Most of the time, a single facebook ad catches my attention as potentially fantastic drivel.  Sometimes, multiple ads for the same thing provide the requisite irony (cf carrot and stick: paranormal).  But here, it’s the juxtaposition that is truly fantastic.  These two ads appeared as you see them now, one atop the other; a monument to the laser-precision of targeted advertising in the 21st century.

Targeted Advertising: The Shotgun Approach

Unless I’m completely missing the boat here, these two products seem catered to rather different demographics.  But wait: facebook ads are targeted.  There are two possibilities here:  (1) there is some hidden similarity between the “island paradise of [my] dreams” and the “cannibal holocaust of horror sites” or (2) the facebook ad machine has gotten lazy, trading in its sniper scope for a 12-gauge and a saw. 

argument for similarity

The Tiki Farm’s blissful appearance is just a dystopian facade.  Note the use of the word “paradise” alongside a cartoon depicting an interracial couple–this could easily be a nod to the antiquated morality of a Miltonian world, where anti-miscegenation was the cat’s pajamas.  Further consideration should also be given to the phrase “of your dreams;” remember, after all, that a nightmare is a kind of dream.  The advertiser has carefully crafted this text to tell us what the Tiki Farm really is: a Lord of the Flies facebook app.  How appropriate, then, for this ad to appear alongside the ugly mug of the Dreamin’ Demon (emphasis added; the repeated focus on dreams provides another connective ligature between these two basically identical ads).

argument for laziness

Um, no.

You can decide for yourself, but I’m gonna go with the second possibility and call this an example of the shotgun approach in targeted ads.  But maybe that’s just because I never read Lord of the Flies.