When I discussed Cover Oregon ads, which were a study in hippie-oriented marketing appropriate in the 1970′s, I thought I had uncovered the worst Obamacare marketing scheme that could have been possibly concocted.
I was wrong.
Lonely Conservative reviews the new website developed by the Rhode Island state exchange, “Nag Toolkit”. This site is supposedly designed to give parents the new media tools they need to persuade their kids to sign up for Obamacare.
Health Source RI is the Obamacare site for Rhode Island. There’s a related site, “Brought to you by HealthSourceRI,” called Nag Toolkit. The home page states: “Your kids don’t want to get health insurance. They also don’t want to get nagged. Let’s find out which one they want less. Help us get your kids insured by nagging them about health insurance where they least expect it.”
There are icons for social media sites like Twitter, Vine and Snapchat that you can click on to learn how to nag your kids “mercilessly” to get them to sign up for Obamacare…
State-sponsored nagging and online stalking of one’s children is beyond creepy.
Let’s check it out and see if it’s as “creepy” as Lonely Conservative says!
Not being familiar with OkCupid, a free online dating site, I decided to start there. The page states –
Select a tutorial and learn how to be where your kids are. And how to nag them mercilessly.
Then, it provides all the steps in creating a free account. Perhaps the site creators failed to recognize that some of the students may actually have parents who are still married? Novel concept, that!
I am now imaging having a discussion with my husband about my new online dating account.
“Leslie, you got some ‘splainin’ to do”.
Then, it gets even creepier: If this all seems too confusing, give us your kid’s email address and we’ll do the nagging.
So, let me get this straight: If I can’t handle social media, a complete stranger who may be a potential felon will contact my progeny directly.
As you can plainly see, it’s both ultra-creepy and full of fail.
Happily, I do know how to use Twitter. And I recognize a #FAIL when I see one.
(Note: This is one of the topics Legal Insurrection Editor Mandy Nagy and I will be chatting about this Thursday on Canto Talk).
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This is why I think we are going to have a conservative back lash or a libertarian back lash a little after 2016. My basis for this is young adult rebellion. If you look at the 80s rebellion against the 60 and 70s this is what I think is coming around again.
Obama and Progs are becoming Mom, Dad, and Grandparents kind of “cool”. I have started to notice the 14, 15, and 16 year olds reactions to all of this and see some hope for the future. I think we are heading back to the old slogan of “its hip to be square”.
I guess Cass Sunstein’s “Nudge” doesn’t work.
The “Nag Toolkit”? From Nudge to Nag!
I thought they were trying to #BanBossy?
#BanNaggy too!
From the Terms and Conditions of OKCupid.
Conduct
In your digital interactions with other users (including, but not limited to: site messages, instant messages, journal postings, and forum comments), you agree to conduct yourself civilly and respectfully. While using the website, you agree that you shall not under any circumstances harass or make mischief against any other user of the Website.
Ooops!
Good grief.
I seriously can’t imagine the mindset of the kind of people who reckoned this would work.
And for a mere $ 3 donation to the DNC, your name will be entered in a raffle to have Mooch herself follow your kid around for a day, giving him or her the Patent-Pending MDL (‘Mooch Dirty Look’).
There are certain thoughts that should never be written down on the 1 in 10 billion chance that writing it down would actually cause it to happen.
I think this is one of those 🙂
This could be better than burning a bag of dogcrap on your enemy’s front porch. Just sign up anyone you hate – to be nagged about ObamaCare!
(I knew there was a reason I bought that burner phone!)
I think the ‘burn the bag of dogpoop on the porch’ is an in-line purchase in the app.
I could actually think of a number of ways to monetize the app doing things like that.
I’m beginning to scare myself with thoughts like these 🙂
Free tutorial on how to alienate your offspring through social media and the internet. Helpful introduction for those who want to learn how to cyber-bully or cyber-stalk anyone, especially their own family members. And, it is state sanctioned. What could go wrong?
Gee, maybe we should just join Crimea.
If you want to do something REALLY scary, create an OKCupid account as a female and wait about an hour or two. Then come back here and post some of the personal messages you start getting from the guys out there.
Some of them are VILE. I can’t believe (but at this point I can) that any Government official would purposely suggest citizens be exposed to this crap.
Go on. Try it! Forgive me if you do.
This whole concept seems rather bossy to me.
I don’t understand this. Weren’t kids up to age 26 supposed to go on their parents’ plan? And wouldn’t most 20- and 30-somethings holding down jobs be covered through work? And wouldn’t most of the rest be students or un/under-employed and not have the funds?
OMG this is HIlarious. OKCupid is the site that a lot of the poly community goes to to find love. ROFL if you are a mom and you put up a profile there, it might not be your kids that get nagged mercilessly. PERFECT!!!
Time for RI to take the statue of the independent man off the top of the state house and replace it with pajama boy!
Nagging becomes indistinguishable from noise.
I love the smell of desperation in the morning.
Perhaps the dumbest notion here is that nagging works.