I got mixed reactions from a can of crushed pine fruit.

I was on Facebook just now, and I spotted this ad in the sidebar:

I've seen some terrible ads in my time, but this one takes home the prize for vaguest. There are four elements to this ad (title, URL, image, caption), and none of them seem to be related to each other in the slightest, nor does any one on its own give me any clue what the hell it's meant to be promoting.

So of course I clicked it. Even while my brain screamed at me not to. I see hundreds of internet ads every day, and I never click a single one. Many of those ads have millions of dollars behind them, with marketing genuises and skilled designers hand-crafting them to lure me in. Many of those ads are directly targeted at me based on my age, location and interests. Many of them are genuinely interesting to me. But I don't click them. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I know that when I click an ad, money changes hands. Even if it's a fraction of a cent, I don't want them to have it. I don't want someone to get rich by waving things in front of my face. Screw those guys. But despite all that, I clicked this ad. I clicked this, of all ads.

I had literally no idea where the link would take me. I certainly knew for sure it wasn't going to take me to accounts.google.com. My mind boggled at the mystery of what this ad could possibly be trying to sell me, or why it was presented to me specifically in the first place. I figured there were only two possibilites: either they were targeting incredibly stupid people who would read the ad and say, "Ooh, good news! It looks like I will like here. Pretty ladies." (in which case I am quite insulted that Facebook has decided to show this ad to me); or they were targeting people who like to think they understand the logic behind everything that's presented to them, and wouldn't be able to resist the mystery of what this ad was promoting (in which case I am quite impressed, because clearly it worked pretty fucking well - I clicked it and now I seem to be writing a blog about it).

As soon as I clicked, an overwhelming feeling of dread enveloped me, as if I had just given away my credit card details to a Nigerian prince, invited 70,000 strangers to an open bar party at my house, signalled a hitman to murder my family, and locked my keys inside my car with the engine running all at once. I had no idea where I was going. Not a single clue. I had just jumped down a deep, dark rabbit hole whilst cramming my foot in my mouth. With no pants on. Holding a live grenade. While the page redirected, I accepted my inevitable fate and prepared for the sweet embrace of death.

But apparently I'm not dead. It brought me here:

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE