Pop Up Ads: A Rant
There's something about editing that inhibits blog writing.
Writing a story involves the mindset of creation. When editing a story, you fold your imagination up and put it away and rely on learned grammar and past reading memories to make your original ideas stand out and become more clear. The editing mindset is active reading. Where as writing is story building, left to the wild fancies of your whimsical imagination.
This has been the fascinating reason behind my lack of posts recently. When I'm writing I will have a backlog of 20 posts, but when I'm editing I'm sucked into the rational fixing of "things". I'm currently in a mind-numbing editing phase... It's been weeks....
But something happened today that distracted me from editing and spiraled me into a rage unfit for human consumption. I came on here today to discuss something far more sinister and insidious than editing could ever hope to be: Pop up ads.
Pop up ads are the worst thing ever invented and the longer I use the internet, the more my hatred for them increases. I can't forgive Ethan Zuckerman, even though he publicly apologized last year for creating them in the first place. Even though he says, "Our intentions were good," I can't help comparing him to other's who also felt their intentions were just. I would be specific but I'm not starting a political debate, just feel free to insert any dictator's last name for "others."
One thing I've noticed is that these pop up ads now are placed strategically throughout news/magazine websites. No longer are they shown at first click of the website, or deceive you by pretending they are your website when in reality they are a new window - No, now, they are *^$&## everywhere.
In the above article about Mr. Zucker-jerk, the author claims that pop up ads "were horrible." As in, past tense. NO. THEY ARE NOT PAST TENSE. THEY ARE RIGHT NOW.
They are evil and lurking behind a seemingly innocent-looking article about which Kardashion is the most fashionable (Not that I would ever read those, or purposefully misspell their last name to keep my ruse...). It waits until I am halfway through the second paragraph of a very important scientific study, happily reading when the screen will freeze, some horrible music will start to play and I'm stuck in hell. If I'm lucky (Read: unlucky) I'll be at the computer that shuts down completely while the pop up is loading, then reloads with a dramatic moving advertisement for some film coming out in theaters that I'm not going to see (on principal!). I wait the five seconds before the "Close Ad" X pops up and I can finally get it out of my sight - Or at least have it confined to its 3"x3" square in the upper right hand corner.
But more than the annoyance: I have no idea who any of the advertisers are, or why... Dear god why? In these situations, my mind turns off completely and I'm running on blanks, while my rage against the website increases exponentially. I stare at the corners of the ad waiting for that "Close X" to appear in a corner after the five seconds that feels like hours. If my brain didn't shut off until the ad was over, I would actively hate the product being advertised.
Now, to be fair, I understand the need for advertisements and quite frankly, I don't mind them when they don't make music on their own and they stick to their square. But pop up ads are a different breed of advertisement that make me want to throw my laptop across the room. If the pop up advertisement were a character, their death in my novel would take an entire chapter to describe.
*Sigh* I know, I know, cool my jets. I'll get over it.
All my love,
L.B.
PS: My friend just asked what I was up to and I said, "Editing my blog post on... Editing." I gotta come up with better blog topics. The next one will be food, I promise.
Writing a story involves the mindset of creation. When editing a story, you fold your imagination up and put it away and rely on learned grammar and past reading memories to make your original ideas stand out and become more clear. The editing mindset is active reading. Where as writing is story building, left to the wild fancies of your whimsical imagination.
This has been the fascinating reason behind my lack of posts recently. When I'm writing I will have a backlog of 20 posts, but when I'm editing I'm sucked into the rational fixing of "things". I'm currently in a mind-numbing editing phase... It's been weeks....
"Me."
~~BEGIN RANT~~
Pop up ads are the worst thing ever invented and the longer I use the internet, the more my hatred for them increases. I can't forgive Ethan Zuckerman, even though he publicly apologized last year for creating them in the first place. Even though he says, "Our intentions were good," I can't help comparing him to other's who also felt their intentions were just. I would be specific but I'm not starting a political debate, just feel free to insert any dictator's last name for "others."
One thing I've noticed is that these pop up ads now are placed strategically throughout news/magazine websites. No longer are they shown at first click of the website, or deceive you by pretending they are your website when in reality they are a new window - No, now, they are *^$&## everywhere.
In the above article about Mr. Zucker-jerk, the author claims that pop up ads "were horrible." As in, past tense. NO. THEY ARE NOT PAST TENSE. THEY ARE RIGHT NOW.
They are evil and lurking behind a seemingly innocent-looking article about which Kardashion is the most fashionable (Not that I would ever read those, or purposefully misspell their last name to keep my ruse...). It waits until I am halfway through the second paragraph of a very important scientific study, happily reading when the screen will freeze, some horrible music will start to play and I'm stuck in hell. If I'm lucky (Read: unlucky) I'll be at the computer that shuts down completely while the pop up is loading, then reloads with a dramatic moving advertisement for some film coming out in theaters that I'm not going to see (on principal!). I wait the five seconds before the "Close Ad" X pops up and I can finally get it out of my sight - Or at least have it confined to its 3"x3" square in the upper right hand corner.
But more than the annoyance: I have no idea who any of the advertisers are, or why... Dear god why? In these situations, my mind turns off completely and I'm running on blanks, while my rage against the website increases exponentially. I stare at the corners of the ad waiting for that "Close X" to appear in a corner after the five seconds that feels like hours. If my brain didn't shut off until the ad was over, I would actively hate the product being advertised.
Now, to be fair, I understand the need for advertisements and quite frankly, I don't mind them when they don't make music on their own and they stick to their square. But pop up ads are a different breed of advertisement that make me want to throw my laptop across the room. If the pop up advertisement were a character, their death in my novel would take an entire chapter to describe.
~~END RANT~~
*Sigh* I know, I know, cool my jets. I'll get over it.
In other news, my sister had a bouncing baby boy! So this day isn't all bad!
Welcome to the world, Baby J.D.!
All my love,
L.B.
PS: My friend just asked what I was up to and I said, "Editing my blog post on... Editing." I gotta come up with better blog topics. The next one will be food, I promise.
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