If there’s one thing that the Super Bowl is good for, it that we get a glimpse into the minds of the corporations that control the world. (And the ad agencies that control them.) It’s the main reason we have the Super Bowl. Through this lens we get a refresher on how dumb big companies (and their ad agencies) think we are.
Tech companies are unsurprisingly the most out of touch with real people. Google or the now defunct Apple Computer Company usually have some kind of dumb ad filled with a bunch of sexy photos and inspirational piano music to try to show how inspirational they are. People see through that stuff. But they don’t care. ‘People are sheep,’ they say.
The boldest example this year was the extended length Amazon ad that came on near the end of the game. They came out and said: ‘We’re creepy and awful, but we don’t care. We’ll own that. We’re Rich! And you don’t care either. Let’s have a laugh about it!’
Ha Ha Ha.
We laugh right along with them. And why not, really? If you can’t laugh at life, then what’s the point?
Is Amazon Good or Bad? Or just a nice way to buy books?
Most people love Amazon. Some people pretend to hate them. People love convenience and good deals. People aren’t sure about having independent local businesses crushed, about the questionable labor conditions, about the government subsidies and tax incentives, about their moves to replace their questionable laborers with robots, about them bankrupting postal services, and so on. It’s all up in the air.
People are mostly intrigued by Amazon’s side projects. They have many ideas that go well beyond selling books.
In their Super Bowl ad they showed how they can turn off the power for the whole world, explode hot tubs, and all kinds of other stuff that people don’t really need or want from their online bookstore. They’ve even gone so far as to put listening devices in everyone’s home. These devices record everything you say and do, filter the data and report it to ‘the man.’ Imagine that!
First We Invented Books. What’s Next?
Why does an online bookstore need to do all this extracurricular stuff? It’s the same answer you get when you ask the purpose of any other alarming technological innovation or data harvesting scheme:. ‘WHY NOT?’
Sure, people say: ‘I just want to buy my books and get on with my life!’ But there was a time when books didn’t even exist. And look where we are now! Everyone loves books!
Paving the road to the future!
What will be the next big thing?
All we know is that it will be something we can’t yet imagine! And the only way to get there is to have our bookstores like Amazon try a bunch of crappy ideas and see what happens. It might be creepy and awful. But someday they could strike gold. You never know!
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