(Here's an oldie from 2008. This is one of the first "Porfle Vs." things that I ever wrote. You may not even remember the ads that it refers to.)
I keep seeing these ads that say “Are you a celebrity? It’s scary accurate to see what celebrity you are. Find out now!” I wasn’t quite sure I fully understood this “scary accurate” concept, so I threw caution to the wind and clicked on one of the ads.
The first thing that happened was that I was asked for my gender and given the usual two choices–male or female. I clicked “male”, since I didn’t want to find out that I was Angelina Jolie or Rosie O’Donnell. That would be scary inaccurate.
My sexual identity thus firmly established, I was taken to a page which featured the first question in my quest to find out which celebrity I am. Question number one was:
1. Do you like to sing or act?
a. Sing
b. Act
c. Other
Hmm, I thought. This is a pretty shrewd question. Not only does it narrow things down considerably, but it also covers just about everything that it takes to be considered a “celebrity.” After all, celebrities either sing, act, or do “other” things. In fact, some sing AND act. But I couldn’t choose both simultaneously, so I chose “other.” Already I was beginning to suspect that I might be Dean Martin, or maybe even Sylvester Stallone, since I have seen both of them sing and act–sometimes at the same time!
Having entered this vital information into the website’s database, I was then presented with Question number two in my quest for scary accuracy:
2. Select what you do in your spare time?
a. Party around the world
b. Wear a disguise to everday activities
c. Start a charity
d. Adopt children from third world countries
e. Something else…
“Select what you do in your spare time?” That’s not a question, it’s an imperative with a question mark stuck at the end instead of a period. Sort of like if you’re robbing a liquor store and you say, “Give me all your money?” It sounds like you’re giving the guy a choice, and chances are he’s going to choose not to give you all of his money.
Anyway–I’m not really capable of partying around the world, because I can’t afford to go anywhere. I don’t really participate in any everyday activities either, unless you count urinating off my front porch whenever it gets dark enough. And a disguise would be rather unnecessary for that unless my neighbors are spying on me with night-vision goggles, which, come to think of it, I’ve often suspected them of doing but could never prove anything conclusively. And if I disguised myself as, say, Bill Gates, my neighbors would still find it odd to see Bill Gates urinating off my front porch.
Starting a charity is right out, since I don’t really care about anybody besides myself. Adopting children from third world countries? Nope…I’m afraid that, despite my gender specification, I might find out that I really am Angelina Jolie after all. That would just be scary, period. No, the only thing I really like to do in my spare time is f**k off. Hey, that would qualify as “something else”! I’m well on my way to a scary accurate celebrity match-up!
So far these questions were really zeroing in on what makes me tick–in fact, I was already getting kind of scared–and I was looking forward to Question number three, where all of this clever cross-questioning would really start to come together. Question number three:
3. Enter your first name.
Umm…not really a question either, is it? And I wasn’t sure what my first name would have to do with what celebrity I am. If my first name was Charles, would that give me more in common with someone like Charles Manson than it would, say, Merv Griffin? Confused and disoriented, I rebelled against what I considered the irrelevant nature of the “question” and simply typed in something self-descriptive. Surely this would be more useful to whatever artificial intelligence was at work evaluating my answers and determining which celebrity my similarity to would be the most scarily accurate. And so, on to Question number four:
4. Shit Head, enter your cell phone number below to find out if you are an up and coming celebrity!
Again, not really a question. Okay, I guess it is, sorta, but shouldn’t it read “What’s your cell phone number, Shit Head?” I mean, really, what’s the point of calling these “questions” if they’re not even going to state them in the form of-hey, wait a minute! My cell phone number? WTF?
At that point, my mind began to travel back…back…back to a block of tiny print on page one called “Summary Terms.” I had only given this a cursory glance at first, because, of course, I was so darned excited about finding out which celebrity I am. “Hey, maybe I’m Brad F**kin’ Pitt!” I remember thinking with childlike glee. With this in mind, I returned to page one, put on my reading glasses, and scanned the Summary Terms, only this time I took note of phrases such as “by signing up for this service…you acknowledge that you are subscribing to our service…$5.99 per week…$19.99 per month…will appear on your wireless bill…”
Yikes! This was undoubtedly the scariest thing I had encountered thus far. As much as I desperately wanted to know what celebrity I was, I wasn’t willing to actually pay a wet red cent to find out. Besides, what kind of “service” might this be in the first place, exactly? Would I require frequent updates to keep track of what celebrity I happen to morph into from one day to the next? Like, am I Johnny Depp one moment and then I glance in the mirror and I’m suddenly Seth Green or Barry White? Wut up wit dat, yo?
So I went back to Question number four and entered a fake cell phone number, hoping that this would fool the Super Computer enough to whip up a celebrity match for me and finally come across with some free info, dagnab it.
There was no Question number five. There was only an instruction for me to enter the special PIN number that had just been sent to the fake phone number I had just entered. If it really happened to be somebody else’s cell phone number, then some other guy was getting my special PIN number, and being matched up with MY celebrity, dammit! “HEY, I’M BRUCE F**KIN’ WILLIS!” he’s probably gloating to his stupid friends at this very moment. “WOW, IS THAT SCARY ACCURATE OR WHAT!” The rotten bastard! CRAP! I’ll bet he can’t even sing or act, either! JERK! MARICÓN! GRRRRR!!! Su madre es PUTA!!!!!!!!!
I don’t know–maybe I’m Jack Nicholson. Surely after all this, he’d have whipped out his nine-iron by now and started bashing the hell out of something. But no, that’s not me–I’m not quite that demonstrative. I’d probably just bug my eyes out, purse my lips, and get all agitated while hopping around and making fake karate moves. So I think my most scary accurate celebrity match-up would probably be Don Knotts. But now I’ll never know, unless I can track down the big, fat jerk who’s running around with my fake PIN number and being Bruce F**kin’ Willis.
