Four Internet Ad Personalities I Want to Punch in the Balls

That Fucking Smiley Face That Yells “HELLOOOOOOOO” Whenever You See Him

What can be said about this goddamned smiley icon that hasn’t been said a hundred times before? He’s irritating, obtrusive, pointless, and absurdly loud.

For a while, it seemed like his kind were gone: webmasters grew tired of the smiley guy’s antics, and, knowing full well that their readers similarly despised the small yellow shithead, eventually kicked this particular ad to the curb.

And yet, not unlike Chris Tucker, this true, untempered form of irritating evil would eventually emerge from its long hibernation to wreak havoc and annoyance across the world. Just when you thought it was gone, it comes back – with a vengeance.

Not necessarily quantity-wise (since last year, I’ve only seen about a dozen or so), but in the sense that the smileys seem to wait for just the moment you’ve forgotten they exist, before goddamn pouncing like a lion on a wounded gazelle, or some other applicable simile.

The “HELLOOOOOO” smiley and his friends (including, but not limited to, the Robot, the KissyFace, and the Athlete) have a superb sense of timing, appearing at the worst times and effecting the maximum amount of annoyance. Many a time have I muted my speakers in an infuriated rage due solely to the efforts of these golden, inhuman demons.

The only thing that’s worse than the smileys is the product they advertise: a toolbar that allows you to download even more smileys. Which is more horrifying: the idea that someone thought MORE of these things would be a viable basis for an Internet business, or the all-too-real possibility that some people have intentionally downloaded this toolbar?

For the safety of the humane gene pool, I highly recommend that any and everyone who downloads a Smiley Central toolbar be chemically sterilized. Immediately.

Whoever Came Up With the Threatening “Don’t Click This If You’re Under 18, You Pussy” Advertising Scheme

Yeah, yeah – I see what you’re doing. By promising that whatever hides behind your alarmingly-colored ad box is so intense, so incredibly risqué, that I’d have to be a legal adult to understand it, you hope to trick people into clicking just to show how “brave” they are.

The guy who came up with this ad (if it was a guy) knows that the one thing people love, more than anything else, is the stuff that they’re warned against. Starting in the garden of Eden and working its way through the ages, the promise of forbidden fruit that you shouldn't click is simply too much for your average, inexperienced Joe to resist.

If the warning that you must be over 18 weren’t enough, these advertisements are almost always animated in a slightly nefarious manner, either consisting of eerie, extraterrestrial-looking silhouettes moving in an erratic manner, a poorly-illustrated picture of a woman screaming, or the above, slightly Devil-related design. “If you’re hardcore,” these images insinuate, “then you should click this link and goddamn prove it.”

And so, people click these links, hoping (yet fearing) to see something grotesque, disgusting, raunchy, sexy, perverted, and violent all at the same time.

And instead, they see this.

Maybe I’m alone here, but isn’t a love compatibility calculator about the least adult thing anyone could possibly use? Whoever came up with his idea needs 20 CCs of my fist to his scrotum, stat.

That Bitch Who Congratulates Me For Winning a Free iPhone/XBOX 360/PlayStation 3

I DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING. YOUR FALSE ENTHUSIASM ONLY SERVES TO FEED MY NEVERENDING RAGE.

While hypothetically one might say that your enthusiastic, almost amiable method of delivering congratulations serves as a much-needed bit of positivity on an otherwise cynical and dark Internet, I could also hypothetically get up off my ass everyday and jog a few miles to keep myself in shape. Point is, “hypothetically” doesn’t mean shit.

Your perpetually-smiling voice and irritating, false promises give me flashbacks to my high school days – smiling cheerleaders making empty statements of potential reward all over again.

You cocktease. You selfish, dishonest, condescending whore. You know full well that I didn’t really win anything, and yet you insist on brightly telling me otherwise. There are daggers in your smile; were I to listen to your voice for more than a few minutes, you succubus, you would promise me the moon but then remind me that I have to sign up for some trial and then get ten other people to sign up for the same thing before I see so much as an iPod shuffle.

Bitch, you can go to hell.

George Szalai

Getting past the obvious and potentially racist issue of how one might pronounce his last name, the most irritating thing about Mr. Szalai is how goddamned widespread he is – but only one on particular webpage.

Whenever I want to read anything at The Hollywood Reporter, this bastard’s face is plastered everywhere. From no less than three different spots on any given page, the ever-watchful eyes of George Szalai gaze over all. Ready. Intent. Just waiting to give your dumb ass some investment information.

It’d be one thing if they used different advertisements for the guy on the same page; whenever a big movie comes out and has an enormous, horizontal banner ad connected to an equally-enormous vertical one, it’s relatively easy to ignore. The two essentially fuse into one large, 90 degree banner ad which can then be roundly dismissed.

Not so with George Szalai.

Instead of making different ads or changing their size or frequency, the average Hollywood Reporter visitor might see the exact same ad for Szalai’s podcast plastered multiple times over the same page. If you’re having a hard time understanding how fucking irritating this might be, consider the following:

When one considers how often I visit Hollywood Reporter and how many articles I read on an average basis, a typical page begins to look a lot more like this:

This might be easier handle did the guy not look so goddamned smug. George Szalai seems to be watching you – yes, you – whilst silently mocking your financial ignorance. Are you too stupid to realize that you don’t know shit about the stock market? Don’t you realize that you need Szalai’s advice, or you’ll be living on the street giving blowjobs for money within the next few months? Don’t you get it? Hell, even if you don’t, Szalai doesn’t care. In fact, he looks pleased as motherfucking punch. He takes just as much enjoyment out of seeing failures like you waste away your savings on a stupid mistake as he does advising people into financial maturity, if not more.

George Szalai laughs at you. He smugly grins at you. George Szalai could probably trick your entire family into having sex with him right before he stole every penny they ever earned.