You Can Get Anything On The Internet

I frequently find myself impressed with some of the more unusual things it’s possible to obtain on the internet. I was browsing the binaries newsgroups when I came across this gem of a self-help film:

A few interesting things about this film:

• It’s called Meeting Women Online. I suppose that’s a valid topic for a self-help film, although I find myself wondering if there’s enough material in this topic to warrant an entire film, rather than – say – How To Meet Women or Making Friends… And More… Online.
• It’s posted in the alt.binaries.seduction newsgroup.
• And here’s the killer: this film comes on four DVDs. That’s right – count ’em – four. A little research online suggests that the main program (not the special features) is in itself over five hours long!

Just plain scary.

A little more research and I found the web site of David DeAngelo, who made the film: there’s a page to sign up for his online course in meeting women online… the page starts by promising the usual crap that you can get from any spam-ridden inbox: “how you can manipulate your online profile to inspire interest,” “how to be confident when it comes to talking on the phone,” and so on, but the thing that got my attention was the following line. It’s as much bullshit as these programmes always are, but it makes a promise I’ve not yet seen in my 12 years of net-surfing:

Inside you’ll learn… a “secret” email subject line that drives a woman crazy
with curiosity and gets her to open YOUR email first.

What do you know: women’s heads are hard-wired so that a few key words in a subject line will get them to open it, no matter who it’s from or what the context in which they receive it. Dating be damned: if this were true then I would subscribe to the program. Why?

• If I were a spammer, I would want to know the secret keywords I could use to have 50% of the population open my e-mails without even thinking twice.
• And if I were not, I would want to know how to configure spam filters to protect those poor vulnerable women from the big bad spammers with the secret codewords that tripped the “common sense” switches in their brains.