Posted by RentSentinel Team on Oct 19, 2011 in Blog
Last year I told a very scary story about Craigslist ads being ghosted. I also wrote that blog in a timely fashion and released it in close proximity to Halloween. Genius. The play on the holiday and term “ghosting” was a bigger hit than I ever could’ve imagined. I ended up going on a nationwide blogging tour and was a regular panelist on talk shows as the ‘ghosting expert’. It was a crazy whirlwind of a year.
Today I’m writing a new blog about ghosting. It’s actually more of a story. I call this entry ‘The Nightmare before Craigsmas’. Some of you might be saying, is this new blog’s title a play on a Tim Burton movie title? No. Now let’s move on.
This blog is about a place I’ve come to discover over the last three years. I call this place Craigslist Town and it’s a world filled with werewolf spammers, cranky elves, automated posting monsters, ad flagging vampires, misinformation ghouls, identity goblins, and of course ghosted ads. The mayor of Craigslist Town is a fellow by the name of <cough>, Craig. Craig is in charge of all the craziness in Craigslist Town, and ultimately it’s his job to make sure that Craigslist Town remains crazy by randomly punishing people that do and don’t follow his town’s rules.
About 2.5 years ago Hank “The Sentinel King” emerged from the shadows of Craigslist Town. Hank began leading demonstrations of how the citizens of Craigslist Town could become nice and possibly less crazy by following some simple rules. And to this day those rules have worked quite well as Hank has a huge following of citizens that play by the rules and are less crazed: no more than one ad per hour; use a single computer; refresh their content; and use a unique static IP address. Yes, I’m aware I just drifted from the story…stay with me.
One day Hank and his trusty dog, Flaggo, took a stroll through the Forest of Broker Ads; a horribly dark and dense forest of trees upon trees. On Hank’s mind was a feeling that something was missing in Craigslist Town. It was here in the forest that Hank stumbled on a random door. He found that he ‘liked’ this door. Flaggo yelped his approval, and a bird tweeted as he turned the door’s knob. Hank had found a portal to Social Town.
Social Town was an amazing and beautiful place. Hank couldn’t believe how the citizens were so friendly. They all seemed to like each other, and everyone was sharing news with one another. Cute little birds were tweeting as they flew overhead. Hank couldn’t walk more than a few steps without someone commenting about the wonderful weather.
Suddenly, someone poked Hank in the back. Hank turned around and there was the mayor of Social Town, Mark. “Welcome, my friend! I understand you’re new here. I hope that you become a fan of our town. You’ll find it’s a lovely place to live, and we’re of course pet friendly!”
Hank was confused. “No ghosts? No elves? Nobody has asked me to verify my phone number?” Hank was pressing for words when he finally said, “This is what I’ve been looking for; this is what I need to bring back to Craigslist Town.” Hank had decided it was time to takeover Social Town and bring its benefits back to his followers in Craigslist Town.
On November 1st, Hank promises the biggest holiday of them all. Craigslist Town comes together with Social Town for The Nightmare Before Craigsmas…
