"Confused in B'ham"...
I have noticed something so strange tonight. And since I need someone to try and help me understand, I thought I would share...
Back a few months ago, when I figured I would not be coming back from Raleigh anytime soon, I decided to join the Yahoo Personals. I figured it couldn't hurt and it might be a good way to meet some new people (specifically, new women). As it turns out, I never had the money to want to try and date (or even stay joined to the damn thing), so all that came out of the responses I got was some emails and one IM buddy. And now that I think about it, she's probably wondering what the living hell happened to me...Oops.
Anywooooo, I haven't gone back to the Yahoo Personals since I came home. So tonight, after I did my final email check for the evening, I decided I would update my profile. After all, no point in getting messages from women 586 miles away! The first step in the process was to clean out the profiles I had saved from the potentials in Raleigh. Easy enough. Delete is a handy function. Next, I updated my bio. Again, easy. Just had to fix the town and some details in my "oh so catchy" paragraph. By the by, I HAVE to get some new pics. Sister Mary Francis, I am ANTI-photogenic!!!
At any rate, my final step was to do a match search just for the hell of it to see who came up in Birmigham. Again, it never hurts to meet new people. You just have to use "internet caution". It was during this step that I noticed it...
At first, it was subtle, almost unnoticeable as you are trudging through profile after profile...But I caught it.
The picture of a woman I had JUST erased from Raleigh, NC. And lo and behold, miracle of miracles!...
She's living in Birmingham now.
I chalked it up to my swiss cheese brain, and moved on. But then, I started noticing other strange things: Every profile of women that had only one, often pixelated, photo on her bio also had the exact same bio!
What?
Yes, the same bio. With only very subtle differences, to make sure it matched the pixelated photograph. The eyes would change, the hair...But the height, the age, the body type, the occupation, the fact that they were a "flirt" and a "sports nut", it was all coming up over and over and over again. Except for the "oh so catchy" paragraph. Every time, it changed into a different five sentence paragraph that was unbeleivably generic. I mean, you could literally taste the demographic personality they were trying to reach. "I love anything outdoors". "I am spontaneous and easy to get along with". JEEEEEEEEEZ. There was actually one poor women whose photo was used THREE times with THREE different forged profiles. Even stranger with her, they did take the time to change ALL of her information in the profile. BUT THEY LEFT THE SAME SHITTY PICTURE!!!
So here is what I have to know, here is what makes NO SENSE to me: WHAT DOES YAHOO HAVE TO GAIN BY MAKING UP PROFILES?!
What if someone tries to get in contact with one of these ghosts? Why is Yahoo making up people?!!!!
Best I can figure is, if you see one of these profiles and say to yourself, "WOWSA! That's a hot one!" (Because all of the ghost profiles are "girl next door" attractive), it's probably going to incite you to join so that you can email them and what not. (Of course, anyone who is even remotely savvy can get around joining and still get emails and IM addresses. Hell, I did, and I ain't savvy...) Then, from the way I understood Yahoo's "Try Personals free for 7 days" campaign that I got ungodly amounts of email about, once you're joined, they CONTINUE to take the monthly fee directly and automatically out of your account unless you say otherwise. Then, if you don't get a response from the ghost, what can you do? NOTHING! The ghost profile simply "chose" not to respond to you!
YAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The bastards. Why does everyone have to be such money-hungry, opportunistic, manipulative bastards? Some of these people are using this service because they have nowhere near the confindence or the social where-with-all to meet new people in the real world. Some of them are just honestly, desperately seeking a loving, connected relationship. I mean, I understand humans have been turning a profit with the passions of other humans for centuries, but...
Is this just me? Am I the only one that is bothered by this? Please let me know!
Fake People! Yahoo Personals is made of Fake Peeeeoooooooppppplllleeee!
Back a few months ago, when I figured I would not be coming back from Raleigh anytime soon, I decided to join the Yahoo Personals. I figured it couldn't hurt and it might be a good way to meet some new people (specifically, new women). As it turns out, I never had the money to want to try and date (or even stay joined to the damn thing), so all that came out of the responses I got was some emails and one IM buddy. And now that I think about it, she's probably wondering what the living hell happened to me...Oops.
Anywooooo, I haven't gone back to the Yahoo Personals since I came home. So tonight, after I did my final email check for the evening, I decided I would update my profile. After all, no point in getting messages from women 586 miles away! The first step in the process was to clean out the profiles I had saved from the potentials in Raleigh. Easy enough. Delete is a handy function. Next, I updated my bio. Again, easy. Just had to fix the town and some details in my "oh so catchy" paragraph. By the by, I HAVE to get some new pics. Sister Mary Francis, I am ANTI-photogenic!!!
At any rate, my final step was to do a match search just for the hell of it to see who came up in Birmigham. Again, it never hurts to meet new people. You just have to use "internet caution". It was during this step that I noticed it...
At first, it was subtle, almost unnoticeable as you are trudging through profile after profile...But I caught it.
The picture of a woman I had JUST erased from Raleigh, NC. And lo and behold, miracle of miracles!...
She's living in Birmingham now.
I chalked it up to my swiss cheese brain, and moved on. But then, I started noticing other strange things: Every profile of women that had only one, often pixelated, photo on her bio also had the exact same bio!
What?
Yes, the same bio. With only very subtle differences, to make sure it matched the pixelated photograph. The eyes would change, the hair...But the height, the age, the body type, the occupation, the fact that they were a "flirt" and a "sports nut", it was all coming up over and over and over again. Except for the "oh so catchy" paragraph. Every time, it changed into a different five sentence paragraph that was unbeleivably generic. I mean, you could literally taste the demographic personality they were trying to reach. "I love anything outdoors". "I am spontaneous and easy to get along with". JEEEEEEEEEZ. There was actually one poor women whose photo was used THREE times with THREE different forged profiles. Even stranger with her, they did take the time to change ALL of her information in the profile. BUT THEY LEFT THE SAME SHITTY PICTURE!!!
So here is what I have to know, here is what makes NO SENSE to me: WHAT DOES YAHOO HAVE TO GAIN BY MAKING UP PROFILES?!
What if someone tries to get in contact with one of these ghosts? Why is Yahoo making up people?!!!!
Best I can figure is, if you see one of these profiles and say to yourself, "WOWSA! That's a hot one!" (Because all of the ghost profiles are "girl next door" attractive), it's probably going to incite you to join so that you can email them and what not. (Of course, anyone who is even remotely savvy can get around joining and still get emails and IM addresses. Hell, I did, and I ain't savvy...) Then, from the way I understood Yahoo's "Try Personals free for 7 days" campaign that I got ungodly amounts of email about, once you're joined, they CONTINUE to take the monthly fee directly and automatically out of your account unless you say otherwise. Then, if you don't get a response from the ghost, what can you do? NOTHING! The ghost profile simply "chose" not to respond to you!
YAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The bastards. Why does everyone have to be such money-hungry, opportunistic, manipulative bastards? Some of these people are using this service because they have nowhere near the confindence or the social where-with-all to meet new people in the real world. Some of them are just honestly, desperately seeking a loving, connected relationship. I mean, I understand humans have been turning a profit with the passions of other humans for centuries, but...
Is this just me? Am I the only one that is bothered by this? Please let me know!
Fake People! Yahoo Personals is made of Fake Peeeeoooooooppppplllleeee!
posted by Sean Corley at 11:03 PM
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