A "program" on the
Finnish TVTV! cable channel, where people "
chat" by sending
SMSes with their
cell phones and see eachothers'
messages on the
TV screen.
Doesn't sound moronic enough yet?
- Each message costs 5FIM. (1USD = approx. 6.5FIM)
- The chat is monitored, and all SMSes with phone numbers, E-mail addresses, comments on the legalization of cannabis and so on are censored. Even if the message doesn't appear, you'll lose the money.
- With enough losers "chatting", the delay between sending an SMS and seeing it on TV can grow into hours.
- A typical message is something like "ANY DD-SIZED GIRLS FROM PORLAMMI??????+++" .. and most of them are much worse.
You think you've seen it all by visiting popular IRC channels or reading usenet postings by AOL users? Think again.
- Nearly every time I have flicked past the chat, there has been a message stating "you guys are all so stupid for spending 5FIM in your messages!".
Yeah. I bet that guy somehow managed to get his words of wisdom through without paying? :)
A friend recently attempted to calculate how much
MTV3 makes with this
diabolical scheme, and a
rough esimate came to 700 000 FIM a month! They really found a great way to get
$$$ off
suckers, since the chat seems to be incredibly
popular. I bet MTV3's only
regret is that the
birth rate of these
victims is
only one per minute.
Update - March 26, 2001
Thanks to the chat's insane success - which hasn't even faded with time - MTV3 is now also broadcasting an identical show every weekday night. Even when the two channels have simultaneous SMS chats going, both are flooded with messages. Which goes to show there are a lot of suckers among the five million finns.