by Roger White
I’m not what you call an early adopter. Nay, I am not the type who runs out to Best Buy or that ultra-high-tech Apple Store that looks like a futuristic antiseptically sterile lab from the movie Andromeda Strain to snag the very first model of the latest version of the newest, fastest plasma laser 4-D androbot doodad.
I figure if what I have works, why pay good money to buy another version of it? My 8-track tapes play just fine, thank you very much. Except when they don’t, but then I can use the miles of tape they spew forth to decorate my Christmas tree (the same detachable faux pine our family has enjoyed every yule since the Clinton Administration, mind you).
This mindset is surely why my buds call me Analog Man.
I used to wear the moniker with a grudging pride, but now I’m finding that my drag-me-by-my-heels-into-this-century behavior may be for the best. Our headlong lurch into the cyber age may be just what ol’ Mr. Orwell was warning us about.
Take the interwebs. It’s truly creepy how much they know about us. I was looking around on ebay the other day at electronic drum kits, just curious, ya know. So then I got on Facebook not long after, and, behold, there were several posts from various advertisers with photos and prices of e-drum kits. Some of them even said, “Still interested, Roger?”
Jinkies! I have to say, this gave me the willies. The jinky willies, even.
So I started doing a little investigating. On the interwebs. Cognitive dissonance aside, I found some juicy, disturbing factoids. I used to call them facts, but in the 21st century, we call them factoids.
For example, Google is, as you’re probably aware, the most popular search engine on the planet. About 70 percent of all net searches are done on Google. And, yes, they track all searches. The fact that I knew they were tracking me as I searched this information on Google put me in a temporary mental wormhole. A quick shot of Jim Beam snapped me out of it. A Google Maps car slowly crept by my window as I put the shot glass down, then a tumbleweed rolled by ominously—in my living room. Yeah.
Anyway, as I read on, I found that they’re getting better at these tracking procedures every day. It frightened me to read that Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt, recently said the following: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
That’s it. No more searching for obese cartoon unicorns online in my underwear.
And it’s not just Google. The Wall Street Journal recently examined the 50 most popular U.S. websites and found that these sites placed 3,180 tracking files on the reporter’s test computer. Most of those tracking files were installed by 131 companies, many of which are in the business of tracking web users to create databases of consumer profiles.
What do they do with these profiles? They sell them, for big money. These guys are called data brokers, and they collect and package some of our most sensitive personal information and sell it—to each other, to advertisers, even the government—without our knowledge. This data broker biz is a multibillion-dollar industry. Billion, with a “buh.”
Just delete your cookies, you say? Welll … tracking technology is smarter than that now. Monitoring your use, which was once limited to simple “cookie” files that record websites, has been largely replaced with new tools that scan in real time what people are doing online.
Gadzooks. I’m a bit peevish to log in now. Will I get on FB soon and see, “HI ROGER!! Still wetting the bed when it thunders?? Well, try PEE-B-GONE!!” …or something.
And, listen, Google people, that thing I had for Slavic barmaids with hairy legs was years ago, OK? No more photos of prospective Bulgarian brides, please.
Just remember this, my cosmic cadets: The word Google broken down is “go ogle.” I’m not sure if that really means anything, but it sounded profound at the time. Another shot of JB, please. Dag, there’s that Google Maps car again.
Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious offspring, a very obese but mannerful dachshund, and a cat with Epstein-Barr. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com. Or not.
Think You’ve Seen It All? Well, You Haven’t.
19 Janby Roger White
Boy, it happens every time. Without fail, every time I throw my arms up in disgust and utter an exasperated “I’ve seen it all now,” something worse comes along to heave a brick upside the noggin of my jaded sensibilities and inform me that, no, I have not seen it all. Not. Even. Close.
Despite how ridiculously vile and frighteningly xenophobic as the foul-smelling arena of politics has become, no, I’m not talking about that. Politics parodies its own self so well these days that no comment is required. Except God help us all. No, what sparked yet another ISIAN (I’ve Seen It All Now) self-rebuke of late came from the one field of human endeavor that manages to run a close second to politics in its ability to horrify and nauseate: advertising.
Let me take you back. It wasn’t long ago, a matter of weeks perhaps, and the weather was rotten. So was my health. I had a stubborn chest cold. I’d settled myself down in front of the TV with a meal of my favorite comfort food: a hot bowl of split-pea soup, saltines, and iced tea. With a side of crispy baby gherkins. Awaiting me was an afternoon of recuperation with nourishing reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show” and “The Twilight Zone.” It was just the therapeutic
prescription I needed. Suddenly, there on the screen, rudely interrupting my sick-day fare of Opie, Aunt Bee, Thelma Lou and Rod Serling, was a commercial for some cough medicine featuring an anthropomorphic glob of mucus. That’s right. A walking, talking sickly-green lump of phlegm with stumpy, phlegmy arms and legs.
I don’t have to tell you that half of my bowl of hot split-pea soup with saltines went cold and uneaten. The gherkins didn’t go down so well, either.
If you watch any television, you, too, have probably seen this chubby little humanoid snotball (no, not Trump—this is about advertising, remember?). Are they serious? These cough medicine moguls are hawking their health-restoring elixir with a revolting ball of human effluence, presumably nicknamed Muky the Mucus Man?
Can you just picture these marketing geniuses at deadline time?
“Joe, you got anything?”
“No. I’m empty.”
“Bob? Anything?”
“I dunno. How ’bout a talking loogie?”
“Okay, that’s good. We’re just about out of time. Let’s go with it.”
And yeah, when I saw this slimy, gloppy bit of Madison Avenue creativity, my arms reached skyward, and I uttered forth: “I’ve seen it all now.”
And yet again, it wasn’t long after that that my latest ISIAN declaration was roundly rejected. Just when I thought that advertising types could sink no lower, the next week I was introduced to a pink little anthropomorphic bladder. It was
an ad for bladder control medicine, and in it this adorable roundish little bladder walks along holding hands with its owner, constantly reminding her that she has to pee. Wait, there’s more. On the same day, on the same channel, came an ad featuring an adorable pink little walking knot of intestines. Really. This creepy duodenum dude, who I can only guess is called Barry Bowels or something, is the mascot for an Irritable Bowel Syndrome medication. Yes, Intestine Man is the best they could conjure.
Never in my most delirious fever dreams have I ever envisioned my bowels as a funny-faced little pink dude—and in all candor, I shudder to imagine what my lower innards would look like with a face and limbs. Especially my innards.
Gak. What’s next? A cutesy brown cartoon poop named Danny Doody concocted as a stool softener mascot? A cuddly little mouth ulcer called Herpey Harry designed to sell cold sore cream? An anthropomorphic little mascot called Limpy the Member used to sell erectile dysfunction pills?
Boy, I’ve seen it all. No, wait. I’m quite certain that I haven’t.
Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely spouse, two precocious offspring units, a morbidly obese dachshund, and a cat with Epstein-Barr Syndrome. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com. Or not.
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