Commercials make claims, it’s what they do. “Make your hair shinier.” “Make your hair less shiny.” “Lose the weight.” “Gain the weight.” “Sleep better.” And on and on. But with all the noise does it mean anything
anymore? Do we care if four of five
doctors say anything? What if the four doctors
got C’s through school and slept through half their residency and the last one
is House? I’m sticking with House. But there are laws that deal with truth in
advertising. Laws meant to prevent
purely false claims from misleading you for profit. There are some loopholes and idiosyncrasies
that allow some bad advertising get through.
But the intent is to get rid of purely spurious claims. Spurious means apocryphal if you didn’t
know. Apocryphal means I’m being a word
whore instead of just saying deceitful
or dubious in regards to authenticity.
The point I’m eventually grasping towards is there is line, albeit a
hazy and wide one, which one side is acceptable behavior to boast about your
product and then the other side is filled with very bad marketing people who
don’t like to tell the truth.
This leads me to online dating sites. I’ve never used one but I know a lot of
people who have. Dating sites are the
bane of eager nosy matchmakers everywhere stealing your ‘gossipy let’s
introduce everybody to everybody’ friend’s thunder. They represent, I think and kindly don’t
quote me, about one fifth of all new relationships. That’s a whole lot of people. There are ton of sites out there. There a religious oriented ones like
Christian Mingle or J Date and a whole bunch of not so specific ones. I don’t really need to utilize this service
so I’m not sure how far down the rabbit hole it goes with specificity but this
the internet I’m sure there is a geek site, various sexuality sites, and
something’s that are probably illegal in several states/countries dating sites.
There are quite a few problems with online dating sites like a few
actively screen out homosexuals. I know
a person who tested this by answering all questions truthfully save for orientation
and was rejected with no reason given.
Obviously this requires further investigation to claim as true but it
isn’t the best of indicators. The newest
trouble facing dating sites is this. They’re
full of shit. That’s the scientific
version in a nut shell. No really.
So you’d think these sites employee social scientists. Well they do.
But you’d think these guys might agree on proper metrics. Not so much.
You’d think they might agree on process a wee bit. Not even close.
“ “If you're gonna make scientific claims, act like a scientist.
Or don't make scientific claims," UCLA social psychology professor
Benjamin Karney says.”
And yes the link even has the word bullshit in it. This make me happy.
So it seems academia is divided here. By academia I mean some Professors at UCLA
are having a hissy fit over eharmony (one of them works there you see). One of them states, and I am generalizing
here, that eharmony doesn’t really have proper methodology for matching
people. It’s smoke and mirrors. So you aren’t getting matched on
compatibility you’re getting matched by chance.
Chance may be romantic but chance isn’t what those commercials say. They act like there is this magical formula for
human interaction they’ve cracked. The
love masters poured their thoughts into
cyberspace, man I hope that’s what they were pouring, to help your love life. Awfully nice of them. Except for the, you know, bullshit part it
seems.
So while meeting someone on the internet might be a great way to
find people don’t expect it be the way to match yourself mathematically. But if they don’t have a proper system or
even at least a reall good attempt at one is still fair for them to advertise
saying you’ll find your soul mate. Is
that now in the realm of illegal claims with no backup.
My website claims to increase its members sex life exponentially
though a specific algorithm of carefully matching, well not really carefully
matching just throwing a dart at bunch of loose women who want free dinner.
… That might actually work. It wouldn’t
be false advertising but it could very well be illegal for different reason.
Being serious for a moment I do have severe problem with dating
sites making claims like this. It’s one
thing for McDonalds to say they have
delicious salad, fuck you, but it’s different to toss around people’s
emotions. These are people looking for a
connection and they aren’t being treated with the respect they deserve. You aren’t a number and you aren’t a
payment. You’re a person. And yes I see the irony that this is coming
from an analyst.
What does surprise me is if these dating sites aren’t using a
formula why are they so behind. Target
know when girls are pregnant before their parents do. No, I’m serious. They look at your purchases and can link certain
increases or habits to pregnancy. Just
from what you buy. And not the obvious
thing like a pregnancy test and baby clothes.
I’m talking about a shift in cosmetics and extra cotton balls. Yeah, they haven analysts there that
slick. And then they tailor the ads to
the individuals but not so much where it’s obvious you are getting the baby
package. You get ads similar but not the
same as your neighbor possibly. That’s
form joining a club and having your purchases tracked. Imagine what MasterCard and Visa could do and
how much data they have on you. But don’t
worry I’m sure our government is really good at protecting our privacy rights
especially against large corporations…
Ben
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