Google: the Mass Advertising Machine

America prefers money to freedom.

Since its inception, Google has always 'kept it simple'.  Streamlined user interfaces and fewer variables that get in your face -- so little to account for at so much power and ease of use.  The code behind, however, is not.  Google is a leviathan of AI (artificial intelligence) and could probably figure out how to program your old school VCR or what the question to answer '42' is, if you know how to properly refine a search string.  It's advertising engine is no different.  It quite diabolically crunches numbers/keywords so as it knows exactly what to sell you at what exact time.

So enter the evils of advertising into a company who boasts to "do no harm" and what do you have?  Well, for a start we might well not need use a word as strong as evil to describe the advertising world/market, after all.

The internet, back in the early 90's, was tantamount to the wild west; a time where anything goes and lawlessness rode high in the saddle.  Of course, the governments of the world -- particularly the American gov't -- have made their pledges to censor the internet, with varying degrees of success.  Even before SOPA there were such antithetical movements as '24 Hours of Democracy' and so forth.  So how does Google AdSense factor into all of this?

Well, for one, Google played the biggest hand in forging the internet as the marketplace for anything and everything.  I would attest that the reason we have freedom on the internet to the extent that we do is part and parcel of the catch 22 that is freedom of speech in cyberspace.  In short, Google makes the internet indispensable, and what makes the internet indispensable is freedom of speech.

What would Blogger and YouTube be without dissidents and dissidence?  A hell of a lot more boring, for one.  Imagine the kind of ennui we'd be living day-to-day if the internet were as dry and blasé as the BBC World Service or Fox News Channel.  We may be sleeping with the enemy, but we still have control.

The control to express ourselves as we see fit, in a reasonable manner.  Cyber bullying and despicable sex trades will always be a factor on the internet... but they have been factors in life long before the advent of social networking and email.  There will never be a point to Orwellian control over anything or anyone; people who are truly intent on exploiting the system always find a way... instead the guys on the ground take the blows with nowhere to roll to.  Think we can have an internet of unprecedented order?  That'll hold about as true as having a noble war -- it'll hold about as much water a colander.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Sssh!  Forget about Charlie Brown!

Beyond modern fables and Dr. Seuss, what do we have to learn from the Christmas season?  Well, (1) it's expensive, (2) it's for children and (3) it's the most marketable time of year since Hallowe'en.  Mattel, Hallmark, Sony and Haribo own the season -- all having equal shares.

We've got Mickey Mouse, we've got Peanuts and we've got the Grinch!  All Christmas branding... and all as profitable for a single day a year as Facebook will be for an entire year of single days. But what happened to Santa and his elves?  How about that portly bitch, Mrs. Claus?  And of course, what happened to Jesus Christ?  Wasn't it meant to be his birthday or something?  Well, no, actually it was something the Church concocted to wax over the festival of Saturnalia... but with all this Christmas chicanery, who's keeping track?

Somehow I thought Jesus was born in June; what do I know, though?  Quite frankly, Christmas started off as a pagan holiday and was re-branded, effectively, by the Christians... so is it really any wonder that media moguls and advertising gurus keep re-branding it to their own ends?

I've been told 'it's a Hallmark holiday' by many people... and true enough, it is.  The capital, the overheads, the financial forecasts... they all make for a compelling *chingchingching* Debenhams, Next and Tesco -- or in the case of the latter, anywhere you can overpay for a good bit of turkey.  'Tis the season to by jolly?  Well, yes, but your pocket book won't after you've splayed the fucker and forked out for whatever the Buzz Lightyear is, this year.

Mickey Mouse had his Scrooge, Charlie Brown had his pathetic Christmas tree and the Grinch had the same old lesson to learn antagonists and anti-heroes in his position always learn!  The real lesson?  For rewriting certain biblical parables, one can be re-gifted with everything they desire... seems strangely like selling ones soul to the Devil.  But in a sense, it is, because after yet another incumbent Christmas advertising campaign, 2012, we're all that little bit more soulless!