The Things Make Us Stupid
November 24th, 2007 | Published in etc
O.k. So calling the enthusiasts at Engadget “utterly stupid” was not the kind of thing that demonstrates a mild and pleasant demeanor I imagine people would find appealing. And implying that the CNET blogger who passed Engadget’s incurious post about Kindle sales figures was a lazy blog-troller wasn’t friendly at all.
So I sat down after Thanksgiving dinner and took advantage of my freshly stabilized blood sugar to reason the whole thing out. I mean … I do vituperation inside my own head a lot. Not usually when other people are sitting right there, because I’m not that good at compartmentalizing. And I write a lot of angry drafts that I spike well before even contemplating a last pre-post scan. I can see six or seven in the drafts folder right now, all waiting for me to decide there’s no way to salvage them from the animus that drove them in the first place.
The common theme for a lot of them has to do with stuff.
There’s me being mean about thoughtless use of the word “gentrification,” and there’s 500 words that end mid-sentence, spurred on by this paragraph from an article about a sub-prime lender:
“If consumers qualified for a fixed rate mortgage, they often told that their mortgages were fixed for “as long as they wanted” when in reality, they were only fixed for 2 years. In order to fool the applicants into signing up for the pricier loan, fixed rate mortgage papers were stacked on top of variable rate ones. After tricking the customer into signing all of them, the fixed rate papers were discarded.”
And I think back to a series of reviews I read when I was last shopping for a computer where I learned to identify one particular reviewer because she led almost every single review with a variation on “This machine [will|will not] attract a lot of second glances in the airport waiting area” and how I … well… I got sick of the formulation and irritated that I was losing seconds of my life each time I came across one of her reviews.
Bloggers on the Nintendo Wii?
“Wii is a funny name because it sounds like peepee. Hahahahahahaahahaha! They should call it the Nintendo URINE! Hahahahahahaahahaha!”
For, like, MONTHS. And then on to a second life as part of the clumsy lead construct Gawker bloggers have almost universally adopted:
“While we’re still not sure about the unfortunate name, the Nintendo Wii …”
Out in meatspace at Ikea, I watch a pair of women pushing along their carts, yellow loaner bags swaying from the thoughtfully designed holder nubs on the cart handles. They stop every few feet and the more active of the two grabs a kitchen gadget out of the bag and says “I remember the last time I was over … you had a problem finding something to … this would take care of that!” A few more feet and “I got one of these … FANTASTIC!” A few more feet “Didn’t you say you were looking for …?”
Then I lost track of them and ended up behind a pair who were curating the store for each other:
“I don’t know what it is, but people really, really respond to the clean European look!”
“Yes! The birch and metal really attracts people!”
“People just want things to look clean!”
“And the birch and metal looks clean!”
Both pairs left me spinning my wheels, mired in uncertainty. Were the two women with their carts some sort of viral marketing thing? Breathing target demographic mannequins hired to orbit housewares kickstarting the imagination of anyone in earshot? The stretch black workout tights, clean Nikes and ponytails … they were perfect. The second couple? More of the same? Or perhaps just affecting observer’s detachment so they could imagine their true souls were anywhere but the humid scrum of Ikea on a Saturday afternoon? How about me? If I was focusing on them and their strange desire to sell Ikea to each other, maybe that was my way of detaching my own soul from my body, which was purposefully making its way over to the linens section for some guest pillows. See? I even tried to slip in a needless hint of the practical there because the last place I want to be is an Ikea, yet there I am.
Those two Kindle blog entries. What about them?
I don’t read much on the ‘net anymore without pausing to think about the alleged dichotomy between “democratic” bloggers and the “bought and paid for corporate MSM” we’re supposed to take as an article of faith.
So, there’s Engadget … “bloggers” who appear to work on quota and consider a bit of snark about how funny-looking the Kindle is adequately representative of a human voice to justify their layout choices. And the CNET blogger, who spends her days alternately recapping what the “blogging community” says about this or that, or relaying entries from the likes of Engadget.
I used to make a distinction between warm and cool voices … engaged vs. detached, involved vs. analytical. But both those entries struck me as entrants in a third category … warm, cool, and now “warmed over.” Compelled to appear engaged, but not. Interested to the extent a quota demands significations of interest at the rate of n per day, but not deeply involved or engaged, except perhaps on the level of knowing someting about a thing that others might not: That thing is popular, that thing is not popular, that thing is selling well, that thing is not selling well. Consumers like it. Observers do not like it.
One might briefly wonder why they even bother, but that’s easy to answer: The Web’s a big mall, and having almost anything to say about stuff moves ads. Engadget’s content doesn’t matter as much as our perception about its content: A few witless regurgitations of Amazon’s marketing spin coupled with “snarky irreverence” in the form of “It looks FUNNY! Hahahahahah!” and Engadget’s owners can reliably package the site as one where any page view is surely coming from an ENTHUSIAST … part of Engadget’s PASSIONATE AUDIENCE of 18-34 YO MALES who will identify strongly with brands provided they’re exposed to those brands in the context of an apparently enthusiastic community of fellow 18-34 YO MALES.
So, slow down a moment.
The problem I’ve got seems to be the whiff of commerce that’s everywhere. Everyone’s trying to get theirs, I guess, and it boils down to how one responds to being around people who are in the process of getting theirs in the form of getting some of yours: Time, attention, money, capacity to contribute buzz, willingness to speak the name of the brand at the right time.
I’m a lot more willing to part with tangibles. We gave away a lot of stuff the last time we moved. Some of it could have been sold to someone, but it was far easier to freecycle it. I give away electronics without thinking twice. Software … bits of camera gear … whatever. It once cost something, and it’s still of value to someone, but when it’s merely given away maybe it loses something. The thing no longer has a purpose outside of its utility to someone else. It’s not an economic unit … a thing that has an existence we can rationalize outside “it makes someone happy” or “it is useful on its own brute merits.”
But the intangibles? Maybe I don’t like the idea that the intangibles have suddenly acquired value and utility to anyone besides me, or someone who thinks those things — attention, curiosity, time, engagement — are worthwhile merely because they want to know what I think instead of assessing those things for their economic utility.
For instance:
Suppose you make a new friend. Each day you meet your friend down at the coffee shop and spend hours talking about whatever crosses your minds. Your friend is an excellent listener, always drawing you out on this point or that, clearly engaged in whatever you’re saying. Your friend also buys most of the coffee.
One day you ask to pick up a round and your friend demurs, saying “I’m making enough from our conversations: I get paid by the hour for the transcripts.”
But you point out today’s conversation has to be cut short … you have another engagement.
“That’s cool,” says your friend, “I mentioned that video game three times and you eventually made a note of it on a 3×5 card … that’s worth two hours.”
Do you care that your friendship has been exploited up to this point, even though the coffee has been free and the conversation engaging?
What if the free coffee is an upfront perk offered by your new friend in the spirit of transparency, since your new friendship is primarily commercial? Better now?
What if you and your friend were both in it for the friendship, but the coffee shop was recording your conversations and selling them to a service that mined them for keywords and sold the information to a marketing firm which, in turn, kept the coffee shop’s prices down by offering a $0.25/cup subsidy? Better now?
Maybe it is, and all I can do in return is offer a polite affirmation of your idea of “o.k.” as being your idea of o.k.
I wouldn’t like it. I don’t like it.
I think I’ve just talked myself into being done with quite a few things now.
