I Want Your Email Address

April 30, 2016 10:56 AM

I Want Your Email Address. Don’t think about it. Just enter your email address into any of the places I’ve provided for you. Then, you can be on your way. I made it extremely easy for you to join my mailing list, and yet you think this is a game. This is not a game. I want your email address! And I want it NOW!
posted by chrisamiller (40 comments total)

hunter2
posted by schmod at 10:57 AM on April 30, 2016 [8 favorites]

wait. shit.
posted by schmod at 10:58 AM on April 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

This is some of the driest satire I've ever seen. Impressive.

(Did not get my email adx though)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:01 AM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

In my mind the author is Grover.
posted by condour75 at 11:04 AM on April 30, 2016 [26 favorites]

This is why there is a Mailinator...
posted by jim in austin at 11:05 AM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was almost tempted to give him a totally bogus address, just to see what happened (especially since I don't have a Facebook account). But only almost.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:06 AM on April 30, 2016

In my mind, the author of this really hangs dong.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:06 AM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I kind of want to make a throwaway email address just so I can see what happens when you give him your email address.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:10 AM on April 30, 2016

You get a confirmation email which doesn't appear to go anywhere. Whatever Facebook thing is done happens via cookies, I think, cos my Facebook had no popup, but I also have all cookies blocked.

I gave my 'real' email which is one I use only for my Facebook account.
posted by robotmachine at 11:12 AM on April 30, 2016

I'm freaked out by how I scrolled more than halfway down the page, the slide-out pop box had the H turn, CUTE UI DESIGN USED MALICIOUSLY. The satire of this is sooooo on point.
posted by yueliang at 11:14 AM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just wait until it follows you home.
posted by OwlBoy at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wonder how many email addresses he's gotten.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:23 AM on April 30, 2016

schmod was that your password? it's showing up as *******
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 11:24 AM on April 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

596, as of yesterday.
posted by Frayed Knot at 11:26 AM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I particularly appreciated the Facebook-targetted advertising. Since I'm careful to browse with Facebook cookies blocked, however, his ad didn't show up in my feed.

So I posted his link on my FB page.

Maybe my FB friends will give him their e-mail addresses.
posted by Doktor Zed at 11:35 AM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is awesome. Props for both social satire and some top-tier HTML wizardry. It's a master class in email entry dialogs. I look forward to the remarketing display ads everywhere I go.
posted by GuyZero at 11:41 AM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Going out of his way to block alternative mailinator domains moves this from the "cute idea, curious where it leads" to the "not curious enough to bother any longer, jerk" category for me.

But then, a website about making money using websites is pretty close to the least interesting thing a website can be used for, if you ask me. Not having people like me on his list will only save him bandwidth costs. In fact, it may be a feature.
posted by eotvos at 11:49 AM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

You know what's brilliant about this? It's actually a quite accurate guide to the most annoying but effective ways to get someone to give you their email addresses.
posted by lunasol at 12:11 PM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I gave my "I want to see what happens so here's an email address I've set up to go straight to archives" email and was impressed that they sent me an authorization email to make sure I really wanted to be on their list. I wonder if I'll ever get another email from them!
posted by lunasol at 12:13 PM on April 30, 2016

Does the page look any different without uBlock in place? I'm curious, but not curious enough to switch it off and find out.
posted by Flexagon at 12:21 PM on April 30, 2016

It's not May yet, chrisamiller, but good job. #keepMefiweird
posted by Night_owl at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I gave them my usual email address, "[e-mail]", and they claimed it was invalid. Nonsense! Lies! Slander! I got it directly from the IETF in the early days of the net! You are not worthy to have anyone's email address.
posted by sfenders at 12:33 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hm, someone already used my usual throwaway address, [e-mail].

I have a carefully crafted backstory for Oren Nairn of Norsk Ostranenie, but no one ever seems to want it.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:39 PM on April 30, 2016 [13 favorites]

" Does the page look any different without uBlock in place? I'm curious, but not curious enough ...."
+1
posted by hank at 12:46 PM on April 30, 2016

Its a good way to collect a list of emails used by people as throwaways and then sell that to people who want to screen them out
posted by fistynuts at 1:03 PM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Unfortunately, I have not been invited to share my phone number: 867-5309. Pro tip: when you're at a store that offers discounts to those holding membership cards, the local area code and that number will usually work, thanks to privacy-valuing folks. Tell 'em Jenny sent you.
posted by carmicha at 1:30 PM on April 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

There is no evil plot, he just wants email addresses.


He said so!
posted by AlexiaSky at 1:30 PM on April 30, 2016

Dear website that I have never been to before now,

Do not ask me to subscribe to you before I even see the content I have come for. I don't know you. Not yet. At some point I may just give you my email address. But not now. Way too soon. Step back, relax. Give it time.

Me
posted by Splunge at 1:56 PM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have entered all of your email addresses. Let me know how that works out.
posted by Justinian at 1:57 PM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

But where do I enter my credit card info?
posted by TedW at 3:03 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Here's the "Privacy" Policy, even though this is America."

http://www.moneylab.co/

moneylab.co

.co

leonardoeyesquint.gif
posted by Blue_Villain at 3:04 PM on April 30, 2016

Give me your email address, give me your credit card, give me your social security number, give me your huddled tired and yearning poor, give me houses for the living and the dead, give me strength, give me land, give me that ass, give me your sacred hand, give me a moment, give me time, and forgive me my gifts.
posted by clockzero at 3:46 PM on April 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

Now give me an A
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:34 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

The thing that makes the click and scroll hijacking and pseudo pop-ups so annoying is how they always make the content jump around as it loads, make the page take several minutes to render, and somehow manage to peg the CPU so that your browser becomes totally unresponsive. This page didn't do that so it was just amusingly charming instead of infuriating like the content that it satirizes.
posted by zixyer at 4:44 PM on April 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

A mid tier fasmail account and a properly configured domain give me so much flexibility to hand out email addresses that I gave him "my" email address.
posted by wotsac at 5:45 PM on April 30, 2016

Is this guy a MeFite? The "Terms" page ends with WHAT THE FUCK MATT?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 6:11 PM on April 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Now give me an A

Here y'go.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:31 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had assumed I wasn't the only one using "[e-mail]" but I didn't expect to actually encounter another here!
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 6:42 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's one of those surprising first year statistics paradadox things. Statistically, chances are there's always someone you share a stock throwaway email address with within 8 comments.
posted by quinndexter at 8:00 PM on April 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you were wondering, the e-mails he's now sending are exactly the sort of pointless shit that you'd expect.
posted by wotsac at 2:41 PM on May 11, 2016 [2 favorites]