You know commercials–those annoying interruptions that beg for attention and cloud the world with digital noise? Yeah, I only watch Netflix now.
You know web ads–those annoying interruptions that beg for attention and cloud the world with digital noise? Yeah, I use ad-blockers now.
You know junk mail–those annoying interruptions that beg for attention and cloud the world with digital noise? Yeah, I filter all such emails to junk and delete them automatically.
Okay, I’m not opposed to their concept, more so their execution. Commercials have gone to extremes to be loud and annoying, to vie for an emotional reaction rather than provide any product information, not to mention their increasing time slot allocations have broken shows up to the point of being unwatchable. Web ads are laden with 3rd party scripts, which pose security risks, and creepily track you. Junk mail just fills up my inbox.
Now my wife, who seems far more willing to accept advertisements as part of the way media works (probably a healthier attitude), has no problem with enduring commercials, letting ads track her, and deleting hundreds of emails a day. But she does have that uncanny ability to multitask tirelessly until blood leaks out of her eyes–an amazing difference in how our brains differ for sure, and something I’ll never understand. While apparently sitting idle, her thread count resembles that of a malware infection–all those oddly-named daemons no one quite understands. And boy does she have a lot of daemons …
Heh, Linux joke. Did I beat that one to death? Good.
Moving on from my rambling, if you weren’t already aware, I work in Marketing now. Specifically I manage…wait for it…sending automated EMAILS!
No no, I don’t send spam. I send carefully crafted messages, coordinated between us as the bank and the merchants as our clients. There’s also a lot of legal checks in place that determine who can receive emails, as well as various ways to opt-out of the communications altogether. And besides, as is in the case of my wife, some people appreciate the emails and the offers they contain.
But, me being the cranky old man, as I’ve mentioned, do not care to receive these. Therefore, it is through a twist of fate that any email campaigns I manage, I also have to personally review. So while I’ve limited my exposure to marketing emails on a personal level by deleting them, on a professional one, I’m forced to read them anyway.
Cruel cruel irony.
–Simon