Pop Ups In On-Line Articles

‘People Are Less Informed Today Than They Ever Have Been!’ said the headline of an article I tried to read before two ads and four videos got in the way. Two ads and four videos that had nothing to do with the article I was trying to read. You cannot read an article online without have to press X on about seven things. A recipe, a picture of a new rappers teeth, the stats of all the left turns made by every bus driver in San Francisco, stuff that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the article.

The way to get away from ads years ago was to read. You didn’t want to watch an episode of ‘Cops’ and have to see Cheez Whiz ads? Pick up ‘Cops: The Book’ and read about those shirtless backyard chases without having to see melted down plastic dyed orange be twirled in a jar. ‘Cops: The Book’ had no pop up ads. Just pop up man drunkingly tumbling through a bush. It wasn’t an assault on the senses. It was a jaunt through fun times.

Now to get around pop ups in articles, you have to subscribe to the paper of the article you’d like to read. Which how do they get you to do that? Another pop up. Try to read an article, get a bit into, you’re finding out that there is a dangerous cannibal in your city who is attacking people who wear…

‘SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY GUT PUNCH TO CONITUNE READING!’

Are you wearing what attracts the cannibal? Higher chance you’ll be eaten in rain boots or that Mets hat? Will cost you a dollar a week to find out. And it’s not as if that is a lot of money, but the subscription is the thing. Why do we have to subscribe to the whole thing? You can just buy A paper. You subscribed to the paper years ago if you didn’t want to put on your banana slippers and walk down to ‘Chucks Feed And Fill’. But if you DID want to show off those chiquita feet you could buy ONE paper. Just one. No subscriptions to anything. Why can’t this be done with articles? Let me buy this one I want to read for a penny, or ten cents or whatever. I don’t want to subscribe to everything here. Don’t need horoscopes or the editorial or the ‘Janices Love Hostel’ section. I want THIS article. The one about the cannibal guy eating people wearing certain things because I’m about to walk out the door in rain boots AND a Mets hat and will I be eaten?!

Or the paper WILL let you finish the cannibal article (guy eats people in plaid), and they’ll even let you finish that one about the new Air Fryer luggage (‘Fry While You Fly!’), but then you go back to read ANYTHING else, and there is another pop up letting you know you’ve reached your limit. You are allowed to read a certain amount of articles, which still have pop ups in them, before this ‘Subscribe’ pop up pops up. The site lets you know that you read two articles. They gave you a taste. NOW they want that twelve cents a day before you can have anything else. Fully 80’s street dealered you. Now? If you can’t even close the subscribe pop up to be given a video pop up to interrupt the article.

There were no videos playing in a newspaper. A video. A video! In the middle of an article that is for reading. Just a full movie starts to play in the center of it. Usually before that video starts playing it has an ad! An ad that plays before the video that you don’t want to see and have to close as is. Close the ad to close the video to finally be able to read that article about the health benefits of not taking your toaster into the tub with you. And there are a LOT of ads to videos to ads to close before you can know whether or not heating up that bagel while you bathe is a good idea.

Some articles are not even articles. You click on a headline, and it takes you RIGHT to a video. A video of a news piece or segment. Nothing to read. It’s an article to watch. Before the video article? An ad. During the video article? Pop ups about things not related to video article. Trying to read and now you’re watching something. When you open the book Jurassic Park it doesn’t start playing the movie. It should play the soundtrack, though.

People would have been less informed years ago as well if every time they went to read the newspaper or a book someone came up and starting singing a jingle in their face, or pushed a TV in between them and their paper, or interrupted to tell them that for just a dollar a month they could read this book as much as they wanted.

‘Liked chapter 2? Well you’ll LOVE what else the book has to offer! Just pay me once a quarter and you can fini…’

‘Will you get the hell out of my face, Steve!’

Please know I tried to put a ton of pop ups in this but sadly, Cheez Whiz is scared to run ads here.

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Self help books and articles.

Self Help books and articles about self help are running rampant right now. People are sending them around. People are reposting them everywhere. Articles that tell us how to be these great, rich, super hero's that are only seen with the hottest people, have the biggest bank accounts, the best hair and bodies, and are more productive than ants. Batman. They are telling us to be Batman.

"I just read this book read this book about time management. I need to buy a cape."

"What? Why?"

"SWEAR TO ME!..."

"... You're scaring me."

Do these help?  

First,  once you read one, you are going to read more. They become addicting. You read one book about how great and powerful you are going to be, why the hell would you not read another? It's a rush. People read the bible over and over again for god sake. Those are the same stories! When it's a self help book or article about your own personal growth, there can never be enough. Not the same with other type of self help books. If you need to fix something, and you read a book or article and figure out how to do it, that's it. 

"Alright, I gotta fix this chair. This book says, you just hammer the leg back in. Hmmm. Alright, well that felt great! Let's see what THIS book has to say about it. Woa! Same thing! God, I'm feeling great! I'm gonna be reading these all day! Wish I had this chair to sit in and read, but I'm feeling amazing!"

Most of these articles and books say the same things. They seem to be written by people who have read a bunch of self help literature themselves and just copied them. One will say, 'Be yourself', another will say 'Don't copy others'. Interesting. Are we supposed to believe those are different statements? 

"Alright, first things first. You want to be a millionaire? Don't use credit cards."

"Huh? Don't listen to that guy. You want to be a millionaire? Only pay cash."

"Don't use credit cards!"

"Only use cash!"

"... Guys, I think I got the answer. Thank you for both screaming it at me. Cash it is."

"Damn! He's not taking my advice of no credit cards!"

Most of the self help books are just a compilation of the list articles. Some maniac saw all of these and put his own spin on them. A lot of times it's a person who saw the list articles, and didn't think they were tough enough, or 'real' enough. So they took it upon themselves to make them more to the point. 

"Here's how you become great.

1. Stop being a loser.

2. Stop hanging out with losers.

3. You're mom's a loser. Get away from her.

4. Get up earlier.

That's it, stupid. You can follow that, you'll be a hero like me. A guy who wrote down ways to call you a failure and make you buy this book which makes me rich, thus, making ME a winner. You're a loser. I shouldn't even let you buy my book."

'Get up earlier' is a common theme in the articles and books. It's an interesting one. It only works for people who have schedules that don't make them be up late at night. Just about all of these tell you to get up earlier.

'You want to drive a Porsche and get blown? You think a woman is going to want to put your shrivel'd rod in her mouth when you're getting up at 8:30 in the morning? PLEASE. 8:30 doesn't turn hot, Russian blow job machines on. 4 am does."

You can't get up at four if you're going to bed at 3. Just not happening. What if you have a job where you work at night? You're just always going to fail? There's no hope for you?

"This book is interesting. It's telling me to get up at the same time I'm coming home from my night shift job. Well. No sleep for me if I want to get this headband business off the ground. My heart might stop, but not before people hear about my headband stand! 'Need a headband? No need to do a handstand, we're easy to find!' God that's a bad slogan. I need sleep."

At some point too, you'll probably be spending more time reading articles and books about being great and more productive than actually putting time into being more productive and great. But you'll THINK you're being productive and great. Be the same as reading muscle magazines and thinking that'll make you bigger on it's own.

"You going to the gym today?"

"Don't have to. I'm reading this magazine. 'Giant Calves and Me'. It's great! Says to do this many squats, this many crunches if you want to look like this complete animal on the cover. Jesus, I'm sweating just talking about it! Go to the gym? Come on, man. I got all the work out I need right here. Yo, can you spot me while I read this paragraph?"

A lot of these things too are just quotes from other people. Quotes. From people who are not writing this book or article! 

"Hey, guys. Here's a book that will tell you how to be great. Is it full of me telling you how to be great? Nope. Not me. Tons of other great people. Lot's of em. Get it. I'm an author!"

Can you do that? Is that an author? 

"Hey. I found a way to make money. I'm going to compile quotes from great people and sell them."

"Interesting. Can you do that? What have you done?"

"I put them all together. Geez. That's not worth $29.95?"

These articles are getting pretty insane. Pretty much a never ending list of ways to be. People really love posting these.

"Guys! Check out this article. Four hundred and fifty six ways that you can walk taller! It falls apart from one hundred and thirty seven to two hundred and four, but then it picks right back up!"

Didn't you yesterday have an update about walking into a door? How you smashed into it and dropped your coffee on your kid? One day later people are supposed to look to you for life advice? 

"Hmmm. Last update from this guy was that he fell out of of a moving car, but THIS one, he says 'Life opens up to those who open themselves up.' Well, I'm sold. I'm coming back here tomorrow for more advice!"

Is my writing about self help books in such a way some sort of self help article on it's own? Can we all write self help? I think the answer is yes to both. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh