Spot the Cosmo: Answers!

BAAC. Braaaiiiins scared me by getting it on very first comment, but no one else had a perfect score.

Lessons learned:
-It was far more difficult to imitate the Cosmo house style than to come up with ridiculous unresearched "facts" that could pass as Cosmo's ridiculous unresearched "facts." I kept forgetting to write in cliches and girlyisms.

-I also didn't want to write anything that was true or even plausible, because that would just prove I could match Cosmo's style--I wanted to prove that I could match Cosmo's style with complete bullshit and still be indistinguishable.

-I was pretty much busted on question 2. I guess an imaginary dog is going a little too far, and reading a book--any book--is not nearly far enough. (Also, I forgot that Cosmo readers can't be expected to know the term "YA." Shoulda said "books on the Young Adult shelf" or better yet scrapped the concept entirely and recommended brushing your teeth with your feet or something.)

-The sack-squeeze, on the other hand, fooled a lot of people. Does that actually do something? In true Cosmo tradition, I don't know that it doesn't, I just didn't test it or even ask any men. (Also, does Cosmo say "sack"? It seems undainty, but I couldn't think of another way to indicate "scrotum" in girlyese. His "pleasure purse"? Ew. Dunno.)

-I wish I'd been more sexist and unethical. The fact that some people thought 4B was plausible tells me that I could've gone farther with the sexism, and I should've slipped in at least one "how to defraud and/or abuse customer service personnel, tee hee" item.


Ultimately, this was a success: I tried to be even stupider than Cosmo, and I could not.