The Craigslist Experiment: The Setup

For those unfamiliar with craigslist, it’s basically a catch all for useful things and the scum of the planet. It’s a site that can go from SFW to NSFW with one click. You can adopt a pet, find a job, hire a hooker, sell your car, find an apartment, and rant about your hatred of the traffic in your hometown - all in one place!

Craigslist personals are a special combination of sad and hilarious, with a pinch of normal and a BIG dash of creepy. I won’t totally discount their personal ads - my brother met his fiancee through craigslist! - but 99.9% of the time, unless you’re looking for a hookup, it’s best to only read it for a laugh, not a date.

To give you an idea of what girls get in response to ads, I posted the following fake ad, complete with random pictures courtesy of Google. Local info and identifying info from emails will be blurred to protect the not-so-innocent.

The Ad

Optimized for Maximum Vagueness & Perv-a-bility

  • 18 - the “optimal age” for a girl if you’re a less-than-honorable guy
  • Vague photo - can’t see much of eyes, face, body
  • Poorly written, list-of-stuff-I-like personal ad text

Let the Emails Begin!

3 Responses to “The Craigslist Experiment: The Setup”

  1. Hey, I’d bite. I’m 21, though - does that make me the “less-than-honorable” guy?

  2. Nah, 18/21 is fine. :)

  3. [...] the 10 minutes after the ad went live, I received 8 emails. (e’s comments in [...]

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