Waiting for the “pony rides and dancing bears”

A couple of weeks ago, while enjoying a relaxing dip in a pool of the harmonious bliss that results from an episode of the always entertaining and stimulating TV show Scrubs, I fell victim to the advertisers’ oldest trick in the book when I was startled to attention by the first 30-second spot in an obnoxiously loud commercial break. A local Ford dealership wanted me to know that its special offer on SUVs had been extended for two weeks because “YOU ASKED FOR IT!” What bugged me more than the volume of the commercial was the fact that Ford had spent thousands of dollars to try to convince me that the reason it was extending its sales offer was because buyers wanted to buy its vehicles, and not because its SUV sales (and lack thereof) mirrored the sales of the black sheep in its family: the Edsel. Rather than admit that it can’t give away its SUVs, it spun the truth to put itself in a positive light.

The Ford commercial reminded me of an America Online ad from the late 90s (back when AOL was THE place to go for e-mail and chatting). In its ad, AOL tried to convince the viewer that it was bringing people together. No matter what your relationship – family, friend, lover, you name it – AOL was making your relationship closer through the power of the Internet. I thought then what I think now: how could that possibly be true? The Internet takes away the tone of a phone call, the personality of a hand-written letter, the real hand-cramp-letter/long-distance-phone-bill energy it took to keep in touch with loved ones pre-Internet, and replaces all of that with a tool whose ability to abbreviate everything just reeks of inevitable laziness and apathy.

Back in the day, communication meant facial expressions, and hand gestures, and hugs. Nowadays, you can avoid all of that by copying and pasting a mass e-mail. Or if you prefer the small computers found in your phone, you can simply text your friends the heartfelt messages “wht up? where u @? im home. c u l@tr!” Back in the day, meeting new people meant social interaction in public and the character-building anxiety accompaniment. Now, a quick trip to Facebook or Myspace or AIM lets you “meet” everyone in the world behind the security and comfort of a faceless (read: inhuman) conversation. And, when the time is right, and you’re ready to truly show yourself, Photoshop is standing by to crop your picture to put you in the best possible fabricated light.

With this in mind, how are AOL and all of its Internet-service-provider offspring possibly bringing people together when we’re all cooped up in our homes staring at a computer screen? In the words of the extended version of the Scrubs theme song, “you found your love online…but you’re just plugged into the wall.”

But this is the way of the world: online shopping; self checkout lines; automated telephone lines (“Burlington” – “Did you say…’Berlin Town’?” – “No.” – “Please spell out the name of the city”); German restaurants with robotic waiters; and my latest discovery: credit card-accepting vending machines so you don’t need to ask anyone for change for a $5 bill. (We’re such a plastic-obsessed country, that I honestly think the only way for homeless people to survive in the coming years will be to invest in a portable credit card machine [“Excuse me, sir. Could you please spare a swipe of your card?])

Technology has essentially removed necessary human interaction from the day-to-day life and to fill the void left by that lack of interaction, our society has created the always oxymoronically-termed “Reality TV.” Now we don’t need to go on dates because we can watch others go through that rejection process on The Bachelor or Next or Flavor of Love. And why go on vacations when we’ve got the Travel Channel? And who needs to worry about their career when they can obsess about Lauren Conrad’s fake one? Don’t want to spend time with your family? No problem; just tune in to see what the Kardashians are up to? Don’t know who the Kardashians are? Don’t ask your friend when you can Google it.

We’re slowly becoming the world Ray Bradbury imagined 50 years ago when he wrote Fahrenheit 451. If you think I’m kidding, consider this: the protagonist in Bradbury’s signature book, Guy Montag (OMG! Maybe he’s Heidi’s father!), came home from work everyday to a house with TV screens as walls (called “parlor walls”). The parlor walls played an interactive soap opera of sorts; “families” on the screen acted out a script with the individual viewer, thus saving the viewer from actual interaction with actual family. And if the viewers got bored with that, they could always place tiny radios in their ears and listen to their iPods…I mean seashell radios. What resulted was a world in which people didn’t interact, much like the one in which we currently live.

And it’s just one logical step from realizing that people aren’t interacting with each other to the acknowledgment of the consequence: that people have stopped caring about other people. Road rage; cell phones in inappropriate public places; losing touch with loved ones who don’t use email; a family friendly marketplace inundated with shouts of “I f**king hate ni**ers!” and “f**k this…f**k that s**t!”; local businesses closing shop because people who hate that the US offshores its work ease their misery by finding bargains at national chains and online stores; states allowing their employees to “bring their gun to work”; racist comments heard at every corner, silenced only long enough to catch the news about a suicidal Korean student gunning down a campus, or the people of an occupied nation fighting against the occupiers, before the comments about “Towelheads” and “g**ks” begin again; and even the simple act of cutting people in line.

Remote controls have replaced human interaction and the result is a society that doesn’t respect itself. And if we’re not careful, soon we’ll all know the temperature at which books burn. But don’t worry, at least you can buy a Ford to make you feel better about yourself. After all, you asked for it.

Author: Mr Benchly

I'm quirky. And a writer. Sometimes in that order. View all posts by Mr Benchly