i haven’t watched a lot of movies of late, but if i may be allowed to extend this blog to a discussion of advertisements i’d like to direct your attention in mock-horror to a recent visa check card commercial. this is the one in which everything in a large cafeteria is moving like clockwork when a man shows up with cash and brings it all to a grinding halt. the ad itself seems like it must be a direct riff on the famous modern times sequence in which chaplin inserts himself into the assembly line and brings it to a halt with his body. here, however, the action of the human who breaks the chain, stops the line from moving is greeted with scorn, and mechanization of everyday life is presented as cheerful and hip. mechanization no longer evokes horror; it is presented instead as the bright, sunny prerequisite of paradise.
Agreed. I did watch it with some fascination and the same Chaplin-recognition you mentioned when I first came across it.
It showed up again the next night and I couldn’t turn the channel fast enough.
There are few roles in my life I loathe more than that of a consumer. The larger the company the less I want to consume what it offers. When commercials like these (and the recent Buy-A-Hummer, Be-A-Prick ad campaign) make it on the air, I realize I am by far in the minority.
there is probably some irony in our talking about all this on a blog. however, as we know, irony is dead.
most consumer technology seems to be predicated on making it harder and harder for there to be such a thing as privacy. this is presented with a happy face. but, of course, it mostly means there is no place left to hide. you can be reached everywhere. take your anxiety reducing pill and pick up the phone. most web technology is also intrusive in this way: people can i.m you on your phone, you receive automated emails telling you to buy things–there is no escape. this is spun as the end of loneliness–networks of people and friends and family calling you, checking out your blog, your myspace site etc. etc.. but the other face of this is alienation: vast spaces full of people talking to disembodied voices on the phone, checking into flights at kiosks where they don’t have to encounter anyone but a screen, sitting alone in gigantic cars, or on buses and subways with ipods on. woe betide you if you want to chat with someone you’re in line with: shut the fuck up, buy your shit and get out, and don’t hold up the line. people are willing to let you listen to their most intimate cellphone conversations but watch out for the pepper spray if you try to talk to them.
wait, when did i turn into frisoli?
i love it when arnab gets political. i have recently gotten vonage, which, for a flat fee, allows me to talk all i want to people in italy who don’t have a computer or only have dialup. since vonage hiccups once in a while (way below the point when the inconvenience makes it not worth my while), they have an excellent, super-efficient customer service. well, these guys (so far they have always been guys) are spread out all over the world and i’m always looking forward to seeing where the next one will be. i hardly ever ask where people are because it tends to be the beginning of a racist tirade (“where are you? ha, i knew it. they are taking away american jobs and giving them to people who cannot speak english” — i actually got a version of this myself when calling for voter turnout somewhere in the midwest!). but these guys are trained to be chatty, relaxed, and to act like they have all the time in the world, so it often ends up with them asking me what the weather is like in miami, at which point i consider it fair game to ask them what the weather is like… anyway, this is all to say that it is the first time i actually like automation. it doesn’t have to be bitter and cold. i wonder whether this may be the beginning of a better technological model, one in which no one is in a hurry to hang up and we can chat across continents. since we cannot go back to long handwritten letter and talking to one’s parents once a month, might as well make it nice.
plus, the internet has made it possible for organizations like moveon to turn out an amazing number of volunteers who can make calls from the convenience of their homes by utilizing a totally impressive web-based database. with some 18,000 volunteers, many of them people calling at night like me after work, moveon reached 7 million people in key districts. pretty damn impressive. calling strangers at home is never pleasant, but moveon made it as pleasant as it’s ever going to get.
two examples of ways in which technological reach can build rather than destroy human contact.
This discussion engages many of the themes explored in Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s Zui Hao de Shi Guang (Three Times). It is a masterful work of cinematic art, but it is also very thoughtful about modern/technological alienation and how it connects to complex issues of national and transnational identity. I should post more as I keep threatening to do so.
maybe you’re just getting smarter, Arnab. But you forgot to add something to the list: wait in line, shut the fuck up, LISTEN TO OUR GODDAMN PSUEDO JAZZ MUSIC (A CONCESSION TO SOCIABILITY–IMPROVISATIONAL BONDING RECONCEIVED BY A COMPUTER DEEP IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH), buy your shit, and get out! oh, and have a good day!
Vonage has good customer service, provided you don’t ask to cancel. Hey Gio, good luck trying to cancel–that is, if you should ever choose to do so. As an experiment, Gio, ask to cancel. You don’t really have to, but try. It took me days. A fucking nightmare. MY RANT: What Vonage does is this: a customer rep says he cannot cancel your account him/herself, that only a account rep can do so. You don’t get transfered to an account rep. Instead, you are told that (for security reasons) an account rep will call in the next few minutes to walk you through the cancellation process. Then you sit by the phone for an hour. You call back and ask “where’s my call?” “We apologize sir, I can help you” “I’d like to cancel my account.” “I’m sorry sir, only an account rep can cancel your account…when is a good time to call?” “Now, please.” “I’m sorry sir, how about tomorrow morning?” And so on. After a few days of this bullshit I threatened to call the Better Business Bureau on their ass. They canceled my account in two minutes. And they let me keep the modem.
but john, you got to talk to some real people in the process.
hmmm. i don’t plan to cancel, but how about one cancels one’s credit card on them? or calls the credit card company and stops payments to vonage? i always thought that, if i hold the keys to the purse, i control the situation.
sounds maddening, though. why did you cancel?
I canceled because Vonage sucks ass.
that’s a really helpful explanation. thanks, john.