Yeah, I know… our phones are not listening to us. It’s just a complete effing coincidence that time and again, something in my immediate physical environment manifests magically on my phone. One of my pals in the advert world tends to cryptically scare me that my movements, behaviors, search history, time spent online, and all that stuff, are secretly mined, pushed through various algorithms, and cranked out as predictable behavioral choices (by behavioral, I mean largely “purchasing”). And that’s all well and good… so I’m walking by the Buca di Beppo in Vegas, and my Facebook ad bar shows a coupon? I can live with that at some level. I mean, I have Spousal Tracking activated on my iPhone, so what’s the difference if Buca di Beppo (which is owned by Planet Hollywood… which is owned by Earl Enterprises, Inc… which … ahh, screw it) knows where I am?
But the most recent one threw me for a loop. And yeah, there’s a tech explanation, but really, it would require a level of data mining on a time frame that proves, resoundingly, that Judgment Day is finally here, and SkyNet has become self-aware… and is learning at a geometric rate (best read with an Austrian accent, for best effect.)
Mrs. was watching The Crown on Netflix (Um.. SPOILER ALERT I guess??? It’s a show based on history, it’s not like I’m going to ruin the ending for you…) while folding laundry, and I happened to walk through our bedroom while it was on. I lingered for a moment, as the particular episode opened with the 1966 Aberfan coal disaster, a tragic landslide that hit a small Welsh village and killed 144 people, including 116 children.
Intrigued, I picked up my phone, opened YouTube, and typed the word “Giant” into the search window. I had full intention of typing “giant landslide” in… but before I could, those YouTube fairies read my goddamned mind:
How? I mean… how could this have happened? I haven’t searched for landslides or mudslides or avalanches that I can remember. I’m not a history buff, and honestly, I haven’t taught earth science in over a decade.
So pause, momentarily, as we collectively offer up a silent WTF to the cosmos………..
…and then help me understand. Did the TV version of Netflix using my bride’s account under my Netflix login somehow transmit my viewing history to my Netflix phone app in real time, which then sent predictive meta-data to my YouTube account?
Or worse yet– do the songs, shows, and movies we enjoy at home send out other frequencies directly to our phones that are inaudible and invisible to us mere mortals, but tell our phones what’s up? If like me, you’re a little older than your average Millenial, you might remember the movie THEY LIVE?
I think the part that bothers me the most is that no one is completely and utterly outraged by this… at least, not anyone that doesn’t live in a survival cabin in rural Montana. This society of victims gets all triggered and troubled when someone calls another someone a name, or evilly submits a person to any number of microaggressions; Jeebus forbid one of your neighbors installed a device in your house to record you? That shit would be on every news station.
But companies charge us to buy devices… that MAYBE SORTA KINDA are spying on us… and our kids… and our habits. Studying us. Learning from us. Seeing what we do and what we did and then predicting (awfully accurately, it seems) what we are GOING TO DO. And (in the words of Timon) “Everyone is OK with this????”
Well, Montana, here I come. Mountains and streams and trees and no job and militias. Shit, that last one is gonna set off some alarms somewhere.
And yes, Wordsmith blog posting irony noted.
Guess I’ll get started on inventing that new language. Right after I catch a few more episodes of Gravity Falls on Disney+.
El Gigante Picante del Monte 