on mandy moore, intelligence, the internet
I’ve noticed a chorus of internetters lately complaining about the preponderance of those “2 Rules to a Flat Stomach” ads with the women’s tummies. To be honest, I hadn’t really noticed them until they were pointed out to me, though I am a man and frequently worry that I need to put on more weight, so maybe I just glossed over them or the ad’s spyware just ignored me. Instead, I’ve been noticing more and more over the last couple months an astounding number of internet ads leveled at my IQ. Have people seen these? They’ll have a picture of a celebrity and be all like, “Mandy Moore has an IQ of 114, can you beat that?”
What a strange hook!
I really wonder what kind of people they get clicking on those ads. Do the people think “I just gotta know if I’m smarter than her!” or is it more like “I was curious about my IQ before, but now I have a benchmark...I have to score x number of points higher than Mandy Moore to deem myself smart.” I mean, first of all we have to establish that the person believes that some random shitty web trolling spam advertiser has access to Mandy Moore’s IQ, which honestly, you can’t entirely fault a person for believing in an age where wikipedia is taken as gospel. But the viral growth of these ads (which often name wildly different celebrities...I don’t mean to pick on Mandy Moore, whose name and supposed IQ I don’t think I have ever actually seen on one of these ads, I just picked a celebrity name off the top of my head and if you’re reading Ms. Moore I’d like to apologize. For the record, I have never assumed I am smarter than you.) leads me to imagine that a lot of people from all walks of life have clicked on them and thus advertisers now view them as a cash cow.
The thing that really gets me is how it is commercially viable for more than a month. As I understood it, back in the days of direct mail marketing, you’d make lots of money off old people, who wanted attention and something to do. And that made sense when email spam really took off, which was focused on old person stuff like viagra and jewelry and the companionship of a Nigerian prince. Beyond marketing to old people though, basically you are banking on people not knowing how the internet works. Obviously, this is a lot of people. I bet the majority of the US population still believes, for whatever reason, that if you go to one of those “free credit report” websites there is some chance you will wind up with a free copy of your credit report. But how do you fall for that more than once? Honestly? That is some ignorant bullshit.
To clarify, I’m not complaining about annoying internet ads in general. I understand that mass media doesn’t simply exist by the good graces of the universe and that ugly ads must exist in order to support the beauty of television, or the internet, or whatever. I guess I’m just annoyed by the success of such obvious scammery. How, exactly, does it benefit you to guess how many triangles are hidden in that diagram? Is this really your first time on a computer? Let me illustrate for you the sequence of things that will happen when you click on that ad:
1) The advertiser will get paid by further advertisers, who will pitch you more things you probably don’t want, and will likely put programs on your computer that will slow it down.
2) The advertiser will ask you questions about yourself in order to better make money off internet ads in the future.
3) You will not find out if you are smarter than Mandy Moore, nor how many triangles were in that picture.
4) Tomorrow, you will see TWICE AS MANY of that same ad. And so will I.
Jackass.
What a strange hook!
I really wonder what kind of people they get clicking on those ads. Do the people think “I just gotta know if I’m smarter than her!” or is it more like “I was curious about my IQ before, but now I have a benchmark...I have to score x number of points higher than Mandy Moore to deem myself smart.” I mean, first of all we have to establish that the person believes that some random shitty web trolling spam advertiser has access to Mandy Moore’s IQ, which honestly, you can’t entirely fault a person for believing in an age where wikipedia is taken as gospel. But the viral growth of these ads (which often name wildly different celebrities...I don’t mean to pick on Mandy Moore, whose name and supposed IQ I don’t think I have ever actually seen on one of these ads, I just picked a celebrity name off the top of my head and if you’re reading Ms. Moore I’d like to apologize. For the record, I have never assumed I am smarter than you.) leads me to imagine that a lot of people from all walks of life have clicked on them and thus advertisers now view them as a cash cow.
The thing that really gets me is how it is commercially viable for more than a month. As I understood it, back in the days of direct mail marketing, you’d make lots of money off old people, who wanted attention and something to do. And that made sense when email spam really took off, which was focused on old person stuff like viagra and jewelry and the companionship of a Nigerian prince. Beyond marketing to old people though, basically you are banking on people not knowing how the internet works. Obviously, this is a lot of people. I bet the majority of the US population still believes, for whatever reason, that if you go to one of those “free credit report” websites there is some chance you will wind up with a free copy of your credit report. But how do you fall for that more than once? Honestly? That is some ignorant bullshit.
To clarify, I’m not complaining about annoying internet ads in general. I understand that mass media doesn’t simply exist by the good graces of the universe and that ugly ads must exist in order to support the beauty of television, or the internet, or whatever. I guess I’m just annoyed by the success of such obvious scammery. How, exactly, does it benefit you to guess how many triangles are hidden in that diagram? Is this really your first time on a computer? Let me illustrate for you the sequence of things that will happen when you click on that ad:
1) The advertiser will get paid by further advertisers, who will pitch you more things you probably don’t want, and will likely put programs on your computer that will slow it down.
2) The advertiser will ask you questions about yourself in order to better make money off internet ads in the future.
3) You will not find out if you are smarter than Mandy Moore, nor how many triangles were in that picture.
4) Tomorrow, you will see TWICE AS MANY of that same ad. And so will I.
Jackass.