Targeted Mocking

Come on, guys, I just love the ads thrown by Next Student, the Student Loan Consolidating Company (or something). What's not to love?

After all, there's the minimalist ad that really does not beg for clicking:



Save 59%! Why, that could be me! But without further information, I'm not going to heed. Of course, since I run a blog called Pop-Up Mocker, it's a given that I'll never heed a pop-up ad, but please, humor me and pretend I am a gullible consumer. A gullible, graduated-from-college-in-the-last-ten-years-consumer. Better make that "beauty school" or something. Never mind.

They also offer the inherent anti-intellectualism of this ad:



Brother, I don't know about you, but I graduated with degrees in English and Philosophy from a liberal arts college, and I am now making upper five figures. If I had learned mathematics, chemistry, or other science, undoubtedly I would make more. It's not what you've studied, it's how you apply it.

Particularly my English degree, which keeps my away from similes like A pile of student loans that siphon away your hard-earned cash like a fraternity guy with a beer bong. Geez, you cretins, that metaphor breaks down early.

1. A bong is not a siphon, it's a funnel.
2. A beer bong drains beer, and no frat guy will separate me from my Guinness as long as I have fingernails and teeth.
3. Would you trust your money with a fraternity guy?

I don't get it. The inanity of all these Next Student ads gives me a headache. And cottonmouth. Perhaps I should have let the fraternity guy have the last four Guiness in that fifteen pack after all.