Back in 2011, a cute post appeared at SJ about the Centers for Disease Control issuing a preparedness warning for the Zombie Apocalypse. It was a throwaway, fun for the moment but not the sort of post one would remember, so it never occurred to me that I would think of it again. I was wrong.
Hi Scott,
I saw that you included “natural disaster” in a post on Simple Justice’s website here:
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2011/05/20/psa-prepare-for-the-zombie-apocalypse-now-via-the-cdc/
Thanks for this – I’ve been looking for some content about emergency preparation online. It’s nice to see that your website has info that could be useful to people looking to prepare for emergencies and disasters. We at Coupon Chief have just created a massive guide titled “How to Save on Emergency Supplies – Disaster Prep on a Budget.” It includes up-to-date information and special tips to help prepare families for emergencies.
Can I send you the link to the guide? We’re hoping you could help us spread the word by sharing and linking to it. 🙂
Thanks in advance for your consideration!
Bailey
P.S. If you don’t want to hear from me again, just reply to this with the text: unsubscribe.
A few things to consider. Is there a person named Bailey Newman? Did she read my post about the Zombie Apocalypse? What percentage of responses to this keyword generated pitch would result in a positive reaction? Why should I have to unsubscribe to something I never subscribed to?
Silly pitches like this come constantly, maybe a dozen a day. Some respond with pony questions. Some, like me, just delete them. There are occasionally follow-ups, one or two, asking whether I received their initial pitch, just because they kindly want to make sure I didn’t miss it. These emails get deleted as well.
But Coupon Chief? What does that have to do with disaster preparedness? It was so incongruous that I was almost tempted to find out. But not enough to actually respond to Bailey’s pitch.
So why am I sharing this with you? Why shouldn’t you know about the glamorous life of a blogger, filled with fascinating things like pitches from Bailey that remind me how the internet has changed everything, and with a simple keyword search and a mass email program, you can send the stupidest crap to a great many wholly disinterested people. But this one struck me as so absurd because of its link to my Zombie Apocalypse post that it stuck with me.
Now you know. I wonder if she has any guides dealing with the Pony Plague?
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We were anticipating your *reaction* to the State of the Union address, and you give us this drivel? Wasn’t it terrific? The stock market, however, is nonplussed it seems. Never mind the Robt. Mueller and the FBI fiasco, his failure to re-appoint Janet Yellen will go down as a big mistake. She speaks softly and carries a small shtick. She is more responsible for a healthy economy than the Orange One. While he takes all the credit. You herd it hear first.
Good morning, Bill. I hope you slept well.
You want a reaction?
I haven’t seen so many Democrats rush a door since Black Friday at Walmart.
You don’t have it so bad. You should try being an international sex symbol, like I am. Every day, I get at least three emails from Russian girls who want to trade pictures with me prior to hooking up.
It gets a little depressing, too. I just don’t have the kind of time it would take to make that many women happy.
I considered being an international sex symbol, but it seemed like too much work for me too.
I don’t know about Bailey Newman. I dump all those mass “personal” emails. They’re mostly from some lawyer hall of fame. Did they even look me up? Who’d want me in their club? Groucho’s quote comes to mind.
That’s just prologue. What really comes to mind is how effective Bailey Quarters was during my unlaid youth.
I’m the best lawyer in New York, the country and even the world. I know this because they keep emailing me to tell me that my plaque is waiting. Unlike you, I am certain they have carefully vetted me.
When I get those things, they usually claim to be a teacher or camp counselor or community center volunteer or parent, and that their students/kids/campers/community members ran into my page (some deep link on a narrow topic somewhere in my personal site) and found it a great resource for whatever they were doing, and they have a suggestion of another great resource on that topic I might want to link (some link to an outside site with a topic vaguely related to mine).
Then there’s all of the people who want to translate some page in my site to some foreign language… I actually agree to those… what the heck, it doesn’t hurt anything and might even help promote foreign visitors to my site. But I always wonder what the deal is on those… why are all of those people so eager to translate other people’s pages for free, and why are they so random about it… they’ll pick exactly one page at a time, sometimes a substantive article, sometimes just a menu page that only links to other pages in my site and they’ll just translate the menu, not those other pages it links to. And once one of my pages has links to translations, that draws all the rest of the translation squad, like blood in the water attracts sharks.
They’re just trying to hook you on being translated. Next, you’ll want another hit of translated posts, and soon, you’re paying them to translate everything.
I might have assumed you know this, but I am aware you only gave up on AOL this year when they sunsetted the service.
Bailey Newman may be a real person, but he or she almost certainly didn’t read your post. This is an automated script that crawls the web looking for backlink opportunities and then triggers message to the webmaster.
Was it unclear from my post that I was aware of this, or did you just want to shame me for using AOL (which I still use, even if not the now-deceased desktop)?
Scott, I presume you’re a good lawyer (not having the misfortune to need your services I can’t say definitely) and certainly smarter than me but, seriously, anybody who still uses AOL in this day deserves to be made fun of for it.
Nonsense. I’m just retro before the crowd. One day, when it all comes back around, I will be the coolest dude on the internets.
Make
AOL
Great
Again
I’m triggered.
It was unclear, but upon rereading, It appears I was being uncharitable in my assumptions about what you mean by this statement:
“with a simple keyword search and a mass email program, you can send the stupidest crap to a great many wholly disinterested people.”
This description implies manual effort to search and send the message separately and iteratively. In fact, the only effort required is to feed the bot a subject and unleash it on the web. Most commonly referred to as ‘referral spam’. It’s a particularly pernicious problem for WordPress sites because sometimes bloggers don’t moderate their comments.
Well, thanks for clearing that up.
Often, these sorts of things show up as automated posts in the “comments” section. Some sites intentionally leave select examples of these types of pitches, as entertaining comment fodder, and on those sites, running gags (and sometimes new user alts) can result. Based on indications from the mods at Commenteriat Commune, they delete dozens of these for every one that is funny enough to leave.
Some other sites leave them to make it look like they have more traffic. On at least one (nameless here) the editors only remove them if they are reported as ‘abuse’.
I’ve heard that before.
Prevaricated Bailey:
I know you mocked them, but it seems you are not fully aware of the dangers we face from ponies. Allow me to explain…