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Help! I’m Being Cyberstalked By A Hot Plate!
THE OTHER NIGHT I was on the phone talking a pal down from making a terrible decision – ordering something from an infomercial.
“This won’t be like my foot-scouring Ped Egg or my ear-scouring WaxVac,” he insisted. “This is something I know I’ll use every day!”
“What is it?” I inquired.
“Huh? I didn’t hear you.”
“Maybe if you used that WaxVac…”
“No, I couldn’t hear you because I got my TurbieTwist on,” he explained.
“What the good goddamn is the infomercial for, man?!”
“Well! I’m glad you asked! It’s the NuWave Precision Induction Cooktop, and it’s a complete kitchen, all-in-one! Living Well for Less hosts Bob Wharton and Jenny Repko swear by it!”
I’d never heard of the NuWave Precision Induction Cooktop and I immediately looked it up on the internet, just as you would do.
A quick search brought me to their website – but you might want to read the rest of the post this time before you click on that link. (Ha! As though any of you, what, six regulars make it through anything I write here in its entirety or click on any of the links!)
So after looking over the item and reading various reviews of it on other sites, I came to the conclusion it was not a good investment and advised said pal not to purchase it. Intent on buying something as-seen-on-TV, he wisely settled for a Bedazzler.
“That way, I can trick out my TurbieTwist. Really dazzle-hack the hell out of it!” he exclaimed.
Okay, so that was the end of it, right?
No. Not by a long shot, brother!
Because later that night, I was – imagine this! – back on the internet, looking up God-knows-what this time, and I noticed this ad on the page:
“Huh,” I thought to myself. “That’s a coincidence. I was just on their website a little while ago.”
Then a little later, on a different website, I noticed this:
And on another website, this:
Before a video loaded on yet another site, I got this one:
And then things started getting creepy. Because after that, this is the ad I began seeing:
“Come Back?!” I was on your site for two minutes! We had some fun, we both had a good time, but that was it. I’m not ever coming back. I’ve moved on. I’m seeing someone else now – a heartwarming video on YouTube about a possum and a deer tick who were raised together and are now inseparable. So I’m sorry, that little fling we had, whatever you want to call it – it’s over.
But today, a day and a half later, on fully 90% of the websites I visit that carry outside advertising, there’s that same disturbing “Come Back!” ad. It’s like the NuWave Precision Induction Cooktop is following me…well, not so much following but somehow anticipating my every online move.
It’s easily explained, of course: the NuWave website installed a cookie on my computer that loads their ads on any other site I visit that carries that same Google ad software.
Still, the omnipresence of the ad – it is everywhere – is disturbing. And how apt that I just looked up “omnipresence” on Merriam-Webster online to make sure I was using it correctly – and no joke – there were five ads for it on that one page.
Obviously I need to delete my cookies, clear my browser history, and empty my browser cache before the situation gets any further out of hand, which I imagine will look something like this:
By the way, my attorney – who I’ve got busy filing a restraining order on my behalf – wanted me to note here that the NuWave Precision Induction Cooktop is a magnificent piece of equipment and you should buy ten.
Ted Parsnips
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