How To Make Money Online
By Chris Killen
Google “how to make money online.” Look at website after website, written by people claiming to make $800+ a month by doing absolutely nothing!!! Click on a link. Click on another link. Become no more informed on how to make money online. Look at the time. Realize four hours has passed. When your girlfriend comes home from work, lie about what you were doing. Tell her you were writing a novel.
ONLINE POKER
Sign up for Party Poker. Deposit the minimum amount ($18), hoping to immediately double it with their new players sign up bonus. Wonder why your starting balance doesn’t automatically double. Find out that in order to access the aforementioned sign up bonus, you need to first accrue 200 Party Poker points by playing online poker. Spend two weeks playing online poker. (“The novel is coming along really well.”) Win one game out of three. Daydream, occasionally, about becoming an online poker pro. Slowly lose all your money (total Party Poker points at closure of account: 16).
CAM PERSON
Actually consider wanking for strangers, for money. Look at cam girls, as ‘research.’ Sit in your room at 2 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, eating toast, as you watch an Eastern European woman felate a large purple dildo. Later, watch a mature couple rub each other halfheartedly, while trying to encourage someone to ‘go private’ with them. Don’t go private with them. Consider asking your girlfriend to do a couples cam with you. Bring it up as a joke in bed one night. Don’t pursue the issue.
SURVEYS
Read testimonials from people who claim to supplement their income by filling in online surveys. Wonder if you could really do this full time. Think, ‘Surveys is the new envelope-stuffing, maybe.’ Google “online envelope stuffing.” Google “secret way to make money that no one knows about yet.” Google “how to write a novel.” Fill in your username and half of your email address on an online survey website. Imagine actually spending 8 hours a day, five day a week filling in surveys. Close your browser.
GOOGLE ADSENSE
Read about Google Adsense. Consider putting adverts on your blog. Consider starting a new blog, under a pseudonym, from the perspective of someone who has actually found out the secret to making money online, from the comfort of my own home, by doing absolutely nothing!!! and filling this fake blog with Google Adsense banners and boxes and pop-up windows. Picture yourself receiving a check from Google Inc. for $800 and taking it to your local bank in Manchester, England, and sliding it across the counter to the cashier who says something about them not accepting American checks. Google “can you cash American checks in the UK?” Google “is there ever going to be a sequel to Avatar?” Google “large itchy red patch on my arm for two weeks is it skin cancer?”
YOUTUBE PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM
Watch videos of successful teenagers who seem to be making actual full-time incomes just from video-blogging or creating online characters/sitcoms. Wish you were younger and more attractive and energetic and optimistic. Wish, vaguely, that you lived in a large white house in California, with a swimming pool and a half-pipe and a tree swing and a little brother. Consider starting some kind of ‘weird viral comedy video thing’ where you wear a mask and talk about current affairs in a satirical way. Daydream about leading a double-life; one where you are both you and also, secretly, a full-time YouTube Partner, making a monthly income roughly equivalent to that of Lucas Cruikshank (circa 2009). Buy a plastic animal mask from a joke shop. Set up your video camera in the spare room. Talk for three minutes in an unsustainably ‘wacky’ voice. Feel, fleetingly, that nothing good or exciting will ever happen again in your life.
EBAY
Just look at eBay for a long time. Type in “Richard Brautigan.” Type in “Gordon Lish”. Type in “men’s vintage shirt XXS.” Maybe buy something. Walk around your flat, looking at all the things you own and wondering how much, if anything, they cost. Type some of them in to eBay. Realize you own nothing that costs more than £100. Realize, also, that you won’t sell anything, ever, on eBay because you don’t have the requisite energy and organizational skills.