” was, subjectively, better than “all results” but still devastatingly bad.