Nick Bergus' Facebook friends must be pretty darn confused right now. According to a "Sponsored Story" on the social network, their pal is suddenly shilling 55-gallon drums of "personal lubricant."
Did Bergus become a pitchman for intimate products? Or did he simply make an innocent Facebook post which was promoted to an ad by online retailer Amazon?
If you've read the headline to this story, you already know the answer: All Bergus did was post a link to an Amazon page on which one can purchase a 55-gallon drum of Passion Natural water-based lubricant.
Bergus thought the product was funny, he explains on his personal blog. He spotted a link to it on Twitter and felt like sharing it with his Facebook friends. So he wrote a cheeky caption — "A 55-gallon drum of lube on Amazon. For Valentine’s Day. And every day. For the rest of your life." — and posted the link before moving on with his life.
About a week later a friend shared a screenshot shown above. It appeared next to the man's Facebook News Feed as a "Sponsored Story."
"Amazon is paying Facebook to highlight my link to a giant tub of personal lubricant," wrote Bergus as more people started reporting that they saw the ad:
A fellow roller derby referee. A former employee of a magazine I still write for. My co-worker’s wife. They’re not seeing just once, but regularly. Said one friend: “It has shown up as one on mine every single time I log in.”
Awkward.
Bergus explains he is "partially amused" but also somewhat annoyed by the entire thing. "Of course Facebook is happily selling me out to advertisers. That’s its business. That’s what you sign up for when make an account."
