I've been really into viral marketing campaigns lately, as well as advertising, in general. You all know those annoying ads bombarding you all over the internet, on the highway when you drive home, you hear about products from friends, and end up spending money on something or the other that you chose. You chose it because someone or something caught your attention to it, or it was in your interests, everyone was doing it, or you went out and found it on your own.

I was at Anime Expo this year and there was a certain booth that attracted a lot of attention, right there in the front of the exhibition hall. A man was throwing out free stuff into a crowd of people, screaming and repeating the company's name like zombies.

This was an advertising scheme, and I admit I was in that crowd screaming till I lost my voice just to catch a book, which was labeled "FREE" anyway. I could have picked it up elsewhere. But the man on stage lied and said that these books were rare and that you couldn't get them anywhere else.

I fell for that trick and I'm angry. The same kind of anger I feel when I see advertisements for all sorts of things that I know to be scams, just there to take people's money. At the same time it's funny, people who are honest and make a day to day effort working for a day to day pay are probably the ones struggling right now in this economy, while the ones who are liars are fine.

They're fine because they took advantage of this opportunity to create "get rich quick" schemes and "easy ways out" to prey on those who are suffering. You know what they are. You've seen them.

What can be said about this? What can be done? Con artistry has existed for centuries and evolved in many different forms. Myspace itself is filled with wolves and sheep of many different forms.

I hope that if any of us are fortunate to be able to start a business we would do it honestly, though it may decrease the chances of that business succeeding.

That being said, will you please play a game? I'm having some fun right now playing a virtual business game. It's a browser-based little thing, and you'd help me out a lot by just playing it for free and getting to level 6. I get like, 5 gold for it. lol.

Here's the link to the game.

[link]

Thanks for reading and listening, feel free to respond. If you're angry I understand, it's all a part of the joke.

...not a great punchline huh?