Final+Write-up

Anyone know a good bongsmith? http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/mss/trd/2708257842.html

Through research and experience, we realize the best memes and viral content on the internet are unintentional. We took our time looking at successful memes repositories such as Know Your Meme, and Meme Generator, but it was on Best of Craigslist that we found a goldmine of possibilities. After sharing a good laugh looking through these previous (and for the most part, real) ads, we attempted to emulate this style for our project. We were not particularly ambitious, there were no plans on creating the next big web phenomenon. A bit of simple trolling and hoping for a good laugh; and this mindset led us to think simple, again utilizing the concept of ‘amplification through simplification’. Our aim was to capture a universal experience shared by millions of internet users throughout the world. If we could do that and showcase it humorously enough, the citizens of the internet will probably do the rest for us. The art of trolling is much more than acting like an insipid asshole on the internet, it involves anticipating how others might react to what we create. The online classified ads medium covers a wide range of audiences: eccentric characters with odd requests, lonely individuals seeking the company of the opposite sex, or simply bored college students reading for a good laugh. Anticipating how these people would react proved to be challenging, and amplification through simplification proved to work in our favour.

Three ads were posted ‘Ghost trapped in a box’ for sale on eBay ‘I will tell your kids santa doesn’t exist’ on Craigslist, and ‘Bong-smith Apprentice’ on Kijiji (details listed in our presentation) The Bong-smith apprentice ad was met with some success, We further seeded the ad on a skateboarding forum, as skaters are known to be celebrated bong-afficinados and accomplished craftsmen. This was met with with a decent amount of lulz, but nothing huge. We repeated this process with a martial arts forum, as the format of the ad spoofs the 1980s cult movie 'The Karate Kid' where Daniel-san performs menial task for Mr. Miyagi while receiving karate instructions-- like waxing his car, building his deck, and paint his fence. This was met with a bit of lull as well, but again, nothing huge.

In hindsight, it might've worked better if we took up the persona of an obnoxious noob when seeding our content on forums, as people on almost all online message boards take great pleasure in tormenting obnoxious noobs for sport.

The eBay ad seemed to show more success over the others. It had spread from here in Canada to the US, then in Ireland and the UK area. This was because of three possible reasons.


 * 1) eBay's Platform connects globally. Unlike eBay, Kijiji and Craigslist require you to post your ad associated with a restricted area. For example if you like in Marham, you may want to post your ad within the 'GTA' (As one of he option Kijiji gives you).
 * 2) The number of ads that are posted on Kijiji and Craigslist are a lot more than those that are posted on eBay. Kijiji and Craigslist don't require the participant to have an account to make the ads. Also, these are free online classifieds. eBay requires you to have an account to post an ad and you must link some sore of payment to that eBay account- whether that would be PayPal or a Credit card. eBay does not charge you to post an with a basic description, one photo, and a basic auction style. They will charge you if you require more photo space and have a larger asking price. Once the action ends, eBay takes a small percentage of what you made off your action. The credibility of an eBay is much more trusted than those of a free classifieds site because of the time and money that one must devote to selling their desired item.
 * 3) We were lucky with our timing, the ad was posted right after Halloween, giving it more credibility.

This exercise allowed us to experience the process of creating web content and appealing to the internet audience. Our trolling skills saw some practice, and we saw that it was good. It is also worth noting some of the most popular memes on the web today were not immediately discovered after they appeared on the internet. As to anything conclusive about the internet, we can only say waiting and seeing is the best tactic.