Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You cannot shame the shameless.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Let there be snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The willow is too close to the house.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

People are complicated. Love is not.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

He really is that stupid.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Ads

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  2. 2.

    jinxtigr

    I love how they had to post a correction. The senator describing sales cyberstalking as ‘creepy’ was a Democrat, not a Republican.

    No Republicans described the practice as ‘creepy’. Fish are not aware of water :D

  3. 3.

    foxhunter

    So effing annoying. I like Tiger Direct and Newegg. Alot.

    But enough spammy crap for a MOBO I looked at 2 months ago. I didn’t buy then and I have not changed my mind.

    That ad with the cat in the upper right corner, however…now that ‘Tunch’ character, with enough repetition, just might encourage me to buy something from that store.

  5. 5.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Yep. I just spent time browsing a local company’s website (Ibex Wear) and voila!

    BTW Merino wool is the only way to go in all weather conditions. Amazing stuff and it doesn’t stink even after a week of wearing the same base layer out on a recent bike tour.

  6. 6.

    Rosalita

    I’ve been noticing this for a long time, on this site, my webmail, everywhere. Fucking creepy.

  7. 7.

    Dork

    Has anyone in the history of the intertoobz ever clicked on an ad and actually purchased something from said link?

  9. 9.

    morzer

    I must be very boring. I get the American Public University and Snorg Tees. Anyone managed anything more wild and kinky? I want your algorithms, you perverted, wonderful, sexy beasts!

  10. 10.

    scav

    @Dork: well, given that people have actually traveled to Nigeria to argue details with the grieving widow of a despot who only needs their banking information, I would guess that somewhere, yes.

    I’m just living for that stellar moment where the entire industry awakes from their dream of Mad Men induced delusions of style, cleverness and coolness, and discovers they’re actually a pack of baying nags shilling for cheap tat.

  12. 12.

    Rosalita

    and as soon as you clear your browsing history, you get ads for air conditioners and beef jerky

  13. 13.

    PeakVT

    One of the main culprits seems to be googleads.g.doubleclick.net which I see loading at nearly every site I visit. If you’re ultra-paranoid you can blackhole it using your hosts file and never see it again.

  14. 14.

    YellowJournalism

    @Rosalita: I noticed that, too! What’s up with beef jerky? Is it that universal of a commodity?

    I hate it when you accidentally click on an ad or do the wrong search because you weren’t paying attention, and then you’re stuck for a while with something embarrassing, like ED medication ads.

    I can always tell when my husband has been online, because we end up getting all car and technology ads for a while.

  15. 15.

    J.W. Hamner

    Hmm… I had never noticed this… but looking at the sidebar there are indeed two commercial sites I’ve visited in the last two weeks… including an ad for a laptop I considered ordering for my boss. Creepy indeed!

  19. 19.

    geg6

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    For me, too.

    I have never in my life visited Gingrich’s, Palin’s, or Anne Coulter’s sites, so I am at a loss as to why ads for them pop up so often for me.

    @Dork:

    No. I would never, ever click on any ad on a website. With one exception, the link to Amazon right here at BJ. And that’s only because I bow to the financial needs of our blog host and the food needs of our blog overlord, Tunch.

  21. 21.

    scav

    @arguingwithsignposts: Don’t forget that another approach would be to do a keyword scan of the web-site or even page where the ads are to appear on the assumption that the visitors would be of that persuasion or of similar interests.

  22. 22.

    Xboxershorts

    One ad drives me absolutely nuts. It shows an evil looking cat with bright yellow eyes staring like death rays right into my soul…

    ick

  25. 25.

    wrb

    Thy get esoteric.

    Since I looked a a site selling big steel shipping containers BJ has been Containers-R-Us.

  27. 27.

    John Casey

    you would not believe how many times I have seen Linda McMahon’s face on this site. (she’s the republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut) But then, I installed AdBlock for Firefox, and … She’s Gone!

  28. 28.

    Xboxershorts

    I made a recent purchase of Nitrous Oxide from Amazon….when do I get my party balloon ads?

  30. 30.

    JGabriel

    geg6:

    I have never in my life visited Gingrich’s, Palin’s, or Anne Coulter’s sites, so I am at a loss as to why ads for them pop up so often for me.

    That’s from last week’s shopping spree where you bought the machine guns, sequins, baby seal furs, 100 pk. of marriage annulment forms, and the fawn’s blood.

    .

  31. 31.

    That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)

    I don’t have a problem with the ads; I just ignore them. I do, however, have a huge problem with the ad servers. They make the site almost impossible to load on my laptop. THERE IS TOO MUCH CRAP ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SITE. This is true all over the internet, but it’s worse here than just about anywhere.

    I have no problem with selling ad space, but for christ’s sake, can’t we do it with one server rather than having a half dozen that bring everything to a halt?

  32. 32.

    rufflesinc

    They make the site almost impossible to load on my laptop. THERE IS TOO MUCH CRAP ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SITE. This is true all over the internet, but it’s worse here than just about anywhere.

    It’s particularly bad on Gawker so I just end up turning off Java and JavaScript. Makes the comments disappear but eh.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    I’ve been buying stuff for knitting and cycling lately, so I get ads for Yarn.com, UnderArmour.com, and TitleNine.com.

    It’s kinda creepy, actually. I do click on the ads sometimes, though, because they are for things I buy and John can use the 1/2 cent or whatever they pay him for it.

  34. 34.

    different church-lady

    You know what I’m sick of? I’m sick of site hosts who contract with ad companies like this pretending that they have no control over the situation. It’s always the same story: “It’s all automatic! I can’t do anything about it!” OK, how about you don’t contract with ad companies that use this technology? That’s the level of control you have.

    If you’re going to do ads, and you’re going to do ads with these companies, then own it. Don’t pretend you’re just a passenger.

  36. 36.

    Origuy

    I’m getting ads for Mercury Insurance, but I already have their insurance and I paid my premium online. Maybe they should put down a cookie that tells the server not to send me an ad for them.

  37. 37.

    Joseph Nobles

    I’m looking at Jimmy John’s ads that I never did see before I went to their website and made an online delivery order. Yes, scary, but smart advertising as well. Ads is Ads.

  38. 38.

    El Cid

    I noticed this too — I’d shop for some particular item and then see it popping up on all sorts of websites.

  39. 39.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Rosalita:

    I’ll take that over Coultergeist.

    Often, the ads you see on Balloon Juice have very little to do with the site, and a lot to do with what retail sites you’ve visited lately.

    Often, what retail sites I’ve visited recently has nothing to do with the ads I see on Balloon juice either. To be clear: advertise away, I understand the revenue arrangement, and have no dispute. But Coulter, Gingrich, Bachmann ads have no relevance to my other browsing habits, unless its that nature abhors a vaccuum and seeks to fill it with the least worthwhile shit imaginable.

    Put differently: where’s the ads for weed, booze and redheads?

  42. 42.

    John S.

    Banner ad re-targeting.

    It works great for those of us in the advertising industry who avail ourselves of it. I’m not sure how some of the more offensive ads turn up here (because surely, they are NOT a result of receiving a cookie on Sarah Palin’s website), but I am delighted to see so many of my company’s (and our client’s) ads running on Balloon Juice.

  43. 43.

    different church-lady

    @John S.:

    I am delighted to see so many of my company’s (and our client’s) ads running on Balloon Juice.

    That makes one of you.

  44. 44.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    a lot to do with what retail sites you’ve visited lately.

    I guarantee you I have never gone shopping for a Muslim mail-order bride.

  45. 45.

    kindness

    I’m trying to figure out what site I visited called

    ‘The Connection has been Reset’.

    Musta had a few that night……

  46. 46.

    patrick

    For banking or (dare I say it) paypal transactions I use a different browser than I do for general browsing. And I put it in either private (Firefox) or incognito (chrome) mode.

  48. 48.

    Jewish Steel

    Sanitaire Vacuum cleaners. Everywhere I go.

    Soon they will follow me into my dreams.

  53. 53.

    Glen Tomkins

    Damn!

    “Often, the ads you see on Balloon Juice have very little to do with the site, and a lot to do with what retail sites you’ve visited lately.”

    I was wondering why I kept seeing Viagra ads on this site…

Comments are closed.