You Are Winner!

Congratulations! You’ve been selected to receive a free Nintendo Wii!

Congratulations! You’ve been selected to receive a free Verizon Blackberry!

Congratulations! You’ve been selected to receive a free Sony PSP!

Congratulations! You’ve been selected to hear this advertisement play in your browser for all eternity, or until your speakers die, whichever comes first!

Is it just me, or are these audio advertisements the most annoying form of advertising ever placed on the web? Audio advertisements began as a guy on the street, calling out to anyone who could hear him, as the best way to advertise without paper at the time. The next audible advertisement was on the Radio, because there is nothing visual on the Radio. Then they had advertisements on the Television. Of course you could hear them, but you could also see them moving. Televised advertisements were videos which, without sound, are rather boring.

When advertisements started on the internet, they were little more than electronic posters, possibly animated. Then we started having videos advertising online. Now, we have the normal, slightly animated electronic poster, on an otherwise boring and SILENT site, with a voiceover that’s louder than most videos you watch. What is it saying? Does it have a catchy jingle? Does it tell you about Ernie’s GIF site and Car lot?

No!

Congratulations! You’ve been selected as the latest pigeon to fall for this service cover-up!

Instead of flat out saying that we have a chance at getting something, we are told that we’ve been selected to get one! Doesn’t that imply you’ve already done what you have to do? Congratulations! You’ve won! Not quite. But you can win! You can get this item absolutely free by completing the below offers, which usually tell you to pay for something, or take a million convenient surveys, or test a product that your local crash test dummy would be wary of. Does this sound free to you?

So, not only is it annoying to listen to, but it’s false advertising! And worst yet, it plays ever time you load a page!

EVERY

SINGLE

TIME!!!

So you need to either find a way to stop it, or mute your computer. You don’t want to mute your computer, you want to watch a video on YouTube, or play a game on Newgrounds! You can’t do that without sound, not enjoyably, anyway. Seriously, what were these people thinking?

“Let’s annoy the average consumer, by barraging them with advertisements that never shut up, and never go away, so that they will click on that advertisement and complete every offer on the page in the hopes of us giving them a program that will block those advertisements from ever coming up again. But, let’s not provide that program, and instead give them even more advertisements so they will do it again!”

“WE’LL BE RICH!”

Ya know? I wouldn’t doubt it one bit.