I hate sponsored ads. Once upon a time I raged about a series of Taboola ads, much like the ones below, on Facebook. Now, for some reason, I am about to do so for a 3rd time. So join me once as I complain and rant and go off on tangents.
1. Should Auctions be Banned? TaylorMade Drivers Have Sold for Less Than $12
I'm really not sure where to begin with this one, just of out sheer incredulity. Reading the title alone made me feel like I took one of those <$12 TaylorMade drivers upside the head. First off, the whole appeal of auctions is that you have the potential to get something for far below market price. Granted, you have to get pretty lucky to do so, but the possibility exists. That said, call me skeptical when I see an ad by Quibids mention an outrageously low bid on a driver the typically goes for (pardon me a sec while I check a reputable auction site) $75 to $399. Again, buying something far below cost, it could happen, but you need to get really lucky. This whole business about auctions being banned though? What is this nonsense? It's pure shock tactics aimed to get you to click. Auctions don't put people out of business. If someone is selling items below cost it's probably second hand anyways otherwise you'd be out of business in weeks. And last, these things tend to stabilize over time because if you can't afford to sell at a low price in the long run *gasp* the price goes up.
2. A Smart Way to Pay Off Mortgage
Make one additional payment a month so that you are paying on principal instead of just interest. Oh wait, I'm sorry. I just gave out sensible advice that wasn't related to a scam in any way. Damn! I'm really bad at this. On the plus side that picture of the dollar bill ring is pretty cool though, right?
3. 10 Rappers Who Lost Their Riches
The amount of attention given to celebrities never ceases to astound me, even if I've come to expect it. So it doesn't surprise me to see another up-and-coming site trying to make some cash on the celebrity ticket. I think the really disappointing thing with this particular sponsored ad is that there are enough rappers who lost their riches to justify creating a Top 10 list. I try not to think about the amount of money that some people blow on completely pointless things. Do you know how hard it is to blow large sums of money if you have even a modicum of sense and restraint? I calculated what I could buy with 1 million dollars once and it included a sizeable house, two new cars, the elimination of all our debts, a bachelor's degree cost equivalent of education (4 years of education basically) for both my wife and I, as well as 4 years without working. Even using overblown estimates and calculating college costs using our current outrageously high tuition rates I'd still have $160,000 left-over AFTER 4 YEARS OF COLLEGE AND NOT WORKING. So, no HipHopMyWay even if you were a reputable site, which I refuse to believe you are, that link is: Not. Worth. My. Time.
4. 11 Surprising Skills Your Great-Grandparents Had That You Don't
If you read my previous Things I Hate this entry might look a little familiar to you. So rather than repeat myself I'll just let you in on a little secret. Originally one of the things I was going to lambast this ad for was the picture. This is just a wild guess but it looks to me like the people in the photo are a couple from the Great Depression/dustbowl era and my immediate reaction was that those would be grandparents not great-grandparents. Of course then I realized that they would have been kids at best during the depression and assumed that the picture was right. Upon even closer inspection though, I've just realized that if the people in the picture were that old during the depression that would probably make them Great-great-grandparents. So hah! Skewered again ancestry.com!
5. Top 10 Cancer Causing Foods You Eat Everyday
Okay, honestly. What the fuck is up with that picture? Are those octopus legs on skewers? Food doesn't have to look like it crawled onto your plate and died a slow Shakespearian death for it to be cancer causing. Now, before I get to what actually does cause cancer, so you won't be tempted to look up the article posted by the flagitious fools that are whatever NaturalON is, I'd like to point out the obvious conflict of interest here. By the way, I love how easy it is to tell what type of marketing tactic or scam is going on simply by the name. There are those who are so good at marketing that its hard to tell where the content ends and the ad begins, and then there is NaturalON or Quibids or whatever other bare minimum effort name they could come up with. Anyways, NaturalON very clearly wants to sell you some sort of natural alternatives that aren't going to give you super-cancer. Here's the thing though there are tons of foods that increase your risk of cancer. I won't get into the specifics of how cancer works but basically any food with char on it would fit the bill of "cancer causing". So grilled meats can 'give' you cancer. Grilled veggies can give you cancer. Cooking on a traditional grill period can give you cancer. Red meat is believed to give you cancer and the same for alcohol. Teflon coated cooking pans can give you cancer. Exposure to car oil or gasoline can give you cancer. The sun can give you cancer. Diesel exhaust can give you cancer. Cleaning chemicals and fire retardants and a wide variety of other chemicals can give you cancer. Smoking can give you ultracancer. And smoke inhalation of any other sort (campfire, bad cooking, incense smoke, etc.) is certain to give you cancer. Basically there is a lot of stuff that can 'give' you cancer (although that terminology is flawed) but as long as you try and balance it by generally staying healthy you'll probably be fine. So let's just ignore these 10 Cancer Causing Foods and move on shall we?
6. 8 Celebs Who Have Severe Illnesses
I'm not gonna completely redo this one again since it happened to also be in Things I Hate #1 on Facebook. I'll give you the highlights though:
- Why was celebrities shortened to "Celebs"!? You have more than enough space as evidenced by nearly every other article name in the block!
- Famous black actor is featured in the picture for an article that probably isn't related to him in any way.
- Why do we care so much about these celebrities? Don't we have better things to be doing?
- Yes, lets pry into the personal lives of 'celebs' because they're definitely not people. Which is a good thing because that frees us from having to worry about HIPAA or disseminating information that the individual might not necessarily want going around.
- Also, is it just me or are those sunglasses totally shooped?
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