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This hilarious Self Lender ad is fake—but everyone loves it

The fake ad still got Self Lender some real attention.

 

Gabrielle Sorto

Internet Culture

Posted on Nov 1, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 2:41 am CDT

A Twitter user who goes by Pitbull Updates this week tweeted a screenshot of what appeared to be an Instagram ad from a company called Self Lender. The screenshot, which quickly went viral, showed a hilarious text conversation.

“Just got declined for not having credit,” the first text said. “Get Self Lender,” the response said. “How the fuck would I know what that is,” the first texter said back. Then there’s a brilliant kicker: “Don’t catch an attitude with me bitch I’m trying to help you build your credit.”

“Instagram ads are getting out of hand,” said the caption of the tweet.

Although Self Lender is a real company that helps people build credit, the ad in the viral tweet is fake, BuzzFeed News reports. It turns out Pitbull Updates Photoshopped the text conversation, and the original ad ends with this much more conservative line: “Self lender helps you build credit while saving [money bag emoji] each month. My credit score is up 43 points.”

The company isn’t mad about the extra advertising, though.

“I decided to photoshop it because the original ad was like ‘eh,’ and I was like, it’d be pretty funny if the ad looked like how people actually talk,” the person who faked the tweet told BuzzFeed News. “I literally didn’t know people would think it would be real. I thought it’d just get like a couple retweets.”

The fake ad still got Self Lender some real business and a lot of traffic to their website. People seemed to love the crass conversation.

“We have seen an increase in traffic and have had people reaching out quite a bit,” Brett Billick, chief marketing officer for Self Lender, told BuzzFeed News.

“It’s great marketing tbh,” one person tweeted.

https://twitter.com/HGOTVIBES/status/1057438806893383680

“This ad works though. Definitely catching people’s attention,” someone pointed out on Twitter.

Although the ad wasn’t real, maybe Self Lender and other businesses should take note of how much people loved it—and adapt accordingly.

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H/T BuzzFeed News

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*First Published: Nov 1, 2018, 3:58 pm CDT