They can be insidious or comical, depending on your mood.
They are everywhere you surf. Blending into the sidebars, lurking, poised, ready to deliver knowledge and security to you. They are your personal spy, your custom tailored P.I., at least if you’re ever concerned about this stuff. I see them on Facebook frequently. You see them too…online services promising to provide an arrest record of anyone you plan on letting into your life (for a fee, of course). The hilarity ensues upon close inspection of the advertisements. They all invariably have a photo, or photos, of degenerate guys and inconspicuous normal-looking women. Some people pictured in these type of ads look so depraved and cagey that spending money to uncover an “arrest record” is akin to spending $80 on a car wash and wax job the day before a snowstorm is forecast.
Who the hell uses these services, anyways? Naturally, I would expect employers and/or business owners who must be bonded. But I can’t believe people use these in their everyday, personal life. People just don’t trust their intuition and people smarts. They must defer to “specialists.” Today’s society is overrun with specialists in all walks of life. They get paid to do what people would have been entrusted to do on their own in the past when they had keen instincts and were confident in their skills at “reading” people.
Now we buy key code loggers to spy on our spouses, we put GPS trackers in our cars to keep tabs on our teen’s driving habits, or we use “public arrest record services” to ascertain the law-abiding (or not) reputation of our prospective mates. We used to thrive on the unknown in the “old days.” We were brave, we had balls, men and women alike. Now, everyone is afraid. Western culture is dominated by timid control freaks.
I was amused by the faces on this arrest record service advertisement I spied earlier in Google Reader.
According to the demographics insinuated in this ad, and others of its ilk, men with arrest records are easier to discern by sight than women. The guys in this series of photos look downright scary. I wouldn’t hire them or entrust them with any of my possessions! Would you? And they all have black hair. The question of criminal history is a no-brainer for these fine specimens of humanity.
The women, however, look normal. They are all blonde and generally attractive with clear complexions and full sets of teeth. Their hairstyles don’t scream “red evil bitch flag” and the assertion here seems to be that women can slide under the radar of transparency when it comes to judging them purely by appearance.
But when it’s men who are bad news, you can see them coming from a mile away.
You have Lemmy, the wild rock star who will drink, eat or inject anything into his body as long as it can fit into a needle or his mouth.
And then there is Charles Manson, a vile fiend who will hypnotize your daughter before adopting her into his sex coven of underage minions.
And the final contestant in the “Name That Criminal Background” is the Cushing’s Syndrome homeboy. I don’t know what scares me more about him. His monolithic, brown-egg-shaped build? Perhaps it’s those freaky little beady eyes engulfed by mounds of facial chub? If you can run, you have a chance of getting away from him, but do not trust him with your fridge.
Now the women aren’t scary at all. They look like sorority party sluts whose claim to criminal fame are their extreme drunken Spring Break antics. These girls look as dangerous as Jenna Bush while engrossed in a sloppy group competition of quarters.
The only woman in this series who appears to have any criminality brewing in her prestigious past might be County Jumpsuit Judy there in the upper left-hand corner.
Something about her strikes me as a tad unsavory. Dangerous even.
It’s probably the dark hair.
Admit it, you’d still hit it. ;)
Would!