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8:28 a.m. - July 21, 2006
Duped! I Was Duped!
Ever get the feeling that you�ve been duped?

The last couple of days, I think I�ve been played for a patsy, and I don�t like it one little bit.

You�d think I�d know better, especially since I posted this rant about email.

It all started innocently enough. Every morning, while reports are running, I peruse Fark to see what kind of silly or interesting news links they have posted there.

And I stumbled onto this as a link to a story. It intrigued me.

As you can see, it looks pretty original. A wife is getting back at her husband for cheating on her with her best friend, and she not only is blogging about it, she took out a billboard in New York near where he works so that a lot of the world can see what he�s been up to.

So I sent the link around to some people, and some people wrote back and said thanks.

However, a couple of intrepid souls said that it looked fake. One, in fact, staked her reputation that it�s a faux situation.

Well, I took that under advisement.

I looked at the comments on Fark, and there a lot of people said that it was a phony as well. It looked to be some sort of viral marketing campaign � a setup.

But I do know people can be overly cynical on that site, so I took a wait and see attitude, and wanted to see more postings.

Later, the original link to the site on Fark was changed to this, which seems to raise a lot of suspicions.

Here�s the entire blog and I think I�m more suspicious that it�s a fake, and that I was duped, and I sent it around to people thinking it was legit, and they no doubt forwarded it on, and so on and so on and so on.

I think, in retrospect, it could have been easy to sniff out that it probably was a fake blog.

For one, the blog was not started that long before Emily had become suspicious of her husband. It was like, �Tada! I�m going to blog! Things are sunshine and roses! Hey, wait!�

Secondly, it seems that the timeline is awfully compressed. To hire a PI, to get the goods, and then to call in �favors� to get a billboard in this short a time frame doesn�t seem plausible when you think of it.

Thirdly, the story about her passing out the bottles of the expensive wine seems a bit unbelievable. I would have had some pictures of the wine in the hands of the bums.

Fourthly, the video on the site seems too good to be true. The couple looks TOO good in a fakey actory kind of way, not in a real people way. Also, the shot of them in the restaurant is too good of a shot. I doubt if a PI could have been seated that close and shot that, really.

Fifthly, the one regarding the fantasy baseball team is totally unrealistic. The reason being is that no one would allow one player in a fantasy league to have players like A-Rod, Pujols and Beltran on the same team, unless the rest of the owners are total morons. And somehow, I don�t think the people in that league would be morons, especially if they are playing with real cash money.

Sixthly, the blog seems awfully well written, controlled and precise for what it is supposed to be. I think if it was emotional, or heartfelt, it would really come out in the pages. I don�t sense that here. It seems antiseptic. Obviously, I�ve read a lot of blogs, diaries, journals, and the like in the past 18 months, and I don�t feel genuine emotion here.

So, I�ve been duped, had, sucked into the viral marketing mess, and sucked others right along with me.

And now, this story seems to confirm that it is all a setup, for a viral marketing campaign for a Cable TV show.

So now what?

Well, I�m going to keep reading that blog, because now I gotta see what it�s all about. Because when it�s revealed what the show is, then I�m going to strike back and tell the world NOT to watch that show � to avoid it like the plague.

Viral marketing, heh. They haven�t had the Smed-idote!

 

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