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The Virgin that Wants You

So the other day Carrie sent me this link to an article in the Brooklyn-based blog Brownstoner (that was a fun alliteration) about these insipid new Virgin Mobile locally-targeted ads: If you click and read the copy, they're pretty awful, like some smarmy salesguy who Googled you. It's transparent and creepy. What the fuck does Virgin, a British company, really know about Bed-Stuy? Is Richard Branson out there most afternoons, getting his hair cornrowed on the stoop of his building?

But you can see why Virgin Mobile is wary of those "newcomers who want to change Bed-Stuy into some sort of yuppie strip-mall." Yeah, you tell 'em, Virgin Mobile.

Carrie asked if I'd seen these out here in LA, and my first thought was that those wouldn't really play in LA, where neighborhoods are less defined. But this morning I went out to check my mail and saw this sign in front of my driveway (click for a bigger image to read the text).

Looks like I was wrong. They are doing it here, but they're skipping the bullshit neighborhood parts and targeting specific homes. I have no idea how they got all this information. It feels pretty creepy. But how can I turn down a phone from a company so into me?