I’ve blogged before about my annoyance with True.com, the online dating service that fills up MySpace with its ads. They’ve always been irritating, but these new ads are more disturbing than ever.
These are Flash animations built to look like a video chat window. Some attractive girl (or guy - yikes!) pops up and starts typing things into the chat window and making faces at the camera. They say things like, “Helllllo…are you there?” which would seem innocuous enough except that it feels like someone is tapping me on my shoulder bugging me for attention.
I feel very self concious about this as if some strange chick is peering into my world with her magical spy cam. Sure, all she SEEMS to want is some harmless internet fun, but how do I KNOW that? All I know is these women, some shown in increasing states of agitation over my refusal to engage them in a video chat session, are staring at me and I’m refusing to answer. They could become emotional, angry…violent!
It’s like some bad slasher movie where everything is filmed and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself.
Then, the animation repeats and you realize that not only were you duped (like Subserviant Chicken - yeah, you know you were fooled for a while), but you’re now pissed at an animation. You’re both stupid and emotionally unstable. That could just be me though.
Sounds like somebody needs flashblock and or adblock for their browser. Not sure how it works for Mac, but a simple flashblock and adblock, a little tweaking and you can block annoying ads! I surf most sites virtually ad-free.