Craigslist Files #34: The EVENTual Collapse of Western Civilization

Like an agonizing but therapeutic massage, I've come to look forward to every new entry of the Craigslist Files. It's not every young man who gets a weekly reconfirmation of his world view. It's one thing to browse the cornucopia of lonely, fruitless posts on craigslist. After all, there's nothing unique about stupid, misguided things on the Internet. But when I find equally stupid, misguided things in the real world, it's strangely comforting. If such ridiculous stuff exists in meat-space, it only stands to reason that there is a segment of the Internet representative of the good things in real life. The following posts were all taken from the Events page in the Community section, so most of them have some kind of real-world counterpart.

16th Annual Santa Hop & Auction

16th Annual Santa Hop & Auction, this is a dinner/dance,entertainment/ live & silent auction soiree. 100% of auction$$$ goes to The Forgotten Children's Fund, a local ALL volunteer 501c3 charity. Now looking for auction items & sponsors... The event is Nov. 7th @ (place). This is the ORIGINAL event!!! PLS BE AWARE OF A COPYCAT EVENT. in (city).. Thank you

There's nothing stupid or crazy about the event itself. I'm sure The Forgotten Children's Fund is a respectable humanitarian organization and not a splinter group of NAMBLA. What gets me about this post is that it implies a furious rivalry between non-profit organizations. I can't decide if it would be a good thing or not to live in a world where Greenpeace TP'd the local branch of the World Wildlife Fund. I'm not gonna lie, if Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller made some low-brow studio comedy about frat-like NPO's that are always in competition with one another, I'd go see the hell out of it.

Modern Arnis, Improvised and Defensive Weapons Training

Supplement your martial arts training. Learn stick and knife lines, open hand application, improvised weapons and effective offensive and defensive techniques. Serious students and professionals only.
To visit the gym, for references or for more information please call or e-mail me.(number redacted)

I went ahead and looked up Modern Arnis because I make it a point to be a shining bastion of journalistic integrity, and also because I openly hoped that it was something the above poster totally made up. Alas, Modern Arnis is a legitimate martial art from the Philippines. Still, I wonder what qualifies as a "professional" when it comes to weapons training. Also, if you have formal training with improvised weapons, then you're no longer improvising. Instead, you're looking at everything around you as a potential weapon of death, which as someone may or may not have tried to tell you in childhood is a bad thing.

Post Events FREE

Post Events FREE

www.SwankyAnts.com ...what's on anywhere

Top Three Comments that we hear from our website visitors:
1. "Love seeing from a birds-eye-view events that are happening in my community"
2. "As a tourist I like being able to print off several maps onto one page the events I'd like to visit"
3. "Viewers just need to type our event name into the find field and its easy for them to locate our events!"

Craigslist has been available to the public for over a decade now, yet there are still so many people who are completely oblivious to how it works. It seems this poster, presumably the proprietor of the above mentioned events listing site, is completely unaware of the mental ouroboros that is marketing a link to a Post Events for Free website on the craigslist page designed specifically for people who want to post their events... for free. This is like going into an ice cream shop with a quart of generic store-brand Rocky Road and trying to sell it to the people in line. Also, if one of the most common comments on your website is the one quoted above as #1, chances are you've only had a maximum of three actual visitors to your website.