Adults are Stupid on the Internet

By Kables

8 Sep

This has been done before, but never on this order of magnitude. A local Seattle guy put a fake ad up in the casual encounters section of Craig’s List, and then posted the results on Encyclopedia Dramatica (WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK).

Waxy covers the whole embarassing, life-damaging debacle:

Instantly, commenters on the LiveJournal thread started identifying the men. Dissenters emailed the guys to let them know they were scammed. Several of them were married, which has led to what will likely be the first of many separations. One couple in an open marriage begged that their information be removed, as their religious family and friends weren’t aware of their lifestyle. Another spotted a fellow Microsoft employee, based on their e-mail address. And it’s really just the beginning, since the major search engines haven’t indexed these pages yet. After that, who knows? Divorces, firings, lawsuits, and the assorted hell that come from having your personal sex life listed as the first search result for your name.

Kids, I know this goes without saying, but be smart. Please. For the children.

Filed under: Craig's List, Sex, Time Wasters

3 Responses for "Adults are Stupid on the Internet"

Brenda September 8th, 2006 at 11:09 am 1
Thanks for pointing this one out, KB. I am fascinated by “trust” and “information” and this really shows how people are too readily “trusting” the online world. The Internet feeds our shadow sides, but can so easily pop those shadows out into the big bright open.

The favorite Internet saying for so long was, “On the Internet no one knows you’re a dog” — I think we’ve realized that that just ain’t true. They know you’re a dog, what kind of dog food you prefer, and where you like to get your scratches.
D M September 8th, 2006 at 11:32 am 2
Wow. Adults are stupid. And also: mean.

It’s a hard way to learn a lesson. Hope I’m able to avoid taking a paddlin’ like that.

But lessons must be learned, no doubt.
Chris September 11th, 2006 at 4:01 pm 3
I’m not surprised to hear that men are engaging in risky behavior in order to get laid. I’m more surprised when someone chooses to be so flamboyantly and ostentatiously cruel. Not only did this guy inflict loads of unnecessary harm on other people, but he did it openly, as though he were proud of his behavior.