The Null Device

Conrad Heiney, who worked in a Los Angeles newspaper during the 1980s, recounts stories from the personals department:

At first a couple of the women in the production department put in their own personals. This is how we discovered that the same guys send the same letter and the same picture to any woman who advertises at any time, ever. After a few weeks of this we had a "Wall of Shame" in the production room with ten in a row of the same 8x10 glossies and lovelorn notes. The pictures were real "keepers". I remember one gentleman in a cowboy hat and Speedos in front of his trailer, and another with a Tom Selleck moustache and a combover leaning on a Mercedes. That kind of thing.

And this was born the Great Personals Competition. Anyone who wanted could enter, and write their own fake ad. Whomever received the most responses in the first week won.

I don't remember most of the ads. I do remember the top two. #2 was courtesy our classifieds guy's girlfriend:

Buxom blonde twins, 19, seek man for threesome. Pillow fights, tickling, and whatever else follows. Age, looks not important.

What is it about sexual desperation that makes for such a rich motherlode of comedy gold?

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Porn spammers are taking to online dating web sites to prey on the unloved and gullible; it now seems that 3% of online personals are spam, crafted to collect email addresses and hopefully sucker the respondent into subscribing to a porn site.

While the ads are tricky to spot, it's not impossible. They tend to be women in their 20s who have very general information listed in their personal essays, and often leave many personal details fields blank. And of course, an immediate request for a private e-mail address should be suspicious.

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