Hi5's Big Pimping

Chronicled by Afronuts @ Wednesday, January 23, 2013

I used to have an account on Hi5 years back but after the Facebook bug caught on, I deserted Hi5 and moved on to the Zuckerberg wonder. Today I’m getting weary of Facebook as I began to discover reasons not to so hooked to the social network. I got tired and stopped putting up personal photos and making friends with people I’m really not interested in knowing. Maybe it’s my new obsession with Twitter, coupled with my blog and Naija Stories.

So when I got this funny mail from Hi5 (after several mails intended to keep me on the site which I ignored) I was wondering whether the network was trying to woo me back by pimping pictures of cute chicks at me.

   

The Hi5 trick mail
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With my experience in advertising I know that sex always sells or draws attention and I’m quite sure that’s the strategy being applied here. Before this mail, I had been receiving notifications from Hi5 to check out new friend requests or updates that I might be interested in. I never replied or visited the site for any of these.

What got me convinced that this was some kind of trick to get my attention was the fact that the subject of the mail said ‘Kush, open this mail for 12 people you should meet’. Then on opening the mail I see ‘Play the Pets game to meet new people.’ Also there's this disturbing line that goes; 'Pets is a game where you can buy and own other people as your pet' And all these ‘new people’ turn out to be pretty ladies; not a single guy among them.

Sounds almost like an escort service if you ask me.

Nice try Hi5.

But I’m not buying it.