Sigh. Oh the internet. What a wily beast you are, eh? All those adds and viruses and spyware and mean things and rude things all masked in packaging that makes it look so benign. My mom is constantly in a state of “getting her laptop fixed” because she keeps clicking on things that claim her anti-virus is expired or her computer is at risk and needs to be scanned. I think that kind of deceit is just so mean spirited. Leave her alone, she just wants to look at her kids’ pictures on Facebook and read the news on Yahoo!
This kind of blending between real and not-as-real seeps through all our media. I got this neat link – Ads disguised as TV news promt FCC to propose rule – from Jean (thanks!), about advertisement on TV that looks and sounds and feels like news. I totally get that anyone who wants to advertise anything these days is going to have to be clever (seriously, does anyone sit through commercials any more?), but I think you kinda have to be a bit of a jerk to say “Hey! I know what we can do! We can make it look like TV news so that people may not realize their watching a paid spot. Instant credibility!”
Have you ever been caught thinking something was legit and it ended up being not so much?
