You Suck at Craigslist

Author: drmk

  • YSaC, Vol. 1800: So long, and thanks for all the bees.

    Um.

    So, in the summer of 2008 I was spending a fair amount of time on my local Craigslist. I started noticing that people in my town were pretty bad at Craigslist, and I started posting some of the more egregious ads to my Livejournal account (remember those?) and making fun of them. My friends made the mistake of encouraging me, and You Suck at Craigslist was born.

    I made it through 200 posts using Roman numerals as titles before I figured out THAT was a bad idea. It was somewhere around post #350 that Dan started to help out, and we’ve been co-authoring it since then. Somewhere along the way we picked up the nicknames of the Llamanun and the Ostrimu, and also picked up the most clever bunch of minions – er, commenters – that the internet has ever seen. We held meetups wherever we went, and we got to meet people who … well, they got us, and they were wonderful.

    We almost got to write a book somewhere in there, back when every blog on the internet was being offered a book, but lost out when we refused to dumb it down. We also almost got bought by a large cheeseburger-focused website, but that fell through too, because we would have lost the rights to everything we had done, and there were no guarantees that we could have kept doing it. We just liked doing it.

    It’s been over six years of bees, things that aren’t lions, French non-Provincial furniture, and every spelling imaginable of chihuahua, armoire, and ottoman. We’ve made jokes about things as diverse as the Maginot Line, Chuck Close, and Marcel Duchamp. William Gibson, Roger Ebert, and Dan Piraro all publicly said they liked our website. We’ve written soliloquies, operas, and movies, and more song parodies than anyone other than Weird Al Yankovic. (Some of them even got recorded.)

    And we loved every minute of it.

    That’s why this is really hard for us. As life has a tendency to do, whether you want it to or not, life has changed for us since 2008, and both of us have things going on now that demand our attention. We’re at post #1800 as of today, which is a nice round number … and so as of today, we’re (un)officially calling an end to You Suck at Craigslist.

    We’ve put together a list of the Best of the Worst posts of 2014, and we’d be honored if you took the time to re-read some of our favorite moments. As always, no clickbait – the original posts and our commentary are now all on one page, but we urge you to take the time to click through to each individual post and read the comments, which are usually the best part of the site.

    Thanks to everyone – everyone who read the site, commented, or sent in submissions. The site would not have worked without you. Thanks to Craig Newmark for not suing us. And a special thanks to all of the Sparkys who posted on Craigslist and gave us such a wealth of material to work with. We will miss all of you.*

    -Llamanun and Ostrimu

     

    *This is actually true. Well, maybe not the Sparkys.

  • YSaC, Vol. 1797: Gotta get movin’ to a clown that’s right for me.

    safety issue

    Is it safe, to allow your kids to eat candy flavored chap stick?

    My son, eats about 3 containers a day, of various flavored lip balm sticks. He particularly likes the blueberry flavored chap sticks.

    He says they give him super powers. So idk? He did survive being hit by a moped, and he didn’t break a bone. And the clowns moped was totaled. So I’m beginning to wonder.

    Chapstick Connoisseur is my Lipps, Inc. cover band.

    What super powers would chapstick consumption convey? The ability to …

    Okay, wait a minute. Seriously — you just know that the dancers in that video have had nightmares about this gig ever since, especially the poor girl designated the lead funky-seeker. I mean, she is not in any way funky, and she could really use an escort to somewhere that would provide her with the recommended daily allowance of funky to ameliorate her funkyless condition, but I’m not sure this was the best way to entice someone who has an excess of funky and the means to provide transport to allow her to accompany them on their journey.

    I seem to have gotten distracted. Look, a clown on a moped! *crash* oops.

    Thanks, mc l!

  • YSaC, Vol. 1795: This monkey’s gone to heaven.

    One of the recurring themes on this site has been people who, when faced with a piece of furniture they’d like to part with, apparently just bash their hands on the computer keyboard in hopes that their frenzied actions will somehow miraculously spell the name of the thing they are trying to sell. I mean, it worked for Shakespeare’s monkeys, right?

    amoria!

    Very nice in good cond asking best offer

    I’ve been writing this site for long enough that when I got this submission (in 2010), I was actually relieved that there wasn’t someone using the toilet in this picture, and kind of mentally glossed over the spectacular attempt to spell armoire.

    vintage sofa chimpindale style

    this is a good looking soft i want to find a home.

    There weren’t any pictures with this one, so I’m taking bets at even odds that this ad was written by a person who is either trying to rehome a monkey or is in fact a monkey. But probably not one of Shakespeare’s monkeys.

    And just for good measure, sometimes folks get the spelling right, but get so much else so very, very wrong:

    wood stationary rocker

    wood rocker — back 39″ h x 25″ w x seat 15″ h front with cushions — great condition ——- $ 15.00

    A stationary rocker. You know, for those folks who can’t handle standard rockers because of nausea and vomiting because of that whole “moving” thing. Also known as a chair.

  • YSaC, Vol. 1792: Sithi uhm ingonyama.

    Japanese rickshaw

    Small cellulite rickshaw good condition

    I … ew. I had no idea this was a thing. I wonder if I can get someone to carve something out of my cellulite? You could probably end up with a replica of Michelangelo’s David just from my thighs, and have enough left over for a Lionel Richie bust (which is totally apropos, since it was probably cream cheese dip that created the cellulite in the first place). Ah, the circle of life continues …

    Placenta – $40

    My wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and I have heard a lot about people taking the placenta and eating it. It really doesn’t sound that good to me, but we are strapped for cash and it is being properly refrigerated. Please email me if you’re interested, the doctor said it should last a few days.

    Gah. No. Also, no. It’s a thing, I get it … but no. And I’m definitely not eating someone else’s. I’m also terrified that my Google history now has the phrase “eating placenta” in it — in all caps, no less, because I accidentally hit the caps lock button so now Google thinks that I REALLY WANT TO TRY eating placenta. No thank you — THAT circle of life is ending.

    Thanks, Lyle and Kristen!

  • YSaC, Vol. 1791: Was the immortal guy also Shakespeare? Because then we’d really have something.

    Reply,Reply,Me,Me,Me,Me Brilliant – m4w

    I love Shakespeare’s Sonnet 62, and in it’s irony, the poet’s partner has become part of the poet’s self and hence by praising himself he is in fact praising his beloved who is the source of beauty in the poet’s life.

    The person whom sent me this response. It is a honor to run into someone ,whom is even aware with Shakespeare!I am very impressed that you are out there,hoping that you have secured a viable minds to share your views,and opinions,certainty there must be a man who appreciates cultivation in a woman. I like the Dark Knight have elected to not seek out brilliance,knowledge,or wisdom;inside of s society primarily inspired by social cues. Only a few walk amongst us worthy enough to know the meditations of Marcus A.Not many even have a interested in poetry these days,rarely is one heard in public reciting it openly with passion. Nevermore,Nevermore, my poetic mystery lady,you definitely have revealed that “I am not Alone”/ May i suggest a movie which you might find extremely interesting, produced for philosophical minds like yourself. On a cold night in a remote cabin, Professor John Oldman (David Lee Smith of CSI: MIAMI) gathers his most trusted colleagues for an extraordinary announcement: He is an immortal who has migrated through 140 centuries of evolution and must now move on. he name of the movie is the”The Man from Earth”.

    I think these two lovebirds are made for each other. I mean, the poetic mystery lady who sent the response about Shakespeare’s Sonnet 62 clearly loves poetry enough to plagiarize an interpretation from a bizarre and questionable internet source, and our Dark Knight (minus brilliance, knowledge, or wisdom) has plagiarized the description of the movie he is so intent on having our heroine watch.

    So let’s see: woman responds saying she’s very fond of a sonnet that is apparently a justification for narcissism, and man responds favorably with a reference to a movie about an immortal man who reveals that he himself was Jesus. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert.)

    Yup, I think these two crazy kids just might make it.

    Thanks, Beth P.!

  • YSaC, Vol. 1783: The May Queen is spring cleaning early this year. Or late.

    Stairway to Heaven- FREE

    50% of the official ‘stairway to heaven’ and it’s free for the taking. Certificate of Authenticity available upon request. [location] at my curbside

    There’s a Sparky whose stairs
    Are outside growing mold
    And he’s selling the stairway
    on Craigslist.

    When he posts it he knows
    Before they decompose
    With an ad he can get
    Them all taken.

    Thanks, Ralph!