the.com/popup ad
The internet's way of making you prove you're not emotionally stable.
means A small advertisement window that launches on top of (or behind) the webpage you're trying to read, usually right when you least want it to.
from Dates to the web's early commercial era, when a developer figured out how to make a browser spawn a new window without the user asking for it — the technique quickly got the name 'pop-up' from the way the window would spring open unbidden, like a jack-in-the-box. It was fast adopted by advertisers as a way to guarantee eyeballs on an ad even if the main page got ignored, and it just as fast became one of the most hated tricks on the internet, eventually spawning the pop-up blocker as a direct immune response.
- origin
- invented by ethan zuckerman, who later publicly apologized
- peak era
- late 1990s, before blockers existed
- psychology
- exploits the brain's need to close open loops
- irony
- often advertises products for reducing stress