The Craigslist Flies: The complete collection of works by Colin Smith and Michael Brown

The Craigslist Flies

We would like to dedicate this blog to Craig Newmark and to America's lonely BBW's without whom none of our success would be possible.

Dating can be an extremely challenging process, where do you meet people? How do you make a move? What about rejection? Thankfully the internet has made the ice breaker part of dating a little bit easier. Online dating isn't exactly rocket science. It’s more like sales, talking about yourself, trying to sell yourself to the public in only a few short sentences. But it can be agonizing if you don’t know how to sell. But websites like Match.com and Hot or Not.com have made it even easier by allowing you to sell yourself using fun personality tests and simple fill in the blank answers to create a profile, all the while charging you a monthly fee for their services. Then in the late 90's Craig Newmark created a web site Craigslist.org which is a free web based classifieds site that allows you to buy and sell pretty much anything you want including yourself (figuratively) Craigslist allows people to create personal ads and post them for free pictures included.

So in early 2008, Colin and Mike would peruse various Craigslist sites and send each other personal ads. We would try and see who could find either the ugliest looking girl or the funniest act of desperation. So after doing this for a few months Mike came across an ad that was just perfect. At first he honestly thought it was to good to be true, it was simply amazing. Mike sent it to me and I could not believe it. We thought the same exact thing OMG (Oh My God) is this for real? Apparently it was real because this woman had posted her ad several times a week for about two months. The woman was looking for a new man to meet and possibly date. She had short hair that would have passed a Marine Corps inspection; she had tattoos on both of her arms and even had tattoos on her face like Mike fucking Tyson. She said that she loved working on cars and owned a '66 Mustang. She also said that she had a 9 year old daughter that you would never meet under any circumstances. But the real kicker was that she said that she had a venereal disease, and that you had to be cool with that too or otherwise you could hit the bricks.

So this got us thinking, we decided that if this is what passed for a personal ad on craigslist that we could put together a personal ad as a joke just to see if anyone would respond. So this was the first ad we created. Within 20 minutes we had a reply. It was shocking because of how ridiculous this ad was. That is when we realized we were onto something big.

Our first ad: "Just Bored", March 2008
Let me start by saying that I’m 21 almost 22. Well I live with my mother and am currently unemployed. But you don’t have to worry I take care of all my stuff I have money so no worries. I enjoy video games and watching movies. I also love music I have my own band and we love to jam to the classics that are out there.
So what I’m looking for is a girl that knows how to hold it down and is ambitious and driven, I want a girl that enjoys working because I’m sure as shit not going to. Anyways I want a woman not a girl so please be cool with what I have written up above. Also my standards are not high at all so as long as you have all your teeth I’ll be happy.
So I hope to hear from all of the great women the great state of Oregon has to offer.
Thank you for your time
P.S. This is a real ad not a joke so please take this seriously


The most notable response was from "Lauren"
Lauren said she was a rather big woman 6’1 245lbs said she had all her teeth and brown hair. She stated that she had roommates and lived on a house boat. She also stated she had a cat and worked full time. She even said she was willing to come pick me up. I was blown away by this whole thing. I talked to her for a little bit through e-mail, but never met her or kept in contact with her.
As you can see our first ad was pretty terribly written and not well thought out but we did receive a few responses and that was what we were after. This was our trial experiment and could not believe that it really worked. This is what led us to our next wonderful ad

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