Tin Speaker

So I’ve been working on some marketing strategies for the old Web logs. My plan hinges on the viral powers of Craigslist, and has thus far been overwhelmingly unsuccessful. For some reason, the bitter masses who peruse the Talent Gigs section of both the New York City and Hudson Valley craigslist see fit each time to flag for removal my legitimate and sincere advertisements. This is probably because they are just a bunch of no-talent wannabe models/dancers/actors/&c/&c who spend all their time sending in their ten-year-old headshots to NYU film students looking to cast “attractive and quirky twentysomething for a student film shooting this week. No pay, but it’ll be a great experience!” Excuse me for enlivening your sad, empty lives with the gift of my prodigious wit.

I realize this is utterly counter-intuitive, but I’m going to go ahead and post here the adverts that I’ve posted on and had removed from craigslist (side note — Firefox is weak for not recognizing ‘craigslist’ as a word). Perhaps some of my loyal readers will shoulder the mantle of duty and take it upon themselves to bring the wisdom and pith of Hornblower to the masses. Unite, friends. It takes a nation of millions to hold us back.


Oh, you dance? Fantastic. Oh, you don’t dance? Wonderful. (Greenwich Village)

Reply to: gigs-zk7zm-1210607009@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-06-07, 11:42PM EDT

If you are a fantastic dancer, or would like to be, or have ever danced, or ever think about dancing, this may be the perfect opportunity for you!

So, actors, actresses, waiters, waitresses, dancers, danstresses, models, modelesses, painters, paintresses — you’re all invited to the party. What I need you to do is dance (shirtless) in various locations around the city. This can be any style of dance you want, except the waltz. Here’s the rub — you’ll have body paint on! Wow!

It’ll spell out “tinspeaker.com,” but I realize that no one will really be able to read that so here’s the party line disco dance time — after a few minutes of your expert dancing, you’ll obviously have a crowd of spectators. When they ask you what’s all the hoopla, you say, “Tinspeaker.com is what!” And then everyone is happy. I’m looking for some people to do this for a few hours a day, a few days a week. The schedule is very flexible, since I understand that you have needs, too. And remember — no waltzing. Ever.

There’s more.

I’m looking to get two teams going… one for http://tinspeaker.com and one for http://orpheusweaponry.com. The Orpheus Weaponry team will perform much the same task as the Tin Speaker team, except instead of tinspeaker.com, they’ll be promoting orpheusweaponry.com. Just to stoke the competitive fire in your dancing hearts, we’ll have contests to see which team is more effective, with stupendous prizes for the winners (past prizes have included hot chocolate and White Castle coupons). So, if you’re interested (and you are, believe me — just listen to your heart) send me an email with your résumé, a couple of recent pictures (no nudes! (n00dz are also not acceptable)), and a short explanation of why you’d be the right candidate for this job. I’ll get back to everyone, and if I think you’re right for the job, we can meet over tea (your treat (just kidding! (but really, your treat (ha! ha! (I’m being so serious (oh.)))))) to discuss the specifics of the position, and get you going with the dancing and the happiness. Looking forward to hearing from you! And Heaven help you if you even mention the goddamn waltz.

Compensation: As I mentioned, the winning team of the competitions will receive enviable prizes. Unfortunately, as we are a start-up company, we are unable to provide compensation of a monetary sort. However, this is a rare opportunity for you to gain valuable experience in the field, make important contacts within the industry, build your résumé, network, learn how to operate in a New York City environment, promote synergy, &c, &c. University students should contact their schools about receiving college credit for this gig. For high-fliers (or should I say high-kickers! Ha! Ha!) there is also the potential for this to develop into a paid position.

This entry was posted on 25 Jun 2009 at 12:29 am and is filed under Meta. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: advertising, bull shit, bullshit, craigslist, flag, haterz, marketing, orpheus weaponry, tinspeaker