A few too many mentions of ideagasms.com?

April 21, 2006 9:32 AM

A few too many mentions of ideagasms.com? I'm not just feeling wholly comfortable with this, and I think I'm not the only one.
posted by anjamu to Etiquette/Policy at 9:32 AM (25 comments total)

And he's back with the same stuff in a new thread again this morning.
posted by The Bellman at 9:45 AM on April 21, 2006

Oh I'm sorry that's the second link. But yes, it's odd.
posted by The Bellman at 9:46 AM on April 21, 2006

I deleted a bunch last night, it appears he went back into the thread to repost them. Banned until he can promise never to link to ideagasm again.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:48 AM on April 21, 2006

Now that's an ideagasm, Matt!
posted by OmieWise at 9:49 AM on April 21, 2006

Easy come, easy go.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:49 AM on April 21, 2006

I was prepared to write a spirited defense of tranceformer, something along the lines of, "Hey, maybe he/she found the ideagasm site useful and just wanted to help..."

Then I actually looked at the site. Ideagasms looks pretty damn spammy to me and any site that opens with a solicitation for email addresses is, in my book, automatically suspect. The rest of it isn't much better:

The ideaGasms® Affiliate Team is free to join and you can instantly generate an ongoing stream of income for yourself without any cost or obligation on your part.

I'm with anjumu, something ain't right.
posted by cedar at 9:50 AM on April 21, 2006

well, he never put an affiliate link up, so it's not exactly that.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:53 AM on April 21, 2006

I felt like this would have been kosher if there wasn't so much suspicious nonsense on the site itself about "subscriptions" and "DVDs" and free things you get when signing up. All of that just screams scam to me.
posted by anjamu at 9:59 AM on April 21, 2006

Matthowie, I didn't mean to imply that he *was* an affiliate.

I only mentioned it as another reason the whole ideagasm thing struck me as sleazy.
posted by cedar at 10:09 AM on April 21, 2006

I've been going back and forth about whether to call him out for a while. It can be hard to tell the difference between NLP/MLM evangelicals (annoying, but within the guidelines) and simple spammers.

From the sum of his posts, I'd guess he falls into the evangelical camp. A lot of enthusiasm, but not actively out to abuse the guidelines.

That said, I agree that the ideagasms business did cross over, and I think the ban was a good call. (you may all now exhale, as I know you've been holding your breath awaiting my judgement on the topic)
posted by tkolar at 10:18 AM on April 21, 2006

Um . . . *exhales*?
posted by cgc373 at 10:33 AM on April 21, 2006

dude, have a mint.
posted by andrew cooke at 10:37 AM on April 21, 2006

All of that just screams scam to me.

No, no—it's an exciting multi-level marketing opportunity^TM!
posted by cortex at 10:37 AM on April 21, 2006

So I got out my favorite pitchfork. Even got some new kerosine for the torches. Are we still doing this, or should we just post funny pictures instead?
posted by Gamblor at 10:52 AM on April 21, 2006

Well, I never did get around to asking him why when picking a therapist you should choose one who's eyes move around in the sockets easily.

If we're not going to do a lynching, perhaps you could at least help me speculate about that, and in particular exactly how you would test for this. ("This is a little unorthodox but I need to check something. Please hold still...")
posted by tkolar at 11:20 AM on April 21, 2006

Pitchforks are old hat. Pneumatic bung droppers are where it's at!
posted by gigawhat? at 11:23 AM on April 21, 2006

Hey, I only posted that to try and get the "bungdropper" tag into my top ten tags list.
posted by Gamblor at 11:32 AM on April 21, 2006

tkolar writes "Well, I never did get around to asking him why when picking a therapist you should choose one who's eyes move around in the sockets easily."

He appears to be batshitinsane as well as really really into ideagasms. I could just be saying this because I fear that my own eyes do not move appropriately.
posted by OmieWise at 11:38 AM on April 21, 2006

*rolls eyes @ OmieWise*
posted by Floydd at 11:42 AM on April 21, 2006

OmieWise wrote...
He appears to be batshitinsane as well as really really into ideagasms.

I considered that possibility, but in the same discussion that quote came from he first attempted to point the questioner to a Licensed NLP Practitioner^TM. I thought maybe it was one of those Secrets Of Personal Interaction^TM that you can only learn at a Mastering Your Personal Power^TM seminar.
posted by tkolar at 11:54 AM on April 21, 2006

I'd like to talk to you about Empowerism.
posted by cortex at 11:55 AM on April 21, 2006

cortex wrote...
I'd like to talk to you about Empowerism.

Holy crap, there actually is something called Empowerism. I would have bet a lot of money that you had made that up.
posted by tkolar at 12:06 PM on April 21, 2006

Ideagasms looks pretty damn spammy to me

That to one side, if they have a street team . . . I don't know if I want to be on it so much as I want to see it in action.
posted by yerfatma at 12:38 PM on April 21, 2006

Yeah, it's one of those rare things that manages to genuinely pre-empt any attempt at satire. The best part is that I found out about it by googling an MLM-happy coworker.
posted by cortex at 12:40 PM on April 21, 2006

What a horrible site, too.

HEY DOOD! PUT SOMETHING TOGETHER THAT'S NOT DOGSHIT AND THEN PROMOTE IT.
posted by scarabic at 8:03 PM on April 21, 2006