How "One Weird Trick" Conquered The Internet

(By Alex Kaufman, Slate.com, July 30, 2013)

So ... do the "1 trick" ads really work?  You’ve seen them.  Peeking out from sidebars, jiggling and wiggling for your attention, popping up where you most expect them: those “One Weird Trick” ads. These crudely drawn Web advertisements promise easy tricks to reduce your belly fat, learn a new language, and boost your credit score by 217 points. They seem like obvious scams, but part of me has always wanted to follow the link. What, I wonder, makes the tricks so weird? How come only one trick (or sometimes "tip"), never more? Why are the illustrations done by small children using MS Paint? I’ve never pursued these questions, though, because a fear of computer viruses and identity theft has always stayed my hand. One curious click, I imagine, and I could wake up hogtied on an oil tanker headed to Nigeria.

Thankfully, Slate has allowed me to slake my curiosity, and yours. They gave me a loaner laptop, a prepaid debit card, and a quest: to investigate these weird tricks and report back to you. I also contacted a bevy of marketing experts to help me parse what I found. The individual tricks themselves are peculiar, but the larger trick—of why this bizarre and omnipresent marketing strategy works—tells us a lot about what makes us click, buy, and believe.  Newly emboldened, I clicked on my first ad, which promised a cure for diabetes. Specifically, I hoped to “discover how 1 weird spice reverses diabetes in 30 short days.” The ad showed a picture of cinnamon buns. Could the spice be... cinnamon? Maybe I would find out. The link brought up a video with no pause button or status bar. A kindly voice began: “Prepare to be shocked.” I prepared myself. As “Lon” spoke, his words flashed simultaneously on the screen, PowerPoint-style. As soon as he started, Lon seemed fixated on convincing me to stay until the end. “This could be the most important video you ever watch,” he promised. “Watch the entire video, as the end will surprise you!”

Every time Lon seemed about to get to the spicy heart of the matter, he’d go off on a tangent. This video wouldn’t stay on the Internet for long, he said. The cure is for people “ready to put down the flaky answers.” Indeed, “if you’re looking for a miracle cure or new age fad, leave this page now.” Lon also took pains to trash the medical establishment. Big Pharma has been lying to you, he said. They profit every time you take their pills, or inject yourself with their needles. But the secret spice Lon discovered can free you of the lies and the needles. You will “look and feel like you were never sick.” Your doctor will confirm your cure, astounded.

What is Lon up to? “People tend to think something is important if it’s secret,” says Michael Norton, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School. “Studies find that we give greater credence to information if we’ve been told it was once ‘classified.’ Ads like this often purport to be the work of one man, telling you something ‘they’ don’t want you to know.” The knocks on Big Pharma not only offered a tempting needle-free fantasy; they also had a whiff of secret knowledge, bolstering the ad’s credibility.

It’s doubtful, though, that Lon has much in the way of insider info. He’s an actor hired by Barton Publishing, a firm based in South Dakota that puts out a wide variety of crankish health literature—there’s nary a foodstuff that isn’t the cure to some ailment in one of Barton’s booklets. Most “one weird trick” ads are hard to trace back to a specific marketing firm with flesh-and-blood employees, but Barton is open about the kind of publishing it does, with pictures and bios of their contributors on its website. (Notably, the first person listed is not a homeopath but a “split tester.”)

The Barton brain trust seemed surprisingly sincere, which I kept in mind as I turned to my next ad. I clicked to learn “the REAL reason why Obama is trying to take your guns away.” You’d think health quackery and gun paranoia would have little in common, but soon I was brought to a page with a self-playing, pauseless video and a male voice urging me to watch to the end. Apparently Obama has signed an executive order authorizing him to institute martial law and “steal your food supply,” but “Matt” has developed “a weird but incredibly effective system” to survive the coming storm.

In the interests of journalism, I also checked out the “1 Weird Secret That Pornstars Use to Get BIG DICKS.” Sure enough, this involved a dude talking at me while words flashed on the screen: “Stay until the end of this video... it will shock you.” But before he spilled the beans on “what’s holding you back from the big penis you deserve,” he needed to regale me with tales of his buddy Kyle, who added 2 inches and improved his confidence with the ladies.

What really puzzled me about this formula—as I sat through video after video, alternately bored and enraged—is that there’s no way to shut the guy up and just buy the dick pills already. The videos were all 15 to 30 minutes long, and you had to sit through the whole thing before you can hand over your credit card. I’d thought the point of all this teasing was to inspire impatience—provoking customers to pay up to end the suspense. I was wrong.

“Research on persuasion shows the more arguments you list in favor of something, regardless of the quality of those arguments, the more that people tend to believe it,” Norton says. “Mainstream ads sometimes use long lists of bullet points—people don’t read them, but it’s persuasive to know there are so many reasons to buy.” OK, but if more is better, then why only one trick? “People want a simple solution that has a ton of support.”

What about all the weirdness? “A word like ‘weird’ is not so negative, and kind of intriguing,” says Oleg Urminsky of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “There’s this foot-in-the-door model. If you lead with a strong, unbelievable claim it may turn people off. But if you start with ‘isn’t this kind of weird?’ it lowers the stakes.” The model also explains why some ads ask you to click on your age first. “Giving your age is low-stakes but it begins the dialogue. The hard sell comes later.”

Poorly drawn graphics are a deliberate choice as well. “People notice when you put something in the space that’s different, even if it’s ugly,” Urminsky says. “This might hurt the brand of established companies, but the companies here have non-existent or negative brand associations, so it may be worth it for the extra attention.”  Plus, “if the ad were too professional, it might undermine the illusion that it’s one man against the system,” Norton says. Slick ads suggest profit-hungry companies, not stay-at-home moms or rogue truth-tellers trying to help the little guy.

There may be another reason for the length and shoddiness of the ads. “The point is not always to get the customer to buy the product,” Urminsky says. “It may be to vet the customer. Long videos can act as a sorting mechanism, a way to ‘qualify your prospects.’ Once you’ve established this is a person who’ll sit through anything, you can contact them by email later and sell them other products.  Those Nigerian prince scams are not very convincing,” he adds, “but they’re meant not to be. If you’re a skeptical person, the scammers want to spend as little time with you as possible. These videos may screen people in a similar way.”

Though “one weird trick” ads may not be aimed at the average consumer, they show how deftly marketers have learned to manipulate our beliefs. There may be little daylight between the temptation of learning a weird trick at the behest of a sketchy mail-order outfit and the provocative headlines of mainstream news outlets like BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, or—indeed!—Slate. The science of grabbing and directing your attention advances each time you click a link on your Facebook feed.

Arguably, this very article has behaved like a one-weird-trick ad in delaying gratification this long. So what does happen when you grit your teeth and watch to the end of the videos? Well, your dick gets bigger with MaleFormulaXL, an herbal blend that runs you $89.95 per auto-renewed bottle. You can survive the Obama-calypse with a booklet on bunker-building and water purification. Eliminate belly fat using the thoroughly disproven extracts of garcinia cambogia and acai. And diabetes—just add cinnamon. The weirdest trick of all, of course, was getting anyone to click in the first place.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/how_one_weird_trick_conquered_the_internet_what_happens_when_you_click_on.html?wpisrc=nl_lunchln

Virginia's Crooked Road

Virginia's Crooked Road: A Warm Welcome to Mountain Music

(By Melanie D.G. Kaplan, Washington Post, October 4, 2009)

I arrive at the Marathon gas station in Stuart, Va., just above the North Carolina border, to find a man eating beans out of a can and a collection of animal heads peering down at an understocked convenience store. I am at my first stop on the Crooked Road: Virginia's Music Heritage Trail - a 250-mile path of music venues in the Blue Ridge and Appalachian regions of southwestern Virginia - and I don't see anything that resembles the jam session I expected.  But soon, a 70-year-old man named G.C., a third-generation musician from town, brings his guitar over to the picnic table outside the store. Then a fiddle shows up, followed by a banjo. One by one, gray-haired men climb out of pickup trucks with their instruments and amble over to the patio, home of the Thursday night State Line Grocery Jam Session. And by the time I leave, two hours later, I've fallen under the spell of mountain music.

It's not the first time. Last year, I joined a friend for my first bluegrass concerts in Washington and was drawn to the music so suddenly that I had barely learned which instrument was the mandolin before I'd bought one. Now, after six months of lessons and calloused fingers, I am bravely, naively joining the Thursday night crew in a corner of Virginia where it seems that everyone plays a "git-tar" or fiddle, and plays it well.

"There's music everywhere here," says Joe Wilson, one of the architects of the Crooked Road, which was established in 2004 to support tourism and economic development in one of Appalachia's distressed areas. Wilson is a folklorist and the longtime director and current chairman of the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Earlier this month, he received a Living Legend award from the Library of Congress. "Americans don't know diddly about their music," he says. Traditional American mountain music came about when the African banjo and European fiddle met in Virginia, he explains. "Appalachian music has been the most accepting music -- whoever you are and wherever you are, you're welcome to play it. It's the sound; it has a joy to it. It's working-folk music."

It's also infectious. Even though I can't keep up with the State Line crew (I should have practiced a few years longer), I want to sit here all night, next to G.C., singing from his songbook, and the banjo player, simultaneously pickin', smokin' and drinkin' coffee. I am in the company of folks who make good music with less effort than they make simple conversation. For them, it's just another Thursday evening, doing what they do. But for me, it's the beginning of a whirlwind trip exploring 188 miles of the Crooked Road and listening to some mighty fine tunes.

The Crooked Road mostly follows Route 58, the longest roadway in the state; this part of it is a two-lane mountain route that passes idyllic farms, moseying cows, sparkling rivers. The trail covers 10 counties, three cities and 19 towns, including Floyd, Galax, Damascus, Abingdon and Bristol along the North Carolina and Tennessee borders, then Norton and Clintwood bordering Kentucky. In every spot, nearly every day of the week, you're bound to find a concert, a festival, a square dance or a jam. Take it slow, and keep both hands on the wheel. The route looks like an intestine on my GPS device, and, as a local says, "The roads are so curvy, you can almost see your taillights 'round the bends." As I leave the jam Thursday night, after 9, G.C. gives me a stern warning about deer on my hour-long mountain drive to a B&B in Floyd. "They'll jump outta nowhere, right in front of your car," he says. "Be careful."

Friday night in Floyd (home to Floyd County's one stoplight), there's no question that I'm in the right spot for music. I show up early at the Floyd Country Store for the Friday Night Jamboree. The store, celebrating its centennial next year, sells everything from Carhartt overalls to sweet potato biscuit mix and still records sales in a steno notebook. The show is held in the back of the store, but when the weather's nice, pockets of music (and some nights, as many as 1,000 people) spill out onto the street. An hour before the first band, always gospel, I find seats saved, some with tap shoes.

Woody Crenshaw, the store's owner, welcomes everyone. "We have two gallons of blueberries picked in Floyd County this week, and we're making fresh blueberry milkshakes!" he announces. After gospel hour, another band takes the stage, and flat-foot dancing, which looks a lot like Irish dance, begins. The crowd is largely "down-home folk," old-time regulars who come every week. But there are also Floyd transplants who have moved here recently for the music and the farming, a handful of students from nearby Virginia Tech and visitors from as far away as Denver and Edinburgh, Scotland.

The next morning, one of Miracle Farm Bed and Breakfast's owners brings breakfast to my cottage door, featuring pears, rhubarb, cape gooseberries, tomatoes and eggs, all from the farm. I set off with my beagle and mandolin traveling west on Route 58, stopping at several towns along the way. My radio's tuned to WBRF (98.1 FM), which plays bluegrass and old country: Merle Haggard, the Stanley Brothers, George Jones. The DJ reads an advertisement for a chain-saw company.

The region boasts a high concentration of luthiers, or stringed-instrument makers. So I stop in Galax, home of the Old Fiddler's Convention, to see one of the best: Jimmy Edmunds. He learned the trade from his dad years ago and recently opened a shop in his wife's garden center. He shows me pieces of guitars in production and one he is making for Kenny Rogers's guitarist. He says he makes about 25 instruments a year and has 100 on order. I tell him where I'm headed, west into the mountains, and he says it's "a few hours and a couple brake pads" away.

That night, I take the Crooked Road past Bristol into the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as Hiltons, Va. It's home to Clinch Mountain and the Carter Family Fold, a large, rustic theater that hosts weekly acoustic-only concerts in the tradition of the original Carter family. At that evening's concert, which is dog-friendly, the concession stand sells dollar sodas and ham biscuits, and folks in the audience trade cowboy boots for dance shoes.

The bluegrass band is terrific, but I'm equally taken by everyone offstage and the friendliness one can encounter in the middle of nowhere. The ticket lady shows me pictures of her dogs, I chat with a few couples I'd seen in Floyd the night before, I get smiles from a little girl dancing with her grandfather, and a volunteer takes time to fill me in, at length, on Carter family history (and lets me sit in a rocking chair that belonged to Johnny Cash, who played his last concert here). Maybe the mountain air is clouding my senses, but I feel as if in no time at all I've been folded into the Crooked Road family. As I head back to my car and mandolin, I pass the volunteer. "It was nice talkin' to you," he says. "Now watch out for the deer."

Drive Time : 11 hours over 3 days; Cost:  $540 (Transportation: $95, lodging: $370, meals: $75)

Getting There:

The easternmost stop on the Crooked Road, Rocky Mount, Va., is about 270 miles from the Beltway. Take Interstate 66 west to I-81 south. Merge onto US-220 south at Exit 143. Follow 220 to Rocky Mount.

 
Where To Stay:

Miracle Farm Bed and Breakfast Spa & Resort, 179 Ida Rose Lane, Floyd, 540-789-2214, http://www.miraclefarmbnb.com. Full vegetarian breakfast with farm-grown ingredients brought to your door. Pet-friendly. Cottages with kitchenette start at $115.

New River Lodging, 307 Stockyard Rd., Galax, 276-236-4022, http://www.newrivertrailcabins.com. Adorable cabins (with names like Chance for Romance) stocked with jacuzzis, gas log fireplaces and gas grills. Rates start at $130 on weekends.

 

Where To Eat & Drink:

Over the Moon Gallery & Cafe, 227 N. Locust St., Floyd, 540-745-4366, http://www.harvestmoonfoods.com/gallery.htm. Wraps and sandwiches from $7.25. Live music Friday to Sunday.

Oddfella's Cantina, 110A N. Locust St., Floyd, 540-745-3463, http://www.oddfellascantina.com. Local and organic food, including "Appalachian Latino" tortilla wraps starting at $8. Live music most nights and some days. Reservations suggested on weekends.

Stringbean Coffee Shop & Shamrock Tea Room, 215 S. Main St., Galax, 276-236-0567, http://www.stringbeancoffeeshop.com. Good coffee and basics for cheap: $2 hot dog and $5.60 BLT. Jam sessions Tuesdays at 7 p.m., and live music Saturdays at 8 p.m.

Harvest Table Restaurant, Meadowview Town Square, Meadowview, 276-944-5142, http://www.meadowviewfarmersguild.com. Farm to fork at its finest. Lunch entrees start at $7; dinner $11.

 

What To Do:

State Line Grocery Jam Session, Patrick County, 276-694-6377, Session starts at 7 p.m.

Floyd Country Store, 206 S. Locust St., Floyd, 540-745-4563, http://www.floydcountrystore.com. Friday Night Jamboree features three bands, starting at 6:30 p.m., $4. Sunday Bluegrass/Mountain Music Jam at 2 p.m., free.

Blue Ridge Backroads Show, Live at the Rex Theater, 113 E. Grayson St., Galax, 276-238-8130, http://www.rextheatergalax.com. Fridays at 8 p.m., broadcast live on WBRF(98.1 FM). Admission is free, but donations are requested.

Leaf & String, 401 S. Main St., Galax, 276-236-7702, http://www.edmondsguitars.com, http://www.leafandstring.com. Visit luthier Jimmy Edmunds's workshop and wife Debbie's garden shop. Test instruments, and if you're lucky, catch an impromptu jam in the store.

Carter Family Fold, AP Carter Highway, Hiltons, 276-386-6054, http://www.carterfamilyfold.org. Family-oriented acoustic-only music shows (and Appalachian-style dancing) Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.

For More Information: http://www.crookedroad.org

 

College101: Freshman Year Bucket List

(By Jenna Johnson, Washington Post, August 8, 2011)

Last week I shared a list of tips for surviving freshman year and asked you to share your tips for incoming freshmen in the comments section, on Twitter using the hashtag #College101, my Facebook page and during an online chat.  The response was overwhelming. I combed through hundreds of tips and edited them into this 50-item “bucket list.” I suggest that you print it out, tape it to the back of your closet door and cross things off as you do them.

1) “Make a resolution to meet one new person each day your first two months there,” tweeted @pgersty.

2) Invest in shower shoes, a caddy that won’t fill with water and a heavy-duty robe. (Suggested by @washingtonpost and a bunch of other tweeters.)

3) Arrive at your dorm as early as possible on move-in day, said Chris Pollack, a George Washington University senior, during the chat. As soon as your stuff is unloaded and you have sent your parents on their way, volunteer to help your new neighbors haul in their duffel bags, televisions and mini-fridges. This is a great way to make friends.

4) Join an intramural or club sports team. These teams are booming with popularity on many campuses, so sign up as soon as possible to ensure you get a spot.

5) Sample a local delicacy. Like crabs in Maryland, baked ham in Virginia, half-smokes in the District, peaches in Georgia, barbecue in Kansas City — you get the idea.

6) Leave your dorm room door open whenever you are there. “It makes it easier to meet people on your floor,” tweeted Emily Cahn, a.k.a. @ec2011, a recent college grad who works at The Post.

7) Explore campus — and not just the buildings where you have classes. Spend an entire afternoon wandering, finding cool, out-of-the-way spots and becoming enough of an expert that you could help your clueless roommate find her/his classes at the last minute.

8) And explore your college town. Learn the bus route, find a funky coffee shop, shop at the farmers’ market and locate the best spots for late-night food. (Also find the closest emergency room and 24-hour pharmacy, just in case.)

9) Enjoy your student ID. Sure, it won’t get you into bars if you are under 21, but it can save you so much money on so many things: student rates on movie, theater or concert tickets, 15 percent off full-price merchandise at J. Crew, stand-by tickets on Air Tran flights, and a bunch of other things.

10) Attend a campus sporting event. (Bonus points for rooting on a team that gets less attention than football or basketball.)

11) Join a club. Any club. If you can’t find a club that meets your interests, than create one.

12) Visit the career center. If you think you know what you want to do with your life, learn what you need to do now to get an internship next summer or during your sophomore year. If you are still searching for a dream career, ask one of the counselors or advisers for assistance.

13) Get to know an upperclass student, such as your resident assistant, teaching assistant, student organization member, coworker or a classmate. Don’t hesitate to ask that person questions, check in throughout the year and draw inspiration from the fact that he/she made it through freshman year alive. (Suggested by food blogger Laura Kumin, a.k.a. @MotherWouldKnow.)

14) Rush a sorority or fraternity.

15) Volunteer in the community near campus. Many schools now have service offices or clubs that can help you find an opportunity.

16) Take charge and organize some sort of outing for everyone on your floor. It could be dinner in the dining hall, opening night of a movie or a Sunday afternoon hike.

17) Visit the library. Seriously. Your professor will be impressed to see cited sources that aren’t attached to a URL.

18) Play some sort of sport on the quad. Some ideas: ultimate Frisbee, touch football, soccer, hacky sack, tag or quidditch.

19) Attend a lecture, concert or cultural event on campus that’s not required for class.

20) After the drop date, make a friend in each class, tweeted @bluecykel. That way, if you have to miss a class, you have someone who can share what happened — and vice versa.

21) “Resist the free water bottle and credit card that it comes with,” tweeted @akilbello.

22) Embrace campus as your new home. “Don't go home until fall break. You should really try to get adjusted before going home. No weekend trips early,” tweeted @EGMerritt.

23) Mix up your study habits. If you always study in a quiet room, try a bustling coffee shop. If you always type your notes on a laptop, try an old-school notebook for one class. If you rely on study groups, try studying alone. You might discover new things about yourself and the way you learn.

24) Raise your hand and ask a question. In every single class. At least once.

25) Introduce yourself to someone sitting alone in the dining hall or in your first-period class. Who knows? That lonely person could be your new BFF.

26) Stay healthy. If you start to feel sick, eat healthy foods, get lots of sleep and visit the health center.

27) “Don't forget to call home every now and then!” tweeted @thecadvantage.

28) “[A]lthough this is a prestigious campus bustling with some of the world's greatest minds . . . we are NOT in a bubble. Please lock your doors (room & vehicle if you have one). Do NOT leave ANYTHING unattended. NEVER open your door for strangers. Take time to prevent crime.” — Commenter on the Tufts University Facebook page.

29) Buy a bike and a heavy-duty lock.

30) Try as hard as you can to earn a high GPA your first semester. Your junior and senior self will thank you.

31) “Be careful of what you post online — it only seems anonymous,” another online commenter wrote.

32) “The transition from high school to college might be harder than the actual classes. Take an easy load in your first semester to make sure you get used to it without the pressure of difficult classes. You can always make it up in sophomore year,” online commenter DCCubefarm wrote.

33) Get locked out of your dorm room. It’s going to happen. But try not to make it a regular thing, or you will annoy the housing staff.   — eabgarnet

34) Call home at least once. (Bonus points for a Skype session.)

35) If you plan to have sex, stock up on condoms so you will be prepared to be safe. You can usually find them for free at the campus health center. Sexually transmitted infections can quickly spread through a college campus, so protect yourself.

36) Become the person who says something if another person is in danger. Never assume that someone else will take action — because when everyone makes that assumption, nothing happens. Don’t try to handle these problems alone. Call 911, your RA, an administrator or your parents. In most situations, your identity can be concealed — and even if it’s not, it’s the right thing to do. (This tip was included on a list of advice I wrote for the WP Magazine.)

37) Learn how to do your laundry.

38) “[I]f you party and drink every night, or even just binge drink most nights, congrats! You will graduate an alcoholic! Just because it’s college doesn’t mean you are immune from developing a bad habit — and just because you graduate from college doesn’t mean you can turn off the tap after 4 years of constant drinking. You won't be able to — you will be on your way to a lifetime of hard drinking. So don't do it!” wrote online commenter davetheman.

39) Go on a date. A real, true date that involves planning ahead and hours of talking to each other.

40) Read your student newspaper every single day that it’s published. Not only will you learn more about your college or university, you will also stay on top of upcoming concerts and local events.

41) “Set one-year, four-year and ten-year goals and align your decisions with attaining those goals,” wrote online commenter topwriter.

42) Make time to exercise. Go for a long walk, visit the gym, go swimming, take a yoga class, do anything. “[T]hey aren’t kidding about the Freshmen 10 — it can actually be more than that — and it helps with the stressful situations,” wrote online commenter annwhite1, who also suggests taking gym classes for academic credit.

43) Take a class that has nothing to do with your major but sounds interesting.

44) Learn to be invisible. When it gets late at night, you need to learn how to work without disrupting your sleeping roommate or fellow studying dorm mates. Get your own desk lamp so you don’t rely on the overhead light, and invest in some quality headphones. Along those lines, @trove tweeted: “Earplugs. Muted roommates = best roommates.”

45) Visit someone else’s home or invite them to visit yours during fall or winter break. (Bonus points if your visitor is an international student.)

46) Delete some “friends” on Facebook. Maybe it’s people you met at orientation and then never saw again. Maybe it’s a high school classmate you never really liked. Narrowing your definition of friendship will help you focus on real friends who matter most.

47) “Get to know at least one of your professors well. Visit him or her during office hours even when you don’t have any particular issues and talk about the course, the news, or whatever is on your mind. Having one go-to professor will help you enormously when situations do arise. And a lot of times professors will bring you in to their research efforts or work with you on other projects.” — Advice submitted by a reader during the chat.

48) Visit your high school friends at their campuses, suggested online commenter das0213. This is an opportunity to visit other parts of the country and meet people from different backgrounds.

49) “Best way to ensure success at college? Show up to all your classes. Yes, all of them,” tweeted @kevfor84.

50) Have fun. You are only a college freshman once. Enjoy the experience. Good luck!

Jeez — that’s a lot of advice. But if you have even more, please share it in the comments section below, on Twitter using the hashtag #College101 or on the Campus Overload Facebook page.