A special thanks to Private Internet Access for sponsoring this video! Go to www.privateinternetaccess.com/nationsquid to get 83% off and 4 extra months free!
For me it was the other way around, I was a child who stopped my parents and grandparents from getting scammed from these ads. Pop-ups benefitted me because they taught me as a child how to avoid ads and they taught me how a lot of people out there are trying to scam you.
I think this is how most people fall for these scams. The older generation comes from a time where it was easier to take things at face value, and so are more liable to believe something they see on the internet, which is still relatively new to them
When I was in 3rd grade in 2007, my entire class was on the computers in the computer lab and when we closed our browsers we all got the same "1,000,000th visitor" message pop up on our screens at the same time. The computer teacher announced to not click it and to just turn our computers off. For years I was so confused by what this was. It happened on all the computers at the same time, so I can only assume that the school network was hacked.
Actually, you were all about to get money because you were all the million visitors of one of the sites. Your computer teacher simply wanted the money for herself later.
Must be a very insecure school network. Our school district has a built-in VPN and adblocker so we don’t and can’t get things like this. *Boy am I’m glad things have changed.*
I grew up with the "WIN A FREE IPAD" variation of this particular ad scam. Thankfully I had an older sister at the time that taught me not to click on them, as I was the kind of kid to blindly believe such things
I usually saw one that said "chance to win a free ipad", implying some kind of sweepstakes. But then clicking on it just led you to an endless loop of "do this survey", "do this survey", "buy x amount of items" etc. I didn't buy anything, the surveys wasted enough of my time already and at that point it was clear that it was not real
@@Greasy__ I rang some phone number because I won a vacation thinking I’ll Surprise my mother because she let me go on internet for 5 mins while she went to shop and I got the pop up . Couldn’t redeem it because I didn’t have her credit card for “postage “, the men even said to sneak it out from her wallet when she is at home and ring back to keep it as a surprise for her like I wanted to lol instead of that I got Ass whopping 😭
@@codyryan9789this is so cool. As dark as this stuff is honestly, to just think there was one person so many years ago in some dark corner of the world who programmed this and it became a world phenomenon. Horrible but mystifying.
I really do miss this era of the internet. Remember the joke that claimed it could take a photo of you through your PC (this was before webcams were even a big thing or even integrated into laptops)? This was the late 90s where “futuristic tech” was everywhere and most people were like “makes sense” without thinking twice lol The joke was that it could take a photo of you and let you see yourself because they used some cool new technology to take the photo through the screen or something without the need of a camera, making it out to be as if this was the way of the future now. I was hanging out with my friend and we were sitting around in her dad’s computer, so I told her to go to that page to see her reaction. She was really into it and wanted to try it, even sat and fixed her hair and everything. I was about to click the button to start and she was like “wait! My lip gloss okay?”. She made a pose and smiled (I had to pretend to smile with her as if I didn’t know what was coming). The photo would come up as a monkey with pigtails smiling real big. She was SO angry over it. She immediately turned the computer off and stormed out of the room talking about how she felt so betrayed lol. That’s the type of stuff I miss - good hearted jokes. When everyone was so naive to this stuff and didn’t think twice because it was all still so new to the majority of the population. Nowadays it’s all pretty serious and there’s a damn scam around every single corner.
Sadly, only tattooed *into* you head. If it had been tattooed *onto* you forehead, you'd be, extremely likely, very popular with women (and any other gender).
I've still seen incarnations with the same bait. Never fell for it. My mom was a secretary practically from the inception of computers to the modern day. She knows how to adapt fast to new tech, and the threats that lurk below the surface. It's amazing to think about how, in a blink of an eye to her, computers started as gigantic, blocky machines to small rectangles that fit in a pocket.
This reminds me of a story in my textbook. A child and her grandma scraped up enough money to buy some noodles at a shop. The owner saw that the grandma wasn’t eating, only the child, and decided to tell them that they were the 100th customer, or sth like that, and gave them a free bowl of noodles. Grandma split the serving in half and gave a half to her grandchild. The next day, the owner noticed the child standing outside the store, mumbling “96,97,98”, when it reached 99, the child brought her grandma into the store. “Are we the hundredth customer? Can I get a bowl of noodles for grandma? She gave some of hers to me yesterday, so I want to give some to her today.”
I remember my mom once shouting at someone on the phone claiming she was entitled to the prize and that they don't need credit card info to do a deposit. I told her it was a scam. Apparently she called the scammers multiple times and the gave them headaches over this.
There were a few back in the day that had the "clever" idea to mimic the window border, while hiding the actual window border. So when you TRIED to hit the X to close out it was actually just another button within the flash/javascript window. The thing is they all used the default windows XP display scheme for the false window, so if you had changed your display scheme even the slightest, or didn't even use XP it was extremely obvious. Had one pop up on me in highschool, and was kinda surprised that they'd go that far.
I fortunately haven't fallen for this particular scam, though as a kid I did fall for one of those "Your computer is infected!" popups. This was the day I learned what spyware was, and I've been fascinated with cybersecurity and technology since!
As a child I didn't know they were a scam, but despite my friend bullshitting me about how he won a life sized Sonic figurine from those ads, I avoided them because I was afraid of my parents asking me where I got these prizes from.
Especially if you grew up watching fairly OddParents because when Timmy Turner's parents would always ask where he got the various items from the latest hot toys all the way up to a goddamn main battle tank. He would always just say internet
I just love how he scam says “this is not a joke” just to hopefully get those people who initially thought it was a joke but then saw it clearly says “not a joke” and were instantly back on board. It’s like walking up to a taped off crime scene and saying “I definitely did not murder that guy”
I remember having a whole lecture by my parents on computer viruses and scammy ads before I was allowed to connect to the internet by myself. I learned to never click on an ad. For years I believed that it would destroy my computer beyond repair. Now, as I accidentally clicked many of them, as everyone does, my fear subsided. :D I was told to watch out for the millionth visitor ad, as it was supposedly the most "evil'. I remember it had colors like bright yellow and green, so bright it hurt the eyes with flashing.
I remember falling for one of these as a kid. Was logging on to Club Penguin and there was a tab redirect telling me I’d won 1 million fish or whatever and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. Shoutout to the family computer that I got a shit ton of viruses on lmao
Thank you for this bc I was starting to get embarrassed by all the comments saying they didn’t fall for it (I had unrestricted Internet access and was completely oblivious)
That got my sister too. She thought it was legit bc Club Penguin has tokens or whatever (I was older and never used the site myself), so she thought she won a small prize to be used within the site.
Flash was a cancer of web technology. HTML5 works just fine in place of Flash. The software industry was waiting to rip off that band-aid for a really long time. I do miss the simple motion tweening feature, for sure.
There are actually a bunch of projects that have archived and preserved a great deal of the flash games and animations out there, with some cursory googling you could probably still find what you are nostalgic about.
People who had a normal childhood and THEN got introduced to desktop computers learned the hard way to hate ads because of pop-ups. Now with people being born with ease access through phones tolerate an abusing amount of ads in every site (TH-cam without an adblocker, for example) or just pay to get rid of it. That won't last, I assure you, you will pay to view *less* ads rather than no-ads soon.
I think Hulu and Prime (at least one of them, I don't have either ^^") already have ads in their normal subscriptions? So we seem to be heading there...
Lol we are already starting to pay to view less. Some mobile games have this 'no ad' purchase but still lets you watch ads if you want extra rewards. Of course, this is voluntary, but still a bit iffy.
I COMPLETELY get what you're talking about, TO THIS DAY I enter a frothing, blind, red-hot RAAAAAGE every time my life gets interrupted by ads ads ads ADSADSADSADSADSADS ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH GET 'EM OFF ME! GET 'EM OFF ME! THE CHIHUAHUAS STOLE THE CROW SOUP! THEY STOLE THE CROW SOUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!! HA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAAAAAaaaaaa........ *The white coats arrived 2 seconds later. I have now been committed. Hi padded cell! You're my ONLY FRIEND...* 😳😅😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Srsly though...yeah...I *really* hate ads...😳😵😣😬
As a kid, I remember my friend saying a friend of his friend got a free yacht from being a millionth visitor to a website. I always said this to my parents, who wouldn't let me interact with the popup. I just wanted a free yacht.
I was lucky to grow up with stuff like this in the early 2000s. It tought me to be skeptical. Both the generations before and after me never learned that on the internet. My dad would still fall for that and so would my young brother.
Streaming videos was also trial by fire and I think that the fact that the internet became "safer" in some way stopped the younger generation from learning the danger.
I'm glad we had the chance as kids to learn that scammers are out there and that the internet is not to be trusted. It's the new internet users today that I'm worried about more, because the algorithms just feed them content and warp their reality without ever needing to resort to dumb scams. If it's your favorite app/site doing this to you, and you're not old enough to be able to think critically, it's incredibly hard to avoid.
Reminds me of something that happened to me recently. I was on a website to find lyrics to a song I liked, and I was redirected to a ‘millionth visitor’ website. I was confused because I had used the lyric website hundreds of times before and this wasn’t a normal occurrence. I was curious and decided to look around the obviously fake website, when I was redirected again to a website saying my phone had a virus and that my phone would stop working in 2 minutes. I panicked, closed off the website, then about an hour passed and I properly processed that it was a complete scam.
Exact thing happened to me, Ive never gotten a millionth visitor scam before in my life but when I went to a website to look up song lyrics it happened! I think its cool to learn about how these things work, and it makes it less stressful if you are infected with a virus because you know what to do
Haha, joke's on you. I've also gotten the "your phone will stop working in X minutes" but I was like, "Oh yeah? Try me bro, just do it" and just ignored it. I don't remember what I was trying to download but I'm pretty well aware that no one develops malware for Android.
I feel like there was an actual website like this back in the day but I can't remember the details May I have your details? First name: ___ Last Name: ____ Card #: ____-____-____-____ Exp: __/__ CVC: ___ Relationship status: _
It's kind of nostalgic to see this ad again. I remember my curiosity got the better of me and clicked on one. As a child, I didn't really know the consequence. Now some 20 years later, I work in IT and I understand the gravity of phishing and malware, and have since been teaching friends and family about it. A modern version of this redirects your browser to a site with animated confetti, claiming you've won some coupons.
Yeah, the one with animated confetti is the first one I ever encountered and almost fell for, fortunately I did feel that it seemed suspicious and asked my tech-savvy brother about, and he very much confirmed my suspicions saying it was an obvious scam.
This is going to be good. I found your channel not too long ago and I really enjoy your content. The video that I started with was the ILOVEYOU one. As a novice computer nerd, there's a lot I don't know but your videos have taught me and brought back nostalgia for me in the Windows XP days
I remember going online for the first time in 1998 and landing on a site that greeted me with a "you're a winner" banner. I called my friend, who was more experienced and told him about it. He laughed and said I'd get used to it over time.
I actually fell for a very similar ad that said I was entitled to, like, 2000 euros. My mother - who's not a tech-savvy person but fortunately had a good head on her shoulders - caught me crying on the computer because the ads' timer was about to run out and I didn't know my own bank account number. She made me sit with her to see that the timer on the ad would just reset when it reached zero, at which point I realized that it was no different from all the other pop-ups. I think it was the reasonable sum of money that really did it for me - "If it was fake then they'd have claimed I won a bigger sum, like all the other ads" I'd figured.
I, also, almost fell for a pop-up ad as a child once. Thankfully, my dad has always been very computer literate and my mom always taught me to be suspicious of anything that seemed too good to be true, so when I asked him whether or not I WAS getting a free laptop and he told me, plainly, that it was a scam, I believed him and never humored a pop-up ad ever again.
This channel takes me back to the internet days of my youth, back when I was ten years old, making websites about Beanie Babies on Angelfire, and filling my parents' computer with malware that only I knew how to deal with because my parents really didn't understand the technology or even doing a freaking Lycos search. Keep up the great content.
@@iAmAllOfMii Not dumb at all! It was a search engine way back in the early days of the internet. And I apparently spelled it wrong initially, it was Lycos. I also used AltaVista a lot.
@@minecrafting_il another search engine. It was initially very popular, but was killed off by the rise of google and ended up being bought out by yahoo.
@@minecrafting_il Another old search engine. They also offered something called Babel Fish, which was a machine translation tool pre-Google Translate. I'm becoming increasingly more aware that I am creeping closer and closer to my 40th birthday...
Along with the common advice "If it's too good to be true then it isn't" Something people should also be brining up is, if it's legit you can afford a little patience. Lots of scams these days will tell you, you must respond in a couple hours or face repercussions or lose the award which prays on peoples' abilities to make informed decisions
I'm so nostalgic about this era of the internet. My father and I used to make so many inside jokes about the annoying pop ups we were always getting. I really miss it.
- Timestamps - 00:00 Introduction 01:47 Private Internet Access Sponsor 03:26 The Origins Of "You Are the Millionth Visitor" 04:42 The Earliest Known Evidence Of "You Are the Millionth Visitor" | Ethan Zuckerman And The Invention Of The Pop Up Ad 06:50 Javascript And The Connection With The Adobe Flash Player
Fun story: A friend of mine once fell for one of these scams. He had to insert his name, some other stuff (something like location etc) and a phone number. He was stupid enough to enter all of those things but instead of his own phone number he inserted his grandparents’ (he lives with them). A day later they actually called and he decided to answer. They asked him if * his name * was home. He replied with a no and they just hung up
Great video man, it really got me thinking, what if you created a version of that popup, that seems like the real millionth visitor popup, and spread it around the globe, but the difference is that anyone who completes it gets a message or video explaining about the dangers of these scams, instead of actually taking their money
There was a site I used a lot growing up that had something like this. All the ads on the site were its own parodies of various scummy ads targeted at young people, and if you clicked on one it'd produce a pop up explaining the scummy sales technique involved and giving you tips to spot and avoid it.
My brother fell for a free ps5 scam recently even after I told him so many times it was a scam. He even wanted to use my debit card to “pay for shipping” since he lost his. After he found his card he entered it in the website and a few days later someone had used his card to buy things. He thought he was so sure it was real and he couldn’t be tricked lol.
The one and only time i fell for a virus was when i was trying to download a Minecraft mod and instead of downloading the mod I clicked the wrong download button and it gave me a weird music software. It then changed my search engine and wouldn't let me delete it. Thankfully my dad figured out how to get rid of it, but not without sarcastically saying "congratulations, you just got your first virus!"
i remember falling for this when i was 6, deep in abject poverty & simply wanting my mom to win a working phone, i clicked it. she was going to enter all her details too, then she snapped out of it & yelled so loud at me
Uggh, don't EVEN get me started on "car's extended warranty". I used to get calls like that on car's I hadn't owned in YEARS! I'm probably STILL getting them too, and I don't even OWN a car anymore! Thankfully my phone plan came with a free call-blocker app by my carrier (AT&T) so if they are, they definitely are NOT getting through! 😅😂🤣😁 I WILL state that EVERY SINGLE DAY I wind up seeing about a crap ton of "Spam Risk Auto Block" notifications from it, so it's definitely working. I'm betting AT LEAST a couple two or three of them are "Car's Extended Warranty" calls. MUCH happier seeing them just get blocked right off instead of having to hear that same, annoyingly FAKE computer-generated voice making that SAME stupid pitch. I'm just like "look b******, I KNOW you're full of it! Not only do you clearly NOT work for any dealership I've ever bought a car from, you CLEARLY are not authorized to offer this or you would KNOW that I DO NOT OWN A CAR! Get your [bleep] off my damn phone!" 😡🤬🌋
@@christopheralthouse6378 Hello I am trying to reach you about your TH-cam comment extended warranty. If you would like a package with yearly comment maintenance and servicing and a free spelling and grammar check then please respond.
@@christopheralthouse6378 i probably get them too xD they get shown as potential scam on my caller id (verizon) so if idk the number, i never answer my phone. and i dont even own any vehicle. i dont even drive ever. being in a wheelchair, took it as a personal choice to not bother with the expenses of a vehicle as such
While on some childhood dialup adventures, I remember running across the house to tell my older brother there was something on the computer that said "if this is flashing, you've won" (and it was flashing). I was disappointed when he told me not to click on it.
I remember my first experience with the millionth visitor popup. I was looking at old school pokemon forums when I was 8 and one decided to rear it's ugly head in my direction. I remember feeling overjoyed by it because it was saying I had won $100k and to put in all my details and whatnot. my dad was at the store at the time and used to work in computer science, so I waited for him to get home to show him the "good news" lmaoooo needless to say I got scolded for putting in our general area and last names into this clear asf scam and ended up banned from using the computer for a few months hahaha
Dude, i have gotten so many of these. I love your content it makes my day in a way that other TH-camrs just don't. Keep it up man, i have watched this channel grow and am excited for what is in the future
It's even on Instagram too. You get a notification where it's like "____ mentioned you in a post: congrats you won an IPhone 13 DM me to get it" or something like that. I just report the post for spam and Block the account and any new accounts they make.
I actually got two pop-ups. One at school, and one on my dad's phone. They both had a message that I was the Billionth visitor and redirected me to a survey. I didn't have time at school, but at home when it came on my dad's phone I filled out some of the questions but then realized it was a scam because there was just something fishy. I was relatively new to the internet so I didn't think it was a scam at first, but I'm glad I clicked off before anything bad happened.
After watching this, I do remember as a kid (I'm 29, thinking back to being 10/12), and my grandad was telling us how a pop up appeared on this pc while browsing Amazon (could have been kogan) and it said he's won a new phone a to pick one, so he did. It didn't ask for his personal details, so he wasn't too worried if it was a scam. fast forward 2/3 weeks later, I will never forget it, a brand new HTC phone was delivered to him, for free, because he was a "millionth customer on our site" Also, I remember seeing one a few years ago to win a classic coke fridge (1950's style) and that wasn't a scam, I know someone who got one, it wasn't full size like you expect, but a mini one the fits about 10 cans lol
Can u actually verify it was delivered? Maybe he bought one because was ashamed to admit he had been scammed. It’s impressive what people do sometimes to hide this kind of stuff!
It's weird, nowadays I (and most people of this generation I'm sure) just kinda feel the legitness of something. When I hover over something with my mouse I can tell just from how the cursor changes if it is legit or not. And obviously if it looks like an ad and not a real button. At some point even old people won't fall for this stuff anymore, only very young people.
I always check which download button I'm going for on some things, because whenever you hover over it or long press it on mobile it'll show the domain it takes you too if it's a real button at all...
Man I remember filling out the surveys, they were so frustrating because they kept saying things like “only 3 surveys left to claim your prize!” And then after doing the 3 surveys the countdown would reset over and over again 😂 I wanted that $1,000,000 prize
4:04 the malware really IS changing. I even got a millionth visitor popup on my PS Vita console that was made to look like an official notification from Sony.
Gonna be 100%. Love your videos. I have literally watched every single one since I found your channel. Every single frame and word and image violently breaking and shaking and glitching is beginning to drive me insane. I had to put the video in Miniplayer mode and just listen to this one.
I was about the leave a similar comment. Had to look away from most of the video cause it was hurting my eyes and giving me a headache. I feel like it would be wise for him to put seizure warnings or something. Way too many zoomed in flashing images.
Omg I fell for this as a kid!! Luckily nothing happened because I couldn't go through after trying to click on it, but I remember the excitement of telling my family we won a car... It was a fiat 500 in the photo. Now I see how silly that was, at the time I felt like I was blessed!
8:04 naw. The main target for these things are the elderly who don't understand any of this. Is basically the same thing Publishers Clearing House used to do to confuse the elderly into getting into subscription services with predatory terms. My grandma kept getting mail from them and I think my understanding of that is what made me spot these scam popups very early on as being basically the same thing.
i remember during a zoom class call i got one of these scams. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I didn’t have a good idea of internet safety in 5th grade, but i’m glad I had one, because I didn’t click or interact with anything. God knows what would happen if I fell into something that now is clearly too good to be true
This era of internet was so strange. It was the wild west of the internet age. I was very young so I remember it vaguely but it reminds me of the stage VR and AR are at right now. The hate VR gets is very reminiscent of the “Information Superhighway” and the criticism of that.
Looking through these comments are very humbling tbh. I was born in ‘01 and often still think I’d been growing up with the start of the internet, and this is the reminder I think I needed that I grew up with early-ish internet. I remember being in kindergarten or first grade (2008 or so) when we had a whole assembly on internet safety to stay away from pop-up ads like these, as curious as I always was about the prize ones like this
Fake “you have a virus popups” sparked my interest in technology, and later scambaiting. I almost called the scammers but I told my parents first. They told me it was fake and I didn’t call.
I have no vivid memories of when I first came across this message, but hearing "Congratulations! You won!" at the start of the video stirred something in my mind that must have been dormant for years because I immediately felt an intense fight or flight reaction.
As a kid, I never fell for these on my home computer. The school computers on the other hand; not my computer, not my problem. Might as well see where it goes.
I remember that once at my college library there was the FBI locked the computer thing on a nearby computer and I was like "what kind of idiot would download something just because they think the government wants them too? That's just more reason NOT to download it!"
I remember seeing something like this when I was maybe 5, exploring the young internet on dial-up. I freaked out and got my mom, told her we were rich. The ad was different though, it had a picture of a briefcase.
I once heard a story where someone got a pop-up to win a vacation somewhere, I think it was Florida, and he clicked it and actually won a vacation. But these things always seem so fake that you never really know when it's for real.
I used to click on these when playing Facebook games on my mom's account. I remember I would bring her laptop to her and show her how excited I was about "winning" a product/raffle. She helped me fill out the information the scammers wanted cause we both dumb as hell lmao
Here’s me hoping that TH-cam does the whole 301 view thing again but with exactly 1,000,000 views on this video, meaning that, Congratulations, You Won lol. Loved this video, awesome stuff and good showing awareness about the virus, despite its funny appearance, awesome video!!!
Back in quarantine one of my online friends got one of these pop ups and didn’t realize it was a scam. She was not the brightest in our online friend group at all, im pretty sure all of us took turns explaining to her it was fake because she was extremely confused.
Watch a child stumble across these videos and then tell their parent "I know not to click the little window on the computer now." that gives a cute twist to ancient viruses.
I remember viewing NationSquid's BonziBuddy video, and I remember it was the first video I watched from him. He had 13K subs at the time, and now he has 200K+ subs. It's nice to see how his content has evolved from normal computer stuff, to actual scams and Trojan horses.
Dunno about the video you mention, but I remember BonziBuddy when it first appeared in the...mid-1990s, I think. I thought it was well presented, and even though I did not fall for it, I thought lots of other people might. Well, it probably suffered from being to early. Anyway, nowadays I regret that I didn't download that piece of sh....shoftware...just for the sheer ridiculousness of it. I'd really love to have BonziBuddy on my desktop today, even if it's just to irritate my colleagues 😉. Sadly, I only managed to implement "Clippy" (and some of the other MS Word95 (97?)) actors (assistants) into our office's big screen live monitoring/alerting system. And most of my colleagues were still too young to even get that joke. At least *I* got it 🤣
Man I remember getting one of these jittering pop up windows with that familiar voice. Confetti border and the rainbow font claiming I was the 1,000,000 website visitor, but it had a Windows 95 icon instead of the smiley face. Never clicked it fortunately, but that one in particular stuck in my head for years.
I’ve only gotten this pop up once when I was younger, but growing up with technology I was always familiar with scams and never fell for any, this one I remember though because it TERRIFIED me, I’d never gotten a pop up with audio before and the voice was so strange and creepy and sudden, I’d almost completely forgot about this before seeing this video but as soon as you played the voice clip I totally froze. SO creepy lol
A special thanks to Private Internet Access for sponsoring this video!
Go to www.privateinternetaccess.com/nationsquid to get 83% off and 4 extra months free!
bruh
NationSquid if you like your fans then respond to this question plz.
lol
i am a viewer
HI
My mom always said, "If you did not enter, you did not win." Best thing to live by.
Wise words.
Luigi won a contest he didn't enter, and look what he got for it!
@@jayo1212 nobody gets this reference but you
@@bighomiemike5675 ong
Try telling that to Luigi.
For me it was the other way around, I was a child who stopped my parents and grandparents from getting scammed from these ads. Pop-ups benefitted me because they taught me as a child how to avoid ads and they taught me how a lot of people out there are trying to scam you.
I cheated the system by hating all ads from the beginning so I’d never get scammed 🙃
I would do that
Sheeesh your were a good
Ditto
I think this is how most people fall for these scams. The older generation comes from a time where it was easier to take things at face value, and so are more liable to believe something they see on the internet, which is still relatively new to them
When I was in 3rd grade in 2007, my entire class was on the computers in the computer lab and when we closed our browsers we all got the same "1,000,000th visitor" message pop up on our screens at the same time. The computer teacher announced to not click it and to just turn our computers off. For years I was so confused by what this was. It happened on all the computers at the same time, so I can only assume that the school network was hacked.
interesting!
That happened to me once like 2 years ago
Actually, you were all about to get money because you were all the million visitors of one of the sites. Your computer teacher simply wanted the money for herself later.
@@jamieever4046 um-
Must be a very insecure school network. Our school district has a built-in VPN and adblocker so we don’t and can’t get things like this. *Boy am I’m glad things have changed.*
I grew up with the "WIN A FREE IPAD" variation of this particular ad scam. Thankfully I had an older sister at the time that taught me not to click on them, as I was the kind of kid to blindly believe such things
Win a free iPhone 23
The one where you had to shoot the iPad to win it lol? I remember that
I usually saw one that said "chance to win a free ipad", implying some kind of sweepstakes. But then clicking on it just led you to an endless loop of "do this survey", "do this survey", "buy x amount of items" etc. I didn't buy anything, the surveys wasted enough of my time already and at that point it was clear that it was not real
I just played the game that was on the ad, I never claimed prizes. I just liked the game lol
Mine was a free PSP/PS2
As a child, I knew it was a scam. I was incredibly poor and it was fun to think about it for just a little while.
When I was younger I almost actually got scammed by one because I never new that it was a scam
One time my family caught my grandma in the middle of redeeming an ipod nano on the family computer in 2006 😅
@@Greasy__ I rang some phone number because I won a vacation thinking I’ll
Surprise my mother because she let me go on internet for 5 mins while she went to shop and I got the pop up . Couldn’t redeem it because I didn’t have her credit card for “postage “, the men even said to sneak it out from her wallet when she is at home and ring back to keep it as a surprise for her like I wanted to lol instead of that I got Ass whopping 😭
@@Greasy__ road to 2008 bro
@@Lilyyysanchez that's wild ☠️
"Congratulations! You won."
And the memories come flooding back. Never clicked on any of those links, but that one voice clip is *iconic*.
I wonder who made that voice clip, it sounds like a voicemail or a telephone recording
@@codyryan9789 Sorry for necroposting, but was it VIRUS by sacristuf?
@@givescommand_block1327 no clue
@@codyryan9789this is so cool. As dark as this stuff is honestly, to just think there was one person so many years ago in some dark corner of the world who programmed this and it became a world phenomenon. Horrible but mystifying.
@@givescommand_block1327 probably idk
I really do miss this era of the internet.
Remember the joke that claimed it could take a photo of you through your PC (this was before webcams were even a big thing or even integrated into laptops)? This was the late 90s where “futuristic tech” was everywhere and most people were like “makes sense” without thinking twice lol
The joke was that it could take a photo of you and let you see yourself because they used some cool new technology to take the photo through the screen or something without the need of a camera, making it out to be as if this was the way of the future now.
I was hanging out with my friend and we were sitting around in her dad’s computer, so I told her to go to that page to see her reaction.
She was really into it and wanted to try it, even sat and fixed her hair and everything. I was about to click the button to start and she was like “wait! My lip gloss okay?”. She made a pose and smiled (I had to pretend to smile with her as if I didn’t know what was coming).
The photo would come up as a monkey with pigtails smiling real big. She was SO angry over it. She immediately turned the computer off and stormed out of the room talking about how she felt so betrayed lol.
That’s the type of stuff I miss - good hearted jokes. When everyone was so naive to this stuff and didn’t think twice because it was all still so new to the majority of the population. Nowadays it’s all pretty serious and there’s a damn scam around every single corner.
Dude the monkey with pigtails…such a classic internet image
Haha I love this story!
That monkey pops up in my head lmaooo I forgot it existed thank you very much
that monkey image haunted me when i was a kid lolll it still slightly creeps me out even as an adult
At least the scams back then were really easy to spot. Now it takes me a minute =/
I have that "Congratulations, you won!" tattooed into my head.
So many times. So many pop-ups.
That voice bit has kept me awake sometimes lol
@@megano2000 The trauma never goes away unfortunately
C o n g r a t u l a t i o n s
y o u w o n
Sadly, only tattooed *into* you head. If it had been tattooed *onto* you forehead, you'd be, extremely likely, very popular with women (and any other gender).
I read it as "tattooed on my hand" and I thought it was just a really cool edgy tattoo.
I've still seen incarnations with the same bait. Never fell for it. My mom was a secretary practically from the inception of computers to the modern day. She knows how to adapt fast to new tech, and the threats that lurk below the surface. It's amazing to think about how, in a blink of an eye to her, computers started as gigantic, blocky machines to small rectangles that fit in a pocket.
My mom always talks about the computer room she had to work with when she was first working many moons ago. Crazy isn't it.
Love your pride flag pfp!
That $1,000,000,000 appearing in his bank account joke and them him running to tell his mom is hilarious.
it was a million not a billion
that ending caught me off guard I laughed more than I should tbh
Plot twist: it was not a joke but actually happened.
no it was real, i was the million dollars
Wait that was a joke??!! OH GOD i have to cancel my credit card immediately!!
As someone who has worked in anti-fraud for 15 years, I very much appreciate these deep-dives into the scams of yesteryear.
Whats working in anti-fraud like?
@@Bobo-ox7fj sounds great
@@Bobo-ox7fj India or Tasmania
I’m conducting research on scam emails and phishing and I can agree that deep dives into these things are so cool
@@Bobo-ox7fj I shouldn’t have laughed at this 😂
I would never fall for scams like "YOU JUST WON A MILLION DOLLARS". But i would probably fall for a scam saying "You've just won a free pizza!"
XD
congrats, you've won a free pizza
yeah me too im fat a free pizza is too good
Same
i dont eat pizza so -1 scam for me!
This reminds me of a story in my textbook. A child and her grandma scraped up enough money to buy some noodles at a shop. The owner saw that the grandma wasn’t eating, only the child, and decided to tell them that they were the 100th customer, or sth like that, and gave them a free bowl of noodles. Grandma split the serving in half and gave a half to her grandchild. The next day, the owner noticed the child standing outside the store, mumbling “96,97,98”, when it reached 99, the child brought her grandma into the store. “Are we the hundredth customer? Can I get a bowl of noodles for grandma? She gave some of hers to me yesterday, so I want to give some to her today.”
Very wholesome
ok k knkk on m. onkkkk im jk
Awww
Very sweet child ^^
If it was a math book it would have said "If billy counts until 100, can YOU count to 1000?
I remember my mom once shouting at someone on the phone claiming she was entitled to the prize and that they don't need credit card info to do a deposit. I told her it was a scam. Apparently she called the scammers multiple times and the gave them headaches over this.
looks like that didn't work out for the sammers😂😂😂
Haha deserved it
@@davidromero2704 ikr I hate *sammers* so much lol
lmfaooo
When a karen is smart:
There were a few back in the day that had the "clever" idea to mimic the window border, while hiding the actual window border. So when you TRIED to hit the X to close out it was actually just another button within the flash/javascript window. The thing is they all used the default windows XP display scheme for the false window, so if you had changed your display scheme even the slightest, or didn't even use XP it was extremely obvious. Had one pop up on me in highschool, and was kinda surprised that they'd go that far.
hearing that "congratulations! you won!" soundbite made me automatically want to close the window, good job.
I fortunately haven't fallen for this particular scam, though as a kid I did fall for one of those "Your computer is infected!" popups.
This was the day I learned what spyware was, and I've been fascinated with cybersecurity and technology since!
Me too but I just install an antivirus founded on Microsoft store
@@brumotti_wgf2397 dude you just got infected with a fake av / rouge DELETE IT i mean what was the name of the av may be legit
I (almost) fell for one of those, too. Just wanted to watch my favourite shows...
"sketchy mobile games install adware on your phone" - kid me
I had to learn that the hard way 😀
Me too but instead of being fascinated I turned paranoid and anxious lol
As a child I didn't know they were a scam, but despite my friend bullshitting me about how he won a life sized Sonic figurine from those ads, I avoided them because I was afraid of my parents asking me where I got these prizes from.
That is so insane that it sounds like the kind of reasoning I would've used when I was younger, lol.
Especially if you grew up watching fairly OddParents because when Timmy Turner's parents would always ask where he got the various items from the latest hot toys all the way up to a goddamn main battle tank. He would always just say internet
I just love how he scam says “this is not a joke” just to hopefully get those people who initially thought it was a joke but then saw it clearly says “not a joke” and were instantly back on board. It’s like walking up to a taped off crime scene and saying “I definitely did not murder that guy”
lol
O
O
O
No it's not, Lmao you're way off
I remember having a whole lecture by my parents on computer viruses and scammy ads before I was allowed to connect to the internet by myself. I learned to never click on an ad. For years I believed that it would destroy my computer beyond repair. Now, as I accidentally clicked many of them, as everyone does, my fear subsided. :D I was told to watch out for the millionth visitor ad, as it was supposedly the most "evil'. I remember it had colors like bright yellow and green, so bright it hurt the eyes with flashing.
You should definitely still run a virus scan after clicking on ads though. Not all of them are malicious, but some definitely still are.
I remember falling for one of these as a kid. Was logging on to Club Penguin and there was a tab redirect telling me I’d won 1 million fish or whatever and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. Shoutout to the family computer that I got a shit ton of viruses on lmao
Thank you for this bc I was starting to get embarrassed by all the comments saying they didn’t fall for it (I had unrestricted Internet access and was completely oblivious)
That got my sister too. She thought it was legit bc Club Penguin has tokens or whatever (I was older and never used the site myself), so she thought she won a small prize to be used within the site.
Losing Flash still makes me cry. Awesome content as always
I miss flash. Making a website that read out load then clicked and go to the next page. or place slides of a movie but the audio track is complete.
Flashpoint is a preservation project for old Flash games.
Flash was a cancer of web technology. HTML5 works just fine in place of Flash. The software industry was waiting to rip off that band-aid for a really long time. I do miss the simple motion tweening feature, for sure.
@@aerodigital I’m sure it was relatively archaic at a point. I just miss the nostalgia such as Miniclip.
There are actually a bunch of projects that have archived and preserved a great deal of the flash games and animations out there, with some cursory googling you could probably still find what you are nostalgic about.
People who had a normal childhood and THEN got introduced to desktop computers learned the hard way to hate ads because of pop-ups. Now with people being born with ease access through phones tolerate an abusing amount of ads in every site (TH-cam without an adblocker, for example) or just pay to get rid of it. That won't last, I assure you, you will pay to view *less* ads rather than no-ads soon.
I think Hulu and Prime (at least one of them, I don't have either ^^") already have ads in their normal subscriptions? So we seem to be heading there...
Lol we are already starting to pay to view less. Some mobile games have this 'no ad' purchase but still lets you watch ads if you want extra rewards. Of course, this is voluntary, but still a bit iffy.
I COMPLETELY get what you're talking about, TO THIS DAY I enter a frothing, blind, red-hot RAAAAAGE every time my life gets interrupted by ads ads ads ADSADSADSADSADSADS ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH GET 'EM OFF ME! GET 'EM OFF ME! THE CHIHUAHUAS STOLE THE CROW SOUP! THEY STOLE THE CROW SOUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!
HA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAAAAAaaaaaa........
*The white coats arrived 2 seconds later. I have now been committed. Hi padded cell! You're my ONLY FRIEND...*
😳😅😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Srsly though...yeah...I *really* hate ads...😳😵😣😬
69 likes
don't ruin it
I pay for no ads on TH-cam yet still get a 5 minute ad through the creator in the video 🤔
My grandma is the sweetest lady and she got scammed. She would never do anything to anyone.
I hope shes still doing well!
As a kid, I remember my friend saying a friend of his friend got a free yacht from being a millionth visitor to a website. I always said this to my parents, who wouldn't let me interact with the popup. I just wanted a free yacht.
Lol
Oh yeah, wasn't he the one whose uncle worked at Nintendo?
was he the same kid who said he had super rare pokémon cards but couldn’t show them because they’d get arrested ?
Was he the kid that traded people fake Ancient Mews for their most expensive cards?
(This happened to me, R.I.P. Ho-oh Break mega-sized card)
One of the kids in my elementary said that his dad got him a 32x speed cd-rom drive from Singapore. This was when 4xs were the top of the line. Lol
I was lucky to grow up with stuff like this in the early 2000s. It tought me to be skeptical. Both the generations before and after me never learned that on the internet. My dad would still fall for that and so would my young brother.
As they say, the best IT people grew up in this generation lol.
Streaming videos was also trial by fire and I think that the fact that the internet became "safer" in some way stopped the younger generation from learning the danger.
@@ThechronocrosserII I would say best IT people aren't born yet.
@ManaCloak Rigit those game ads that are really sexual 😭
Its taught no tought
“The user clicked on the pop up ad and got a reward, but the reward was not what he thought it was, the reward was malware.”
“The End.”
I'm glad we had the chance as kids to learn that scammers are out there and that the internet is not to be trusted. It's the new internet users today that I'm worried about more, because the algorithms just feed them content and warp their reality without ever needing to resort to dumb scams. If it's your favorite app/site doing this to you, and you're not old enough to be able to think critically, it's incredibly hard to avoid.
To this day, i still will randomly tell people who do something good "congratulations, you won!"
Congratulations you won!
Congratulations you won a congratulations
congratulations, you won!
ok
*K I L L T H Y C H A I N B R E A K E R !*
Reminds me of something that happened to me recently. I was on a website to find lyrics to a song I liked, and I was redirected to a ‘millionth visitor’ website. I was confused because I had used the lyric website hundreds of times before and this wasn’t a normal occurrence. I was curious and decided to look around the obviously fake website, when I was redirected again to a website saying my phone had a virus and that my phone would stop working in 2 minutes. I panicked, closed off the website, then about an hour passed and I properly processed that it was a complete scam.
pretty sure this happened to me when clicking on a result from AZLyrics
Panic more about obvious scams.
@@McVaio what??
Exact thing happened to me, Ive never gotten a millionth visitor scam before in my life but when I went to a website to look up song lyrics it happened! I think its cool to learn about how these things work, and it makes it less stressful if you are infected with a virus because you know what to do
Haha, joke's on you. I've also gotten the "your phone will stop working in X minutes" but I was like, "Oh yeah? Try me bro, just do it" and just ignored it. I don't remember what I was trying to download but I'm pretty well aware that no one develops malware for Android.
someone should make a website that gives you the actual visitor number
“YOU ARE THE 46th VISITOR!!”
I feel like there was an actual website like this back in the day but I can't remember the details
May I have your details?
First name: ___ Last Name: ____
Card #: ____-____-____-____
Exp: __/__ CVC: ___
Relationship status: _
@@Kat-zh4ly are u a bot or a real person because that was SMOOTH
@@emsub1199 Real person, thank you hehe 👉👉
Hun back in the day every small time website ever, had a visitor count.
The counter is HTML feature for very long time, but it wasn't used by many devs even back then.
It's kind of nostalgic to see this ad again. I remember my curiosity got the better of me and clicked on one. As a child, I didn't really know the consequence. Now some 20 years later, I work in IT and I understand the gravity of phishing and malware, and have since been teaching friends and family about it.
A modern version of this redirects your browser to a site with animated confetti, claiming you've won some coupons.
@Devourer Of Gods periodt queen
Yeah, the one with animated confetti is the first one I ever encountered and almost fell for, fortunately I did feel that it seemed suspicious and asked my tech-savvy brother about, and he very much confirmed my suspicions saying it was an obvious scam.
I knew these pop ups were crap but I still clicked one on a school computer for a laugh and 2 minutes the later the schools server crashes lol.
@@gravemind6536 yeah, sure
This is going to be good. I found your channel not too long ago and I really enjoy your content. The video that I started with was the ILOVEYOU one. As a novice computer nerd, there's a lot I don't know but your videos have taught me and brought back nostalgia for me in the Windows XP days
The iloveyou one was my first video to
My first video was the bonzi buddy and then I went on a watching spree
I've been here since he started some ARG that ScareTheater covered in 2016
@@yaroshandrian same
@@TheanimationWorkstation same!
Just hearing that “congratulations, you won!” Sound just took me way back
It like triggers a time machine sensation in your brain and suddenly brings it all back does it?
I remember going online for the first time in 1998 and landing on a site that greeted me with a "you're a winner" banner. I called my friend, who was more experienced and told him about it. He laughed and said I'd get used to it over time.
I actually fell for a very similar ad that said I was entitled to, like, 2000 euros. My mother - who's not a tech-savvy person but fortunately had a good head on her shoulders - caught me crying on the computer because the ads' timer was about to run out and I didn't know my own bank account number. She made me sit with her to see that the timer on the ad would just reset when it reached zero, at which point I realized that it was no different from all the other pop-ups. I think it was the reasonable sum of money that really did it for me - "If it was fake then they'd have claimed I won a bigger sum, like all the other ads" I'd figured.
The best thing about this sort of pop up is that ad blockers immediately make them irrelevant
I, also, almost fell for a pop-up ad as a child once. Thankfully, my dad has always been very computer literate and my mom always taught me to be suspicious of anything that seemed too good to be true, so when I asked him whether or not I WAS getting a free laptop and he told me, plainly, that it was a scam, I believed him and never humored a pop-up ad ever again.
This channel takes me back to the internet days of my youth, back when I was ten years old, making websites about Beanie Babies on Angelfire, and filling my parents' computer with malware that only I knew how to deal with because my parents really didn't understand the technology or even doing a freaking Lycos search. Keep up the great content.
This is probably a dumb question, but what is Lykos?
@@iAmAllOfMii Not dumb at all! It was a search engine way back in the early days of the internet. And I apparently spelled it wrong initially, it was Lycos. I also used AltaVista a lot.
@@sailoreligaming and what is AltaVista?
@@minecrafting_il another search engine. It was initially very popular, but was killed off by the rise of google and ended up being bought out by yahoo.
@@minecrafting_il Another old search engine. They also offered something called Babel Fish, which was a machine translation tool pre-Google Translate.
I'm becoming increasingly more aware that I am creeping closer and closer to my 40th birthday...
“Congratulations!! You’ve won hundreds of malware!”
Yay I like malware
L. M. A. O
I should not be getting nostalgic for hearing that bit crushed "congratulations! you won!" scam.
"Congratulations! You won! :D" chain
plot twist: everyone was actually the millionth visitor and they all clicked the website at the same time
LMAOOO
LOL
Aha
Then they all still got scammed
i- HAGAHA
Along with the common advice "If it's too good to be true then it isn't" Something people should also be brining up is, if it's legit you can afford a little patience. Lots of scams these days will tell you, you must respond in a couple hours or face repercussions or lose the award which prays on peoples' abilities to make informed decisions
People weren't more gullible back then. Internet scamming is a multi BILLION dollar industry today.
This video needs to get a million views, it'd work so well for just one guy but that one guy would feel great
Everyone can be the millionth visitor by editing in page source!
Personally, I felt like a real hoopy frood
giving you 👍 #42 🐬💨
I'm so nostalgic about this era of the internet. My father and I used to make so many inside jokes about the annoying pop ups we were always getting. I really miss it.
If a website says "You're winner," GET OUT OF THAT WEBSITE NOW (if it's fake)
SPAM COMMENT BOTS ARE NOT ALLOWED
- Timestamps -
00:00 Introduction
01:47 Private Internet Access Sponsor
03:26 The Origins Of "You Are the Millionth Visitor"
04:42 The Earliest Known Evidence Of "You Are the Millionth Visitor" | Ethan Zuckerman And The Invention Of The Pop Up Ad
06:50 Javascript And The Connection With The Adobe Flash Player
16:00 Winning A Prize
Fun story: A friend of mine once fell for one of these scams. He had to insert his name, some other stuff (something like location etc) and a phone number. He was stupid enough to enter all of those things but instead of his own phone number he inserted his grandparents’ (he lives with them). A day later they actually called and he decided to answer. They asked him if * his name * was home. He replied with a no and they just hung up
That is genuinely scary.
Imagine some random person having your home address and personal info.
@@thecultofthelamb given the number of advertisement calls I get, that's not unusual
I'm surprised they didn't keep calling until they found him.
@@thecultofthelamb dude almost every website tracks that and sells it to data brokers. They sell that info for pennies to anyone who wants it.
@@thecultofthelamb No because we see houses everyday and there are lot people who have our info
Great video man, it really got me thinking, what if you created a version of that popup, that seems like the real millionth visitor popup, and spread it around the globe, but the difference is that anyone who completes it gets a message or video explaining about the dangers of these scams, instead of actually taking their money
There was a site I used a lot growing up that had something like this. All the ads on the site were its own parodies of various scummy ads targeted at young people, and if you clicked on one it'd produce a pop up explaining the scummy sales technique involved and giving you tips to spot and avoid it.
My brother fell for a free ps5 scam recently even after I told him so many times it was a scam. He even wanted to use my debit card to “pay for shipping” since he lost his. After he found his card he entered it in the website and a few days later someone had used his card to buy things. He thought he was so sure it was real and he couldn’t be tricked lol.
The one and only time i fell for a virus was when i was trying to download a Minecraft mod and instead of downloading the mod I clicked the wrong download button and it gave me a weird music software. It then changed my search engine and wouldn't let me delete it. Thankfully my dad figured out how to get rid of it, but not without sarcastically saying "congratulations, you just got your first virus!"
trying to download a minecraft mod but pressing the wrong download button and downloading a virus instead? me too !! i was a dumb kid
3:25 is the ad's end timestamp
Thank you so much dude
No problem, thing is I forgot I even commented this till I rewatched it
thanks! :D
i remember falling for this when i was 6, deep in abject poverty & simply wanting my mom to win a working phone, i clicked it. she was going to enter all her details too, then she snapped out of it & yelled so loud at me
This makes me curious to know if Car's Extended Warranty is within the scope of this series
Nah, but tech support scams probably are
Oh shit, I found you! I've been trying to get ahold of you about your cars extended warranty...
Uggh, don't EVEN get me started on "car's extended warranty". I used to get calls like that on car's I hadn't owned in YEARS!
I'm probably STILL getting them too, and I don't even OWN a car anymore! Thankfully my phone plan came with a free call-blocker app by my carrier (AT&T) so if they are, they definitely are NOT getting through! 😅😂🤣😁
I WILL state that EVERY SINGLE DAY I wind up seeing about a crap ton of "Spam Risk Auto Block" notifications from it, so it's definitely working. I'm betting AT LEAST a couple two or three of them are "Car's Extended Warranty" calls. MUCH happier seeing them just get blocked right off instead of having to hear that same, annoyingly FAKE computer-generated voice making that SAME stupid pitch. I'm just like "look b******, I KNOW you're full of it! Not only do you clearly NOT work for any dealership I've ever bought a car from, you CLEARLY are not authorized to offer this or you would KNOW that I DO NOT OWN A CAR! Get your [bleep] off my damn phone!"
😡🤬🌋
@@christopheralthouse6378 Hello I am trying to reach you about your TH-cam comment extended warranty. If you would like a package with yearly comment maintenance and servicing and a free spelling and grammar check then please respond.
@@christopheralthouse6378 i probably get them too xD they get shown as potential scam on my caller id (verizon) so if idk the number, i never answer my phone. and i dont even own any vehicle. i dont even drive ever. being in a wheelchair, took it as a personal choice to not bother with the expenses of a vehicle as such
the fact that this guy is able to make a video about a computer virus/computer malware scary (in which obv it is but like horror movie-type suspense)
While on some childhood dialup adventures, I remember running across the house to tell my older brother there was something on the computer that said "if this is flashing, you've won" (and it was flashing). I was disappointed when he told me not to click on it.
I remember my first experience with the millionth visitor popup. I was looking at old school pokemon forums when I was 8 and one decided to rear it's ugly head in my direction. I remember feeling overjoyed by it because it was saying I had won $100k and to put in all my details and whatnot. my dad was at the store at the time and used to work in computer science, so I waited for him to get home to show him the "good news" lmaoooo
needless to say I got scolded for putting in our general area and last names into this clear asf scam and ended up banned from using the computer for a few months hahaha
The most transparent internet privacy probably wasn't the best way to describe that mate.
Fell victim to one of these at the age of 7 while using my mom's pc, wasn't allowed on the internet until the age of 10
So what you’re telling me is that there might’ve actually been hot singles in my area?
This won the comment section
Congratulations, you won.
A malware.
I was caught off guard by the twist at the end hahaha. Thanks for a fun, informative video. Your narration was great!
Dude, i have gotten so many of these. I love your content it makes my day in a way that other TH-camrs just don't. Keep it up man, i have watched this channel grow and am excited for what is in the future
f for adobe
@@arkfr f for adobe indeed
It's even on Instagram too. You get a notification where it's like "____ mentioned you in a post: congrats you won an IPhone 13 DM me to get it" or something like that. I just report the post for spam and Block the account and any new accounts they make.
@@candicraveingcloude2822 oh yeah!! I forgot about that. That's happened to me twice now.
I actually got two pop-ups. One at school, and one on my dad's phone. They both had a message that I was the Billionth visitor and redirected me to a survey. I didn't have time at school, but at home when it came on my dad's phone I filled out some of the questions but then realized it was a scam because there was just something fishy. I was relatively new to the internet so I didn't think it was a scam at first, but I'm glad I clicked off before anything bad happened.
After watching this, I do remember as a kid (I'm 29, thinking back to being 10/12), and my grandad was telling us how a pop up appeared on this pc while browsing Amazon (could have been kogan) and it said he's won a new phone a to pick one, so he did.
It didn't ask for his personal details, so he wasn't too worried if it was a scam.
fast forward 2/3 weeks later, I will never forget it, a brand new HTC phone was delivered to him, for free, because he was a "millionth customer on our site"
Also, I remember seeing one a few years ago to win a classic coke fridge (1950's style) and that wasn't a scam, I know someone who got one, it wasn't full size like you expect, but a mini one the fits about 10 cans lol
Can u actually verify it was delivered? Maybe he bought one because was ashamed to admit he had been scammed. It’s impressive what people do sometimes to hide this kind of stuff!
@@imarquezc or not
@@imarquezc a person would buy a whole new phone to hide their small little mistake? seems unlikely
It's weird, nowadays I (and most people of this generation I'm sure) just kinda feel the legitness of something. When I hover over something with my mouse I can tell just from how the cursor changes if it is legit or not. And obviously if it looks like an ad and not a real button. At some point even old people won't fall for this stuff anymore, only very young people.
I always check which download button I'm going for on some things, because whenever you hover over it or long press it on mobile it'll show the domain it takes you too if it's a real button at all...
true
Man I remember filling out the surveys, they were so frustrating because they kept saying things like “only 3 surveys left to claim your prize!” And then after doing the 3 surveys the countdown would reset over and over again 😂 I wanted that $1,000,000 prize
4:04 the malware really IS changing. I even got a millionth visitor popup on my PS Vita console that was made to look like an official notification from Sony.
Nah you were just the millionth visitor of the vita
Gonna be 100%. Love your videos. I have literally watched every single one since I found your channel. Every single frame and word and image violently breaking and shaking and glitching is beginning to drive me insane. I had to put the video in Miniplayer mode and just listen to this one.
I was about the leave a similar comment. Had to look away from most of the video cause it was hurting my eyes and giving me a headache. I feel like it would be wise for him to put seizure warnings or something. Way too many zoomed in flashing images.
Omg I fell for this as a kid!! Luckily nothing happened because I couldn't go through after trying to click on it, but I remember the excitement of telling my family we won a car... It was a fiat 500 in the photo. Now I see how silly that was, at the time I felt like I was blessed!
8:04 naw. The main target for these things are the elderly who don't understand any of this. Is basically the same thing Publishers Clearing House used to do to confuse the elderly into getting into subscription services with predatory terms.
My grandma kept getting mail from them and I think my understanding of that is what made me spot these scam popups very early on as being basically the same thing.
As a young child, it sure fooled me.
Every guy in the 90s who knows the pop up adult ads in a computer is truly a man of culture.
i got these as a kid in the 2000's
ok...
@@MeIThink1234 VIBES
There are hot MILFS in your area
There are hot MILFS in your area
i remember during a zoom class call i got one of these scams. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I didn’t have a good idea of internet safety in 5th grade, but i’m glad I had one, because I didn’t click or interact with anything. God knows what would happen if I fell into something that now is clearly too good to be true
In a way, Ethan’s creation of the pop-up ad is kind of like Frankenstein where someone makes something and that something goes against its creator
This era of internet was so strange. It was the wild west of the internet age. I was very young so I remember it vaguely but it reminds me of the stage VR and AR are at right now. The hate VR gets is very reminiscent of the “Information Superhighway” and the criticism of that.
Looking through these comments are very humbling tbh. I was born in ‘01 and often still think I’d been growing up with the start of the internet, and this is the reminder I think I needed that I grew up with early-ish internet. I remember being in kindergarten or first grade (2008 or so) when we had a whole assembly on internet safety to stay away from pop-up ads like these, as curious as I always was about the prize ones like this
Surprisingly, ive never been met with “you are the millionth visitor” before
Have you been like, one hour on the internet?
@@ghost.8836 yes, i just dont really explore it that much.
Same
I have also not (or at least I don't remember me seeing one)
The closest thing was some "win a prize" surveys and a "your pc is infected" webpage
God damn, it feels like you guys haven't been through any link shortener at all, those are full of those things
Fake “you have a virus popups” sparked my interest in technology, and later scambaiting. I almost called the scammers but I told my parents first. They told me it was fake and I didn’t call.
You should've called just to prank them by wasting their time.
"Im just gonna refresh and show you once aga- Mom, MOM!" 🤣
I have no vivid memories of when I first came across this message, but hearing "Congratulations! You won!" at the start of the video stirred something in my mind that must have been dormant for years because I immediately felt an intense fight or flight reaction.
As a kid, I never fell for these on my home computer. The school computers on the other hand; not my computer, not my problem. Might as well see where it goes.
I remember that once at my college library there was the FBI locked the computer thing on a nearby computer and I was like "what kind of idiot would download something just because they think the government wants them too? That's just more reason NOT to download it!"
The skit at the end was unexpected and absolutely golden.
But really though, these were dangerous back in the day.
I remember seeing something like this when I was maybe 5, exploring the young internet on dial-up. I freaked out and got my mom, told her we were rich.
The ad was different though, it had a picture of a briefcase.
L o l
@@NOPENUHUHNOPENOPE are you good
oh no, you know that some people are going to think the end is real, great vid man!
I once heard a story where someone got a pop-up to win a vacation somewhere, I think it was Florida, and he clicked it and actually won a vacation. But these things always seem so fake that you never really know when it's for real.
i wasn’t expecting that ending but i loved it
I used to click on these when playing Facebook games on my mom's account. I remember I would bring her laptop to her and show her how excited I was about "winning" a product/raffle. She helped me fill out the information the scammers wanted cause we both dumb as hell lmao
💀💀💀 good luck
FACEBOOK HAD GAMES?!??!
@@FatYoshi504 techncally they did 😭
@@shawn1320 i miss those days
@@FatYoshi504 I think they still have it. They still existed even in 2020 and 2021
I always hated the popups with the alarms blaring saying “Microsoft has discovered a virus on your computer”
GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE GRAGGLE
Here’s me hoping that TH-cam does the whole 301 view thing again but with exactly 1,000,000 views on this video, meaning that, Congratulations, You Won lol.
Loved this video, awesome stuff and good showing awareness about the virus, despite its funny appearance, awesome video!!!
Thank you!! Now that would be something!!
Ok
@Mr Best Ok
@Mr Best Ok
@Mr Best ok
You know. As a child, when I heard this “Congratulations, you won. “ I knew it lead to something bad without even knowing.
Back in quarantine one of my online friends got one of these pop ups and didn’t realize it was a scam. She was not the brightest in our online friend group at all, im pretty sure all of us took turns explaining to her it was fake because she was extremely confused.
Watch a child stumble across these videos and then tell their parent "I know not to click the little window on the computer now." that gives a cute twist to ancient viruses.
I find your voice extremely pleasant to listen to. I’m always excited when I see a new video of yours pop up in my feed. Keep up the great work!
Imagine visiting a scam website and seeing
"You're our 1,000,000,000,002nd visitor!
You were so close, too bad you won nothing lmao"
I remember viewing NationSquid's BonziBuddy video, and I remember it was the first video I watched from him. He had 13K subs at the time, and now he has 200K+ subs. It's nice to see how his content has evolved from normal computer stuff, to actual scams and Trojan horses.
Dunno about the video you mention, but I remember BonziBuddy when it first appeared in the...mid-1990s, I think. I thought it was well presented, and even though I did not fall for it, I thought lots of other people might. Well, it probably suffered from being to early.
Anyway, nowadays I regret that I didn't download that piece of sh....shoftware...just for the sheer ridiculousness of it. I'd really love to have BonziBuddy on my desktop today, even if it's just to irritate my colleagues 😉.
Sadly, I only managed to implement "Clippy" (and some of the other MS Word95 (97?)) actors (assistants) into our office's big screen live monitoring/alerting system. And most of my colleagues were still too young to even get that joke.
At least *I* got it 🤣
Man I remember getting one of these jittering pop up windows with that familiar voice. Confetti border and the rainbow font claiming I was the 1,000,000 website visitor, but it had a Windows 95 icon instead of the smiley face. Never clicked it fortunately, but that one in particular stuck in my head for years.
17:50 now he is rich.
I’ve only gotten this pop up once when I was younger, but growing up with technology I was always familiar with scams and never fell for any, this one I remember though because it TERRIFIED me, I’d never gotten a pop up with audio before and the voice was so strange and creepy and sudden, I’d almost completely forgot about this before seeing this video but as soon as you played the voice clip I totally froze. SO creepy lol