I was just reading through the Twitter comments on the original post, and kept seeing versions of “and this is why we need more women making decisions in tech!” …while my thought was more like “wow, this is why we need all kinds of people, with a broad range of knowledge and life experiences, contributing to decisions in tech.”
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They will just tweak their algorithms, and will instead bombard you with spam for grief counseling and antidepressants. They will never stop.
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Unfortunately, comment pages like this are a form of social media.
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No Alfred, they are not.
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They kinda are, but the difference is that many mutants here know better than to use their real info and/or identity.
It’s not social media on the level of FB or Twitter, that’s true; but it still technically counts.
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Technicalities rarely count, and rarely ever are remembered. Now who said that? I’ll look into it…
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Tell that to anyone who’s ever been to traffic court to fight a ticket.
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They took Annalise’s class?
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New mothers have always been a hot marketing target, and they’ll do anything to get their hands on stuff like hospital records, include paying crooked employees (or administrators).
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There is no empathy in this brave new world.
you really need a defence attorney that’s even savvy with guess what everyday life there are many fake artists there too… and a would be friend
What?
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Of course, exchanging comments with strangers on the 'net, with a system of likes, shares and so on is totally not a social media.
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That doesn’t make any sense. There’s no correlation on Twitter between real and online identities, and that’s the pinnacle of social media.
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Damn straight. I was raised in simpler a time where the value of anonymity was closely held. Never tell anyone on the internet your real name, and doxing is a bad thing. These kids today are just giving it up for free. Now please respect the boundaries of my lawn.
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This woman is incredibly brave.
This open letter will further circulate, thanks to social media and media old and new. Her name will be known.
Not only her loss is public now, also her reaction.
Strangers will give unsolicited advise, and with some bad luck someone will dig out photos of her so she will have similar experiences in meatspace.
I really hope this isn’t in vain, and her letter changes something.
But I doubt it
I get overtly irritated about any kind of sentimentalism or intimacy in advertising, and people often act like there is something wrong with me (“I think those John Lewis xmas ads are heartwarming, why are you so dead inside” etc).
Well, this story encapsulates why it is not me, and there is something bitterly, grotesquely wrong with advertising. It’s not even Facebook particularly (though “targeting” makes the problem worse, by encouraging advertisers to go even further). The problem is when people cut out chunks of real human life – weddings and births and first kisses – and turn them into generic industrial components, trying to make millions of people feel like when their momma kissed their skinned knee back on the farm, that was actually Citibank supplying that emotion. Maybe 1% of viewers didn’t have that kind of momma, and feel it as a kick in the face, but in a way they’re the lucky ones; the 99% who just sit there and take it don’t even notice as the core of their being is gradually sucked out, financialised and priced at next to nothing.
My point being, it’s always a kick in the face, even when you are willing to pretend
that you invited the intimacy that advertisers take without asking. In the story above, it sounds like they’re being incredibly fucking heartless – and they are – but they’re being exactly as heartless the rest of the time.
My proposed rules for living with advertising are
- Avoid advertising. Act as if any time someone shows you an ad, or even a logo, they are taking something from you, because they are.
- Don’t let anyone use your given name without permission. If businesses bore in mind that to them, I am MISTER Obtato, then perhaps they wouldn’t feel so fucking free to make gross personal assumptions. Just because you’re generous about giving this permission, that doesn’t mean it’s free for any old asshole to take.
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I think this is a sort of psychic damage that the modern world inflicts and we’re really only just now starting to realize it. It’s comes from everywhere, even just things like Google Photos suggesting you look at “this day last year”, only to show you pictures of a deceased relative, absent spouse, or some other personal tragedy.
I wonder if some of it isn’t potentially intentional. Maybe the algorithms are smarter than we give them credit for. It would make sense, when people get sad, they tend to buy more stuff, so strategically reminding people of past traumatic events could be intentional–making people feel bad about their lives being an part of the design because it makes the target audience more vulnerable.
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