A Cinecle View – The Unemployment Diaries, Chapter 1: Emaillist.net may stomp puppies, too

Tony Marion

Tony Marion

Okay, so I can’t really back up that claim in the title; that’s why I wrote “may.” We don’t need another Mr. (REDACTED) situation.

But really, WHO CARES? This is the Internet! It’s West World, the Thunderdome and the Shore Leave Planet from Star Trek: The Original Series all rolled into one; you can do nearly anything that you want and the only real police force seems to be social pressure weighing on your conscience. That’s why the trick is to not have one.

Not have a conscience, that is. It wouldn’t make any sense if the trick was to not have a trick. That would be like the paradox that Kirk used to stymie Norman in the classic episode I, Mudd.

BUT I DIGRESS …

In addition to watching way too much Star Trek: The Original Series while living on the dole, I’ve been spending way to much time on the Internet – because that is the most efficient way to find a new job. There are so many job search tools available that I, not to brag, have already been on four interviews in the six weeks that I’ve been unemployed. Four interviews followed shortly by four job offers, followed by me rejecting said offers because of their reluctance to schedule around MeTV reruns of Star Trek: The Original Series.

My point is that I found all of these opportunities thanks to the Internet. It is easily the greatest invention ever after warp drive, transporters and food synthesizers. But much like tween chatrooms, employment sites have a dark side. A breed of predator that victimizes those left vulnerable by their need for gainful employment. And this is where it lives …

emailist.net_00000

I’m not actually sure which is more annoying – being spammed by these idiots incessantly over the last four days, or that is was done with some very badly-crafted creative.

If they’re going to bombard me with email 16 TIMES IN FOUR DAYS, they should probably spend more time on their message than they did on the email sender aliases:

INBOX_00000

It’s like they’ve created their own virtual Kevin Wendell Crumb out of email abuse.

And if they’re too lazy to write new copy each time they drop a blast, they should at least make the effort to proofread before sending it.

“When he tried to reach out to potential clients, his efforts were met with silence. He just couldn’t get anyone to pay attention.

Just 2 weeks late …”

Forgetting the “r” at the end of “later” right before the big reveal of how many new fictional connections their fictional senders made not only kills any momentum that they built up leading into the announcement, it also makes their writing, and therefore their entire pitch, look completely amateurish.

The number of fictional connections revealed is also, oddly enough, the only thing that they bother to change in the copy from email to email. Here’s the leader board …

Leaderboard_00000

Who’s “blowing it” now, Warren?

But even if that missing “r” hadn’t ruined the illusion of competence, the fact that no one caught the period that somehow fell off the end of the sentence “No, this is not some fluffy sales webinar where you’ll get a lot of ‘ideas’ but not a lot of concrete action steps” and got tacked onto the BEGINNING of the next sentence, “.It’s the real deal – a 3 hour workshop where you will get the exact playbook that has generated millions in sales for businesses in pretty much every industry” removed any lingering doubt.

EMAIL COPY_00000

Though, in fairness, that probably wouldn’t have been nearly as embarrassing had the entire sentence not been somehow important enough to publish in a BOLD typeface, yet not important enough to double check before sending.

I think a certain webinar king, or the “independent agents” that benefit from people attending said webinars, may want to look into a refund.

Look, I’m an unemployed copywriter with more than 20 years of professional experience, which includes, but is not limited to, fixing humiliating, campaign-ruining sentences like those above before they leave the office; I would be more than happy to take a look at all of their copy and correspondence on a freelance or contract basis and edit/rewrite where needed. Consider that an offer, Emaillist.net!

And don’t worry, if I don’t hear from you by 2pm EST, Wednesday, July 26th, I’ll just assume that you’re not interested in my services, rather than emailing you repeatedly with the same request from different names. Instead, I’ll use the errors that I found in your horrible copy as a case study to pitch my services to other potential clients. Like the Better Business Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Laurino, Congressmen Payne and Sires and Governor Christie.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll make sure that Emaillist.net and Automatch LLC, linkeduniversity.com, mpservicesnow.com, magicalleads.com, intuitivebrandedclothing.com and the soulless vampires behind those entities built on empty links and a sociopathic lack of shame get full credit for the original copy – they definitely deserve it!

Preying on people that have been laid out by life may seem like shooting fish in a barrel, but why would you pick on people with nothing to lose and a shit ton of funemployment-funded free time?

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” – James Tiberius Kirk.

Okay, so it was actually Tyler Durden that said it, BUT IT’S THE INTERNET, WHO CARES?

KIRK HOT

Tony Marion is a writer and filmmaker who splits time between Lancaster, PA and Baltimore, MD. He lives for the work of Descendents (the band), Chuck Palahniuk and Rian Johnson. Check out the digital embodiment of procrastination he calls his website here.

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