Somebody had to go there. Josh Gondelman, for NYMag, explains how he “Bought Three Fake Girlfriends on the Internet“:
… The modern ease of catfishing has had the tangential effect of growing a cottage industry of websites offering the services of fake Internet girlfriends. Make an existing girlfriend jealous, they urge. Get your nagging family off your back. None market directly to those garnering sympathy during a Heisman campaign, nor to what I imagine must be a lucrative contingent of deeply closeted gay men. Almost all the sites guarantee discretion — and contain a disclaimer that you WILL NOT meet your fake online girlfriend for in-person sex stuff, no matter how nicely you ask.
To better understand the plight of Manti Te’o, I decided to blow some money on an imaginary paramour. Fake Internet relationships, it turns out, are a buyer’s market…
Bonus marketing points to the site that promises “For an additional hundred clams, your F.I.G. can join your World of Warcraft or Everquest II campaign”!
Apart from surreptitously checking all your guild buddies’ chats for “tells”, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Thursday Evening Open Thread: Trolling for Fake Internet GirlfriendsPost + Comments (123)