ilyĀIMY.com

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I don’t really know how to keep up. With the world, with the
universe, with technology – with whatever. Today we’re having a beautiful,
relaxing moment on the water on the very edge of Massachusetts and I’m taking
time to watch the water pass by, just letting my brain go. Got a lot of work
done, billable hours to two different clients, setting up a third for when I
get home. Audio editing for ilyAIMY, but all the while worrying in the back of
my head about what I may be missing how someone’s going to take advantage of me
when I’m not looking…

Instagram is relatively new to me, and the mix of ads and
personal posts isn’t confusing per se, but they’re similar enough that I find
myself relaxing into a consumer mindset, just letting images flow past me. I’m
aware of “influencer” culture and sort of wish I could find a way to get paid
to just seem like someone that other people want to be, Living a Life that
other people would want to Live. An opportunity for that seemed to go past with
an ad for “Dylo Cam” – an action cam that was looking for “brand ambassadors”…
I’ve jumped through these hoops before, trying to convince a brand that because
of my Lifestyle and travel habits that I could talk up their product. Things
that I believe in : Saturn said “we don’t do that anymore”, CA fell apart and
Peavey knows my guitar isn’t theirs, Shure sponsored me for a hot sec and
through them I got a short-Lived QSC discount – the former I don’t use (and
Audio-Technica never replied) but QSC should TOTALLY give me a percentage on
the Touchmixes I’ve helped sell! Ebow has posted some of my recordings, but D’Addario
doesn’t care that I use their strings… as a semi-pro video / audio producer it
seems logical that maybe, just maybe a camera brand would pay attention to me…

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So I make my case that I’m just the kind of person they’re
looking for and a couple of hours later they email me, saying I’ve been
selected! Yay!

But then the alarm bells go off. They’ll send me the $400
cameras (up to three of them) for just the cost of shipping ($20 per camera)
and I just have to agree to talk them up (this reminds me of how Rainsong
offered me a guitar but insisted it be the only one I be seen to play for some
period of time – and to agree to this BEFORE I played it!) which… frankly seems
kind of standard but I wanted to know a little more about the cameras. Googling
them I can only find references to them on their site and on one reddit thread
talking about how “I got selected to be a ‘brand ambassador’ and this deal
seems too good to be true so I think it’s a scam!” – the thread has a number of
people who’ve been selected, none of which have ordered the camera because it
seems to be too good to be true and ONE freaked out person who ordered the
camera but is desperately trying to cancel their order – and all of this has
only happened in the past 72 hours or so, so no first person knowledge…

And going to THEIR website I realize that the cameras are
all rendered images, not actual pictures of cameras – and that right-clicking
and searching all the images on their website shows that everything on their
website is clipart – and either they sell a lot of clipart with these action
cams or none of these are genuine product pics. And the address given as the
business address is student housing in Florida.

So, no – I won’t be ordering my free cameras. But it feels
like there should be someone I can complain to. Some way to report this. There
probably is. But exhausted by researching the scam I’m kind of too tired to
research what to DO about the scam.

Sigh.

It’s a beautiful day. I don’t want to think about shitty
ploys on shitty social media feeds trying to part me with what little income I
have.

Oh. That reminds me. I’ve got to bug Concert Window. That’s been around for years. It CAN’T be a scam, right? So where’s my money?

Where’s ALL the money?