True.scam: New Content, Old News...
By Scott Cunning
I was cruising my own archives yesterday, and what surprised me most was the anger.
Anger is not, had you asked me any time in the past nine months, how I would have characterized that weird little dateblog I used to write. But looking back now, it seems anger is what powered it. The angry posts had something to them the others didn't--a spark, a daring, and (often) a length and depth I couldn't conjure.
So, what brings me back?
[I hope you can answer that, as I've been telegraphing since the 17th word...]
I'm angry.
Been messing around with MySpace lately (which, frankly, should be a cue to social science researchers that this "social networking site" phenomenon is for real, when the web-retarded like me start signing up), and I have found, to my complete and utter annoyance, that my old arch-foe True.com is at it again.
For you see, every time I log out of MySpace--by some curse of the Internet AdGods, Literally. Every. Single. Time.--I'm faced with True's latest False advertising. To wit:
How on earth is that false advertising, you ask?
It's simple (breathtakingly simple, in fact): That girl does not exist.
Oh, I'm quite sure they're using a real photograph of a real person. And certainly, I will grudgingly allow the faint, outer-bounds possibility that she may have even been a true True customer before she was selected as a model. What I will not allow into the argument is the idea that this ad represents, namely:
That a girl who looks like that is registered on True.com, that she lives in your area, and that she would have anything romantic to do with you IF you are not already finding and able to date such girls in the real world.
Oh, sure, this is a women's issue, too. She may also represent an unfair and unattainable ideal or a false, commercially-generated idea of beauty, sexuality, femininity, or blah blah blah. Yeah, and men are looking at the all the wrong the things, and have their priorities screwed up. All, to a mind-numbingly irrelevant degree, true; however, it doesn't follow from those truths that the poor guys who sign up for True deserve to have their expectations manipulated, their dreams exploited, and their bank accounts drained chasing after this fantasy. For that matter, getting back to the women, I'll note that the hordes of women among True.com's "8 million singles" who don't--to put it delicately--quite live up to this ad are going to have an even harder time attracting one of the aforementioned guys.
Advertisements like this one are a lie--a bald-faced lie, a lie of images that play on the hopes of the dateless and desperate. They are anything but True, and the people who put the campaign know that...and they know better. But they also know how much less money they would make if they had to advertise what you're really likely to find on their site (particularly if you don't live in one of the twenty biggest cities in the U.S.) (can't honestly claim to be rich) (aren't actually a model or rock star) (and/or don't have a twelve-inch penis). Or, worse, if they continued advertising in the current fashion, but were only paid for results.
So, what's the scoop that brought Scott Cunning back to blogging? Old news, I'm afraid:
The online dating industry is still full of shit.
Filed under true.com, advertising, online dating, desperation, misleading ads, predatory advertising, dating, myspace, anger, and (just to be safe) blogging.
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