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Polar bear with carrot

Monday, February 26, 2018

Sticky cyber wicket

Ever seem like the world wide web has become one big and sticky feedback loop? Notice that Google knows more about you than your own spouse or your kids?

I get five calls a week regarding updating my stupid Google business listing. I can’t walk into a gas station or restaurant, or stay at a hotel for that matter, without being instantly asked for a review. People want to know, damnit!

Let's see; The ethyl was especially pungent with notes of asphalt and carborundum… Our lives are now an open book. Forget the targeted ads, if you have a cell phone and who doesn’t, your every living motion and ambulation lies in some cloud file in Utah waiting to be properly filed and collated.

As well as your medical history, shoe size, political and religious inclinations, phone communication records and exacting notes on your particular taste in pornography. Where were you at 2:30 p.m. last Tuesday? Never mind, we already looked it up.

Everybody demands feedback and it is laborious to even think about the gargantuan task of keeping up.  But you owe it to humanity. Try calling the phone and power company and before the end of the phone call you will get a scared woman in Punjab begging you for a positive review and also letting you know that you have her future employment fate resting squarely in your hands if you are the least bit critical. Yelp wants to know, Expedia wants to know, Facebook wants you to represent, the whole internet is becoming one big psychic ball and chain. Try being a blogger. Once the heady dopamine high of getting likes wears off, it simply becomes another no pay job where everybody wants you to tell it just like them as Mr. Zim would say. Don’t dare miss a day either.

It is all getting so stupid and I imagined this scenario when I was driving back from Orange County this morning. You have just left a breakfast with Sally and Jim. Your phone flashes. Would you have time to complete a brief three minute survey about Jim? Do you think he is a real friend or merely a passing acquaintance? Do you think he might be putting on weight? Have you ever seen him rob from the till or leave spinach in his teeth? Does he beat his wife, or his dog, would you recommend him as a friend?

I’m serious. I may be going back to real flesh and blood human beings again. This cyber bullshit is a lot of pressure and work.

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