If I said what I felt right now, my comment would be pulled.

Why are you trying to drive away readers??!!

Kitty!

There must be a suitable corollary to Poe's Law for this.

Are these actually sponsored content? Are we being trolled? I never, EVER thought I'd agree w/ raindrop. About anything. But yeah..this isn't a print paper. Are things so bad as Stranger HQ there has to be ads right in w/ the actual content?

This could be the best thing to happen to you lunatics.

Having a real world advertiser to answer to instead of website full of classified ads for underage streetwalkers and shops on Olive selling dildo shaped bongs.

Suddenly some of the logic might make sense.

People who live and breathe in the real world paying taxes might be recognized.

The times they are a-changin'

Supreme Ruler dear, if you want us to chip in and buy you a dildo shaped bong, just say so. There's no need to be so coy.

I am still waiting for a legally binding Slog Poll, to determine the future of this so called, "sponsored content."

@7 Do not feed the trolls.

OMG, MY ads are all G-rated. lololol JBITDMFOTP

6) Don't worry. The Stranger is all about adapting their material to suit their advertisers. Dave Meinert & co. didn't approve of The Stranger's Fight for 15 coverage so they threatened to pull their advertising. Nothing like corporate media that has to censor itself for fear of losing money!

6) Don't worry. The Stranger is all about adapting their material to suit their advertisers. Dave Meinert & co. didn't approve of The Stranger's Fight for 15 coverage so they threatened to pull their advertising. Nothing like corporate media that has to censor itself for fear of losing money!

I can't really fault the stranger for this. Unfortunately "sponsored content" is one of the primary revenue generators for online content now. If you're going to run an ad revenue based site, you really don't have much of a choice (and paywalls don't seem to work, since we want everything for free). Even the Onion does "satirical" sponsored content for its advertisers. Anyway,as long as it's properly labeled, I don't really care. Just scroll past it.

Wait, do people actually believe that those previous columns were really sponsored by those brands?

Several people are emphatic saying the Cartoon Crime feature is the best part of Slog lately. Sponsored Content kicks Cartoon Crime's ass in my opinion.

@12: what else would it be? If it was some sort of joke, they wouldn't have been doing it for weeks now.

The problem is, we only click this bullshit in order to read or leave a comment, and they know that, so they can report massive clicks to their marketing overlords.

@14 has a point. OK, so no more page views or comments, people?

RIP stranger. old man savage must be spinning in his grave.

Wow. Just wow. Whether you think it's funny or not, the Stranger is quite obviously satirizing the whole sponsored content phenomenon. My previous reaction was 'meh', but it is fucking hilarious that they've been able to carry it this far - using a "sponsored" post to declare their editorial independence - and you dumbshits still don't get it.

You are all too fucking stupid to be on the internet without a chaperone.

P.S. If you see a "sponsored" post here for drool cups and adult diapers, that one's probably genuine as the Stranger readership is clearly right market for those products.

Kitty!

@17. That's the thing. They may be satirizing it, but I'm quite positive they are still getting money from showing the ads. It's like when Coke appears in the background of your favorite stoner movie. The movie is funny, but the ad are there, and they're raking in the dough.

I had a boss once who always carried jokes on for too long. She beat them to death, long after they ceased to be funny. These "sponsored content" things are deja vu for me.

I gave my cat some Whiskas, there was glass mixed in, she ate it and died. #whiskaskilledmycat

@21: OMG! How awful. What kind of cat food was it?

You know, I'm as sad and disappointed by this as anyone, but I do wonder how folks expect free alt-weeklies to generate any sort of revenue without resorting to alternate methods like these. Print ad rates have been plummeting for years and those slog banner & sidebar links surely aren't going to make up the difference. The Stranger was already notorious for paying shitty wages, seems like somethings gotta give.

@23 - Yes, you make good points. Still if a business has to be annoying to its readership to cut costs, time to rethink for some alternatives - if possible. Still, I bet they cringe when clicking to post these silly things.

@21: You didn't respond. And I fell for your joke - hook, line, and sinker. I don't have a Twitter account but I seriously doubt that there is a #whikaskilledmycat in existence, but maybe there will be after this. You extrapolated a plausible industrial failure or criminal tampering into a narrative to suit this already stupid post causing unnecessary worry for any cat owners who have bought Whiskas. (No I am not being coy or doing yet another parody.).
This crap has got to stop, and I don't blame you Jude. You're just playing along with the crap that The Stranger is inundating us with. I am well known for taking advantage of such situations myself.
I'm sorry, but this reverberation of parody upon parody upon outrage vs. faux. outrage that gets served up by The Stranger that makes us write stupid comments for a stupid publication. There's more to life than that!

Goodbye The Stranger.

^^ "Goodbye the Stranger" I wish.

So, let me get this straight... a bunch of you think Whiskas paid the Stranger for this article?

wow.

I think calling it an "article" is gilding the lily.

SPONSORED CONTENT
@Eckstein: but I'm quite positive they are still getting money from showing the ads

Let me guess - you're also quite positive that vaccines cause autism.

Whiskas wouldn't pay a dime for this shit, except maybe to have it removed. The "ad" doesn't even include any links. You know who "sponsored" this post? The companies featured on the display banners on all the pages you had to click through to get here and make a fool of yourself.

Now, time for me to enjoy a delicious Oscar Mayer™ brand hot dog. Mmmm good.
This post was created in partnership with our good friends at Oscar Mayer™. Ka-ching!

@29 Notice how when I comment I type reasonable things and don't personally attack you? What the fuck does autism and vaccines (which I don't believe are linked, for the record) have to do with these stupid articles? Did you also notice they stopped posting these after this one? The failed attempt at paid comedy was embarrassing, as is your previous comment.

Also, you did it wrong. You have to actually tell Oscar Mayer that you're going to advertise to get the money, dummy.

Oh, and also @29, do you really think we live in an age of links-only advertising? By clicking on these articles, which could have contained meta data, but certainly contain key words in the title and content, Google, Facebook, etc will now show us ads related to that content. See how that works? Subversive advertising at its best. Expand your mind.