Archive for the 'Posers' Category

Last week, Mark Cuban wrote a post about a theory to undermine Google’s Search. For those of you who don’t know, Mark is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, a National Basketball Association (NBA) team, and Chairman of HDNet. Cuban is also known for selling his venture, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.9 billion in stock.

Enough about Cuban. What’s his theory? You’ll have to read it on his blog, BlogMaverick.com, to find out. In my opinion, this isn’t enough to beat Google. Cuban’s argument is a bit idealistic and not practical. I wonder if he truly understands this market.

This story is something I recently stumbled across and was originally reported in the Daily Mail..  It reminds me of the Lonely Girl YouTube videos except now clever marketing professionals are using Facebook.

Here’s an excerpt:

The digital camera blonde who attracted thousands of admirers on Facebook has been exposed – she is nothing more than a pretty advert for a porn site.

Images of the mystery blonde were posted on the internet – supposedly in a bid to trace the owner of a camera lost on holiday.

Read on for the full scoop.

by Mike Fennelly

Now that I’ve recovered from the trip to Las Vegas, and mugged enough old ladies to pay my rent for yet another month, it’s time to write again. Now, I was originally excited when I came back here and saw that we had *gasp* FIFTY SIX comments awaiting moderation! I got considerably less excited when I noticed that 47 of these comments were offering mortgage refinancing, three were offering herbal viagra, and the remaining six were offering… well… “hot slut” was the term used. Enough said about that, at least in a public forum.
Now, Mr. Spammer, you may have noticed the words “awaiting moderation” up there in that first paragraph, nestled somewhere betweek “pay my rent” and “considerably less excited”. Look hard, I know you’ll find them. What that means to you is that nobody but Brion or myself is ever going to see your salacious come-ons, and it’s going to have to be one hell of a hot slut offering me a refinanced mortgage to get me to click on that link.

So, Mr. Demonstrative, or Miss Lumbar Q. Jellyfish, or Mme. Umber N. Corpulent, if you would like to offer PopDigerati wads of small, unmarked, non-sequential bills, we may ponder putting your ads up on the site, but we’re more likely to take your money back to Vegas with us, and laugh at you while we drop it all on Red.

Anyway, I was going somewhere with this, and that somewhere was the Nigerian 419 scam, which I’ll add to our “Posers” category. I’m sure we’ve all received at least 50 or 60 of these over the years, but if you haven’t, here’s a sample : (keep reading after the jump)
Read the rest of this entry »

by Brion Lau

Well, we’re back from the ritual pilgrimage to Sin City. Sadly, we didn’t find any new talent to write about during that trip. However, Mike did manage to get a picture with magicians Penn & Teller. Since this isn’t really about our trip, I’m going to dig into my reserve of backlogged articles I’ve been meaning to write.

If you’re like me then you’ve probably missed the hoopla about Jessica Rose (aka Lonely Girl 15 or Bree). A few months ago, Lonely Girl 15 took Youtube by storm by posting her video diary online of relatively mundane details of her teenage life. These video blogs so enthralled viewers that millions followed the saga of this online American “teenage celebrity”.

Well, the story gets better. In Sept., Lonely Girl 15 was exposed and, yes, she’s a fake. Lonely Girl 15 is actually nineteen year old aspiring actress, Jessica Rose, a New Zealander now living in Los Angeles. Check out the full news story as it was aired a few months ago:

Since being exposed, the creators have moved the fleeting popularity to a dedicated site called Lonelygirl15.com. In addition, Rose was recently hired by the United Nations to fight poverty through an online anti-poverty video. Rose will be playing her infamous lonelyGirl15 role as she sits by herself in her bedroom talking to the camera. This time, however, she will be talking about the antipoverty cause rather than her boyfriend troubles.

Note: If you spend time on the new Lonelygirl15 website, you might want to read their recent announcement about Operation Aphid, the official alternate reality game (ARG) of Lonelygirl.

In my opinion, this only rates as a one hit wonder–not truly pop digerati caliber but definitely entertaining enough to help get through the day.

by Mike Fennelly

(note : the image server here seems to have issues right now – if this turns out to look all wacky and stuff, one of the crack team of PopDigerati IT ninjas that live in my closet will fix it pronto. Or when I wake up tomorrow morning. One of the two.)

Oh boy. I don’t even know where to start with this dude. Let’s just give a brief chronology, and turn this into a bit of a photo essay.

1) Wannabe eBay scammer sells non-functional laptop to what he thinks is an unsuspecting schmuck.

2)Unsuspecting schmuck gets laptop, notices that it’s not as advertised in the ad, then notices it flat out doesn’t work. He emails scammer and says “Dude. Money back. Now.”

3) Wanna-be Scammer. who we now know goes by the name Amir Massoud Tofangsazan, says “Oh. Sorry. I Moved to Dubai. and by the way I have no intention of ever paying you back.”

4) Unsuspecting Schmuck gets pissed. Unsuspecting Schmuck gets even. Unsuspecting Schmuck gets a website.
5) What Scammer thought was an unsuspecting schmuck turned out to be a pretty smart guy, who knew how to do things like…oh…take hard drives out of computers, see what was contained on them, and post the would-be scammers personal information, pictures, wacky-ass porn, and (best of all) all the pictures the would-be scammer had attempted to take up women’s skirts on the train.

a la :

If you want to see the porn, you’ll just have to head over to The Broken Laptop I Sold On Ebay, and learn more by checking out this total d-bag on Wikipedia.

Until next time, Amir Massoud Tofangsazan, we at PopDigerati Salute you, for keeping us entertained when we should have been working. Oh, and it really works better if you put a little camera on your shoe. At least until you get arrested.

Okay, I can’t resist. One more picture – best comment captioning this one gets a shiny brand new penny courtesy of your friends at PopDigerati!

by Mike Fennelly

Okay – The last thing I want to do is join the celebrity blogosphere, but I got this from a friend fresh off the wire, and I figured if Mehir is still looking for someone to kiss, he could do worse, eh?

“Spears filed legal papers today in Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing “irreconcilable differences.” In her petition, Spears asks for both legal and physical custody of the couple’s two children, one-year old Sean Preston and two-month old Jayden James, with Federline getting reasonable visitation rights.”

This is your chance, Mehir. We’ve already established beyond any reasonable doubt that Britney’s standards are… how you say? Lax. This is your time to swoop in with champagne and roses, or whatever a Turkish Stallion such as yourself would use to make the romancing with your woman, and give up on that silly Borat lawsuit. If you really want to eclipse Borat’s fame, there’s only one thing you can do.

Marry Britney.

I’m going to call on all of you, PopDigerati’s loyal readership, to open up your rolodexes, search your contact lists, and show the tenacity of Brian Herzlinger.

We can…nay, we MUST make this love connection happen.

So, Mehir – If you’re reading this, you’d better get your best leisure suit on and douse yourself in the finest Turkish cologne, before our pal Jonny the Monkey gets to her. Hey, she married K-Fed, who’s to say that a monkey is beneath her?

by Mike Fennelly

Let us sing of Alexey Vayner – investment banker wannabe, Kung Fu grandmaster, ballroom dancer, and I would assume able to leap buildings in a single bound without spilling a single drop of his half caf no fat latte. At least that’s what he says. Our first entry into the “Posers” category submitted this video along with his resume for investment banking jobs in NYC. Hilarity ensued.

Watch the video below, and get the rest of the story here

Do you have anyone that can top this? Let us know! That comments section doesn’t fill itself, you know.