Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites. – George Bernard Shaw
If you haven’t read yesterday’s column, do so before reading this one or you won’t really understand. As I explained then, popular bloggers often get email from parasites asking to contribute guest posts; they always look something like this:
Hello Maggie,
re: http://maggiemcneill.com/2012/01/28/were-not-done-yet/
I write for an online education website that is focused on providing information to current and prospective students looking to take some classes online.
Historically, higher education has been the realm of the bourgeoisie, but this is changing as more people gain access to education through online avenues and free resources. I recently read a piece by NPR that told the story of a girl, Naylea Omayra Villanueva Sanchez, who was wheelchair bound and living in the Amazon, but was still attending college through the free University of the People.
In light of this article, I would love to add to the discussion by contributing a post to your blog. I want to focus on the potential, and potential limitations, of free university education, keeping different fields of study in mind.
Here is a link to a writing sample and my resource, take a look and get a feel for my writing style.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance.
Best,
Rachel
Though the letter pretends to be from an individual it was clearly sent by a robot; I receive many of these, all of very similar construction except for the topics, and though it pretends to have read my blog the referenced post was clearly chosen via keyword or some such strategy (it’s an update column, not a cohesive essay). The follow-ups which come a couple of weeks later are all identically worded except for the signature, sending address and subject line:
Hi Maggie,
I wanted to follow up with you and make sure you had received my email I sent a little bit ago regarding my blog post idea.
Let me know your thoughts, I would love to work with you. Do not hesitate to get back to me with any questions!
Best regards,
{insert female name here}
As I explained yesterday, I was inspired by Ken White from Popehat to reply to these after receiving five of them in one afternoon; though I think Ken’s are much funnier, I still believe you’ll find my effort amusing.
*****************************************************************
Rachel Higgins [rachelhiggins711@gmail.com]; Charlotte Kellogg [charlottekellogg10@gmail.com]; Sarah Wenger [sarahwenger97@gmail.com]; Samantha Porter [samantha.porter99@gmail.com]; Alexa Thompson [thompsonalexa6@gmail.com]; Estelle Shumann [Estelle.Shumann@gmail.com]
RE: A Request to Contribute a Blogpost
Dear Rachel, Charlotte, Sarah, Samantha, Alexa and Estelle,
When I first started receiving emails from you and others like you I patiently explained that I’m perfectly capable of writing my own blog posts; in fact, I’ve managed to produce one a day for over two years now, more than 800 in all. What’s more, an awful lot of people tell me that my writing is exceptional; now, it’s possible that some of those are just trying to get in my pants, but considering the sheer number of such compliments, I think it’s safe to assume that at least some of them are sincere (especially since I happen to share their opinion). So as you might expect, I really don’t need any help from complete strangers, especially since there is an extremely high statistical likelihood that said strangers’ writing isn’t remotely of the same level of competence as mine.
But the letters just kept coming, so I started to ignore them and continued to do so until today, when five of you emailed me within three hours of one another; you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that all of your emails were exactly the same except for the subject line and signature! Clearly, this kind of synchronicity cannot be the product of random chance, and since you all have different names and email addresses and certainly wouldn’t try to deceive anyone about being real individuals, I am forced to conclude that the universe is trying to send me a message.
So I have wonderful news for y’all; I have decided that I will indeed allow your guest posts on my blog! Of course, there are a few minor conditions that I’m sure you’ll understand and will be happy to accept. Read them over and get back to me, and if you agree to them we can get started at your earliest convenience!
1) Since I know you must have extensively read my blog before sending your kind offers to help me via guest posting, you’ve noticed that its appearance and characteristics are very uniform, and that also goes for guest posts; I haven’t had very many of those, but you will note that when I did I still picked the titles and illustrations myself, and that I provided commentary on each. I’m sure that, being modern and egalitarian sorts of ladies, y’all wouldn’t want any special treatment, so obviously it won’t be an issue for me to say that I get to entitle each guest post as I see fit, to illustrate it with whatever pictures I think best, and to insert whatever comments or words of explanation I think necessary before, within and after the body of each of them.
2) I schedule tightly and plan my posts weeks ahead of time; furthermore, I have no desire to bore my readers and therefore consider variety very important. Just as I only publish one of each special feature per month, so I will only publish one guest post per month; however, I will expect all of the posts and the appropriate payment for each as soon as possible, but no later than October 31st in any case because I’ll need them for a special Halloween ritual I have in mind.
3) About that payment: it’s against WordPress rules for me to take money in exchange for access to my space, but I’m sure you’ll agree that my time and skills are valuable. In my last job I charged $300 per hour, and obviously you wouldn’t want me to settle for less than that. It should take roughly two hours to format, illustrate, publish and index each of your posts; sometimes, though, it takes a while to find a really fitting epigram, and on top of that I have to moderate any comments made on the post (which might trickle in for weeks afterward). So really, I think 3 hours would be a conservative estimate; therefore I’ll ask $900 per guest post, paid in advance via Paypal or Green Dot Card. This money is only for time and effort, and no other offer is implied nor should it be inferred.
4) One more thing: I’m sure you’ll understand that my safety is important, so I’ll need to screen each of you; please provide your full legal names, addresses, telephone numbers and places of employment so I can make sure you are who you say you are. Don’t worry, I’ll be very discreet; you won’t even know I checked.
Well, that’s about it; let me know your thoughts, because I would love to work with you. Do not hesitate to get back to me with any questions!
Maggie McNeill
The Honest Courtesan
http://maggiemcneill.com/
Oh, you are evil!
Sorry, there was supposed to be a “wide grin”-smilie at the start of my comment, but WP seems to have eaten it.
Great topic. Speaking of parasites, my blog received a visitor yesterday from a link I added to a comment on your post in April 2011(!) Here’s an updated link on how parents and anti-sex crusaders are parasites on children: http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com
I’ll say it again – you must be new to the internet 😉
What? No ponies? I want ponies.
To include ponies would have been to plagiarize Popehat, and that would make me a kind of parasite! 🙁
Besides, Maggie knows too much about livestock to take a pony from a spammer.
True, that; it might be a disguised goat, and I’m pretty much done with goats.
O.O Whaaa? Did I miss something?
(a little afraid to type “goat” into the blog’s search box now)
No, nothing like that! 😀
It’s just that I used to own a herd of goats, only to discover that A) they’re a colossal pain because they view a fence as a challenge (unlike llamas who can be confined by a single strand of rope), and B) one just can’t make money on them in the US yet unless one lives in a certain part of Texas or is willing to go through all the rigamarole of breeding, showing, advertising, etc, and even then it isn’t what I consider real money. So I sold the herd at a slight loss last autumn to get them out of my hair.
OOoooh! ^_^ (whew)
Sorry sorry! Still, in my defense, consider the dots I had to connect:
#1 H: “Maggie knows too much about livestock”
#2 M: “and I’m pretty much done with goats.”
#3 Maggie’s well-established, long-running previous vocation was as an escort and manager of an escort business. Extreme fetish porn was not mentioned… but it’s a reasonably safe bet some of her past clients occasionally had some very… odd requests of her.
#3a Maggie’s previous vocation as a farmer has not been mentioned nearly as often, or so I assume as I’m hearing about it for the first time now. It’s not the sort of other career that first pops to mind with the picture Maggie has painted of herself here on this blog: Superwhore! Glamorous, high-priced escort by night and… Mild-mannered shoveller of goat-shit by day! No one ever suspects her secret identity! (Wait… it would be the escort identity that would be “mild-mannered” and charming, wouldn’t it?)
#4 This is still the Internet; It has already shown me worse whether I went looking for it or not.
” Superwhore! Glamorous, high-priced escort by night and… Mild-mannered shoveller of goat-shit by day!”
I thought I had quit snorting coke. I just got half a can of Diet all over my pc. Damn that hurts!
Funniest thing I’ve read all day!
Not that Maggie’s not glamorous, I’m sure she is, in every sense of the word. 🙂
To get them out of your goat hair.
You’re pissing up a rope here …
You honestly took the time and responded to an autobot solicitation? That was a waste of time – because even if a human read your response, he (or she) would have simply deleted it – they don’t care.
My home (landline) phone gets hit so much with spam calls … they’re robot dialed, human only picks up on the other end if you do. Sometimes you pick up and they don’t – which causes a big long dead air on the phone line. It’s annoying, at least if they’re going to bother you during dinner they should have the decency to not make YOU WAIT for a telemarketer to come online and torture you!
Nothing I’ve done has been able to fix this. I’ve tried everything and joined every “do not call” list on the planet. Then I tried to embarrass the telemarketers … “Hey Bob, you sound like a nice guy – would you like to BLOW ME?” That will get “Bob” to hang up but it won’t keep his robot from dialing you in the future!
Now? I just look at the caller id … “Toll Free Number” … “Private Number” … “1-888-XXX-XXXX” … and I just ignore the calls. Yes … Yes … it grates me each and every time that phone rings … and it reminds me of just how IMPOTENT I am against these robotic inquisitioners.
But that’s life, I either put up with it – or ditch that phone. 🙁
It’s pretty much the same thing here with parasites.
You know that would be physiologically impossible, right? 😉
The way I figure, these people really are trying to solicit spots for their garbage, so a human MUST read the replies even if a robot sends them. Besides, it amused me and provided a column topic which, I hope, amused most of my readers. 🙂
Well it’s no picnic for me either, sister!
It is VERY humorous though … except for the fact that it reminds me so much of my phone problem.
By the way – did you get my request to guest blog for you? Have you seen the show “Idiot Abroad”? Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant send the idiot (Karl Pilkington) all over the world strange places to do goofy stuff – and he bitches about it.
I can be your idiot – you send me out to do stupid stuff and I write about it. It could work! Like I dress up as a transvestite hooker and camp out in front of the NOLA police department soliciting COPs – Hilarious! I’ll wear a “Maggie McNeill” t-shirt, you’ll be famous … like “GoDaddy”
Work with me.
(This comment was NOT written by a bot!)
You’re pissing up a rope here…
You know that would be physiologically impossible, right?
Don’t be so sure…in the 1930s the local Professor of Surgery proved that fluids can indeed flow uphill…by standing on his head and drinking a pint of beer.
You’re pretty much off on your own rant there, aren’t you? (My sympathies nonetheless. ^_^; )
I can recommend a couple things that hopefully might help.
First is to do what a lot of people these days do, and get rid of your landline entirely, and use your mobile phone as your sole contact number. There are more restrictions in place for mobile phones. Granted, not everyone is in a situation where this is practical, but it cuts down on a LOT of telemarketing calls just by having a phone number with NO association to a fixed address or area code that can be cross-referenced in their phone number databases.
Getting your number on your local version National Do-Not-Call list can help if you live somewhere that it’s firmly enforced. That’s the first half. The second half is to follow up fiercely on all infractions (after the 1-month grace period of getting on the list, of course). Stop telling them to “blow you” and start demanding the legal details you need to press charges. Your response should be more like this:
“Hi! Let me tell you about our offer! Have you ever–”
“No, we’re not going to be doing that. You are in violation of the [PROPER NAME OF THE ACT OR LAW ESTABLISHING YOUR NDNCL]. You will provide me with your businesses’ proper name, your own full name, the full name and contact information for the manager in charge of the call center you are— sorry, HAVE BEEN working out of. I am required by law to inform you at this time that both your employer AND you personally are liable for fines of $1500 [or whatever the fine is in your region] as per the aforementioned Act. I have a pen ready.”
…And if you get all the way through that without them hanging up in panic, follow through on everything you said you’d do. Shady companies like these get away with this sort of thing because most people can’t be bothered to go through the effort to make it prohibitively costly to continue operating their business that way. It’s easier to just yell “blow me!” and hang up, but all that accomplishes is they move on to their next call… today.
Between using only a mobile phone, and being on our NDNCL, I receive an average of maybe 3 unsolicited calls per year.
As for Maggie’s sassy response letter: a human WILL read the response; there would be no point in sending out fishing emails looking for advertising space (which is ultimately what they want out of their “paid guest posting”, I suspect: an article on a high-traffic blog filled with links to various suspicious products and services) if they weren’t going to act on whoever actually fell for their little scam.
Fishing involves more than throwing baited hooks into the water; you need a line and somebody prepared to reel it in when they get a bite.
They’re not in violation of any law.
It’s all legal. If it’s charity – legal. If it’s political … legal. If you do business with them already – it’s legal for them to call. You can’t get rid of them!
And yeah – it’s kind of a personal “rant” here – but it’s directly related to the abuses and excess of the information revolution which Maggie is complaining about here in today’s column. Spam Emails – that would be another category of parasitic abuse relating to the information revolution.
I’m a couple days late to the ranting, but, personal engineering project: A device to pipe the sound of screeching chalk down the phone line at will, without having to hear it yourself.
🙁 Tragically, the geographical distance between myself and Maggie’s pants is prohibitive to my ever getting into them… which is a shame as I bet I’d look FABULOUS in them! ^_-
Which I suppose means my compliments on her writing are sincere by default.
I haven’t commented in quite a while, being mostly content to keep updated via the email post alerts, so let me fish out my old evaluation from the first Email i sent Maggie back when I first discovered this blog, and wanted to let her know what I thought of it.
It deserves to be said twice. ^_-
Compliments are always welcome twice. 🙂
hinoron wrote: “…to my ever getting into them.”
Is anyone else thinking of the comic setup of…
English Lord: “I shot that elephant in my pajamas.”
English Lady: “Goodness! However did he get into them?”
“But that’s life, I either put up with it – or ditch that phone.”
I chose years ago to not have a wire phone in my house. I have never regretted that decision.
Years ago, before caller ID was standard on phones, I bought a caller ID unit which goes between the wall and the phone. I still use it because it allows me to block a caller by hitting a “reject” button while his number is on display; if he calls again after that, the phone only rings once and then he hears a factory-issue message telling him I’m not accepting his calls. It makes bill collectors crazy, and messes up autodialers because they dial several numbers at once and then drop everyone except the one who answers first. So, my unit protects a whole BLOCK of people every time my number is included in a batch! I know it works because I hear at least half a dozen single rings every day.
I need to go back in time and get me one of these. When did you buy this?
December of 1996; the suburb I lived in before that didn’t have called ID service yet, so I had never bought one until I moved closer in to the city. It’s another example of what I talked about in the first paragraph of “Popcorn“; sometimes the “new and improved” product really isn’t as good as the one it’s supposed to replace.
I wonder where one can be acquired.
At my old business I used to get an avalanche of telescum who called wanting to “ask me a few questions about my business”.
My immediate response was “Oh… you want consulting, I get $250 per hour for consulting with a half day minimum. How much of my time do you need?”
I never stopped talking until I needed them to answer.
The answer was ALWAYS, “just a few minutes”.
Me: “OK, well that is under the half day minimum, so that will be $1000, prepaid. How would you like to pay for that?”
Of course, the poor soul calling me had no canned answers for that. They had three responses:
1) Well, it’ll only take a few minutes, let’s get started. (aggressive but dumb)
2) Ummm…. huh? What?
3) [click]
Only number three showed any intelligence at all. It was the rarest response. I think your method in responding to auto-piloted emails is more entertaining to us than really serving a bigger purpose. So, for that, I say, “thank you”. LOL
Maggie! When I tell you that your writing is exceptional, I’m not just trying to get into you pants!
I had no idea you had gotten rid of the goats. I can’t remember how many people I’ve told about your coyote-stomping lamas.
Sometimes I get an e-mail purporting to be from some utter babe telling me that she saw my profile picture and she thinks I’m cute. Maybe I should visit this website she’s conveniently linked to and she’ll send me some really cute pics of her.
My profile pic is the same one I use here. It’s the tusks. Chicks dig the tusks.
Totally off-subject, but I just posted the following on one of Krystal Cole’s YouTube videos (just search YouTube for Neurosoup). She’s wanting to redo some of her website, and somebody suggested WordPress. So I wrote:
My friend Maggie McNeil uses WordPress. I’ve suggested to both her and to Krystal that they should talk. Specifically, they should interview each other, for their respective websites. Though they’re focused on separate issues, they have enough in common that it would be interesting.
They are both advocating for the decriminalization of something currently illegal.
They have both been exotic dancers.
They are both believers in harm reduction.
They are both beautiful women.
They are both using…
At this point my 500 characters ran out, so I replied to myself with:
durned character limit
They are both using the Internet to help educate the public.
They both have, and with good reason, less than solid faith in law enforcement.
Maggie, I know how you feel about drugs. I have no idea how Cole feels about prostitution. Maybe she thinks it’s great, maybe she thinks it’s icky, probably she thinks that what she thinks about it shouldn’t run other people’s lives. But I just don’t know. Maybe the interview wouldn’t work, or would wind up boring. But hey, it’s a thought.
The way I feel about drugs for myself is neither here nor there, and any rational person should feel the same way about prostitution. I’d be happy to “cross-interview” Crystal; does she have a public email address?
Agreed on all points. I’ll see what I can do about that e-ddress.
Didn’t find one. I found a “Contact Krystle” link. BTW, I’ve seen her name spelled “Krystal” and “Krystle.” I’ll send it to you.
“This money is only for time and effort, and no other offer is implied nor should it be inferred.”
Whatever happens next is a matter of personal choice between a guest author and a blog publisher, both of whom are of legal age to consent. Several previous authors have said they were not disappointed with the experience.
😉
Actually, I think that for a political activist with a campaigning platform you may support, these 900 bucks could be a relevant use of campaign money