When websites like Amazon and eBay transformed commerce as we know it, they also paved the way for Craigslist, a centralized network of online communities featuring free classified advertisements. Sounds like a great idea right? Problem is, a more accurate description of Craislist would be: A site that invites unsuspecting victims into life-threatening encounters with sociopaths. Looking for a summer sublet? Meet Andrew. He’ll beat you to death with a crowbar. Need a running partner? Lars loves running. But you know what he loves even more? Killing and eating “running partners”.
Of course, I knew none of this when I went online to find my daughter a new bicycle for her birthday. Someone at work suggested I visit Craigslist and save myself a few of bucks. So that’s what I did, and found some pretty compelling deals in the process. But when I called “Bill” to inquire about his “like-new Huffy Disney Princess 16 Inch girls bike”, I got the impression that the gravelly-voiced gentleman on the other end of the line had no such bike. I did, however, get the impression that Bill’s Brownsville apartment contained at least one soundproof torture chamber. After a brief conversation, I told Bill I’d think about it, even though I had absolutely no intention of trekking out to Brownsville to be raped and murdered (not necessarily in that order).
This interaction compelled me to investigate Craigslist a little further. I couldn’t help but think that the site had become an online home to the depraved and violent. If Ted Bundy were alive today and in the mood to bathe in the guts of innocent park goers, all he’d need was a fake ad for an Ultimate Frisbee team. Half the ads placed in the Volunteering section seemed to be placed by sex offenders. I imagined people arriving for jobs they’d found in the Gigs section promptly having their legs broken. And I won’t even discuss the Casual Encounters section.
Deciding that my life was slightly more valuable than a kid's bicycle, I visited Target.com, added a hot pink bike to my shopping cart and prayed that Bill didn’t have caller ID. Craigslist sounds good in theory, but so do those emails I receive from that kind Nigerian gentleman promising me millions of dollars on the condition I send him one-hundred bucks first. Thanks, but no thanks.
