Alexa, Play Despacito
YouTube ads. They’re everywhere. There’s no feeling quite like being forced to sit through two back-to-back un-skippable videos trying to shill you the Facebook app again or some life changing, paraben free, soy-based pet shampoo. It’s no secret that ads mostly fight dirty. They appeal to the senses, to our desires of what we think an ideal life should be. A Coca Cola commercial advertises itself as the perfect complement to a roaring summer bonfire with the gang. Subaru cars has been specifically engineered to protect your precious loved ones, so you can go on your picture-perfect Californian road trip with total peace of mind.
Advertisements, through their prevalence in our daily lives and their desire to dig themselves into our consciousnesses, are powerful tools in upholding certain cultural norms as well as creating new ones. Something which can be pretty dangerous.
Take this commercial for Amazon Alexa, for example. I just stumbled across it one day on YouTube, well, more accurately I guess it stumbled across me. I thought it was dumb. Pretty dumb. But the more I thought about this silly little 20 second ad, the more disturbing it was to me. Now here’s the video itself right below, and to be honest, at first viewing there may be nothing about it which seems particularly offensive.
https://youtu.be/bhxSqfsOOBUBut I think the reason this commercial stands out so much to me is the fact that I have trouble pinpointing what it’s trying to sell me. I mean, it’s trying to sell me an Amazon Alexa, that part is obvious, but through what means? Why do I need an Alexa so badly that it’s worth interrupting my video? The answer can be simply summed up as: to avoid embarrassment when people discover that I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Fits pretty well into the category of public discourse wouldn’t you say? Now the trope of Dad not really knowing what he’s talking about has existed for much, much longer than this ad. It’s been used in comics, sitcoms, movies, and cartoons, but I think the reason it stands out so much to me in this instance is that Dad’s got Alexa to save his behind. Now, one could argue this is a good thing, I mean, Dad has the means to answer his daughter’s follow up question without making anything up or letting her down. But I think there’s a lot more at play here than that. First of all, what was Dad’s initial reason to state the Pompeii fact in the first place? There are two options, both as disturbing as the other.
One, that daughter asked Dad a question to help with a project. We can see some vague supplies in front of her when she turns around, so it’s pretty likely. This one actually has some more depressing implications than the second. The daughter has asked Dad a question about Pompeii, a question that she should be researching herself. Dad consults all-knowing Alexa, proving himself to be just as bad at researching as his daughter by not helping her through a source or any context beyond her original question. Daughter asks a follow up question, still refusing to do any research of her own now that Dad has made it seem as if he is an amateur authority figure on the topic she needs information about. Dad consults Alexa in a whisper so that he continues to appear like he knows what he’s talking about, now abusing his daughter’s trust in his knowledge on top of conducting terrible research and not teaching his daughter about proper research methods.
The second possibility is that he simply stated the fact out of nowhere to impress his daughter. But why? There’s no context for it. He did no work to find it. We see in the opening scene that he has no concern with the context of the event. No desire to dig any deeper than the surface information he needs. Alexa gives him everything he needs, without the burden of anything else that would frame the information he has gained. Dad looks so proud of himself too when he just spouts it back out to his daughter! Look at the way he gestures with his sandwich, that’s the sandwich gesturing of a man fully confident with the information he has just been spoon fed two seconds ago.
But then we see his confidence completely crumble as soon as his daughter makes the ultimate galaxy brain move: asking an extremely simple follow up question. First of all, who on earth doesn’t know about Mt. Vesuvius? Second of all, this guy, because instead of doing any critical research by looking into the context and setting of the fun fact that he decided to brag about, he just relied on Alexa to have his back in case of emergency. Who needs to know what they’re talking about when you have a talking AI that can bail you out, making it look like you knew all along? Alexa even whispers back to him, how cute.
Okay, so this all may be a little overdramatic. It may even be somewhat unwarranted to analyze this silly little thing so closely. But maybe not. Pretending to hold knowledge when you really don’t know what you’re talking about is a damaging practice. This is something that rings true no matter what situation you find yourself in, whether personal or public. It can create confusion, misleading info, and encourage behavior exhibited by the dad in this ad. Having access to an assortment of unrelated fun facts does not inherently make you knowledgeable. It’s really nothing to brag about, and its usefulness is severely limited. In modern society, we are spoiled with access to things like web browsers and instant answers to any question that could possibly pop into our head. But this does not make us smarter. Not unless we are willing to fully understand the answer to the questions we have asked, and that takes far more time and focus than simply having an AI give a one sentence answer.
This ad bothered me because it
promotes the easy way out. It encourages the idea that pretending like you know
what you’re talking about when you don’t is charming and acceptable behavior.
But it just isn’t. Dad doesn’t learn anything from Alexa. He just regurgitates
information. Daughter doesn’t learn anything meaningful from Dad, because Dad
doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about. Doesn’t make for a really nice
advertisement when you put it that way does it?
I totally find myself in similar situations with ads. Every Prescription Medication EverTM has an ad with people outside in the sun, dancing and looking happy. But it's not even clear what the medicine treats. They never state the symptoms of the condition, so those who might have it wouldn't be prompted to seek diagnosis (which would be a smart move for their advertising).
ReplyDeleteThis totally ties into Postman's theory that ads push a lifestyle instead of a product. But that's what makes them a valuable medium to change our views about things. I wrote about male grooming ads that used to assert hypersexuality, an unrealistic, restrictive male body, and objectification of women (using Lynx, known as Axe in the US), and how successful recent Gillette and Lynx ads have got people talking about how a real man should behave and what the male body really looks like, with an emphasis on diversity.
I've also been getting a crap ton of BlendJet ads after I bought their product (like, okay, you already convinced me to buy it, why is every single ad I get not for that product??). But their ads are really good at avoiding lifestyle selling and focusing on the product's features. Some videos show how quiet the product is, most show the variety of substances it can effectively blend up (from peppers to vegetables to ice cubes, and more. That's why I gave the first one I viewed a thumbs-up, but now I'm drowning in BlendJet ads, haha.
Advertising is an epidemic, it's everywhere, so I personally prefer ads that DON'T attack my lifestyle choices on the regular.
That's the thing with that kind of technology - it's always there to save our behinds. We, as a society, have become so reliant on technology that we don't find it necessary to actually learn. I mean, what's the point of going out of our way to actually learn and memorize facts, etc. when we could get our answer through the means of a simple Google search or quick conversation with Alexa? Why should we put forth this work, when someone else has put forth the work to make this technology possible?
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that, with the evolution of technology, Americans have, in the nicest way possible, dumbed themselves down. Instead of being "forced" to learn, research, read books, etc., we use technology to answer even the simplest of questions. I find it quite upsetting that the idea of learning has almost been placed on the side burner. I, personally, love to learn, read, etc. I cannot imagine a life where technology becomes so advanced that I don't even have the choice to do so.
First of all, I want to say that your blog posts are always super interesting and I love reading them! Next, the commercial is definitely interesting in how it portrays the father and daughter's relationship. You bring up a good point about how the father is betraying the daughter's trust by making it seem like he knows everything about Pompeii. In reality, he should admit to not having all of the answers and teaching his daughter how to research.
ReplyDeleteI think the ad is a prime example at how technology has made us lazy and lethargic. We have the answers before us, whether in books, journals, newspapers, or even online scholarly websites. However, the want to find this knowledge is gone. We have so much access at our fingertips, and yet we refuse to use it to appropriately educate ourselves. Relying on robots just makes us even more lazy.
I enjoyed reading your example and description of the Amazon Alexa ad. It is interesting to realize how heavily people can rely on technology to help them gain access to information. Advertisements typically showcase what a company believes is the ideal outcome of their advertised product and/or service. In Amazon’s case, it is illustrating that parents would be able to easily recite information to their children for their homework. While this shows people can become lazy with learning in-depth information through research, the commercial most likely gained parents’ attention. This commercial also reminded me of a funny video I have seen of a family member catching their son using an Amazon Alexa device to recite answers to math problems. I find this funny because this resembles that this type of device really can provide information to users without much thought.
ReplyDeleteI get that you dramatized the post a bit such that it’s an easier read, but wot? I don't think there is a single point in your analysis of the ad that I agree with.
ReplyDelete“proving himself to be just as bad at researching as his daughter” M8, she was just gonna google it too. That was all the dad did; how is that any worse than hunting it down in a textbook or whatever other form of research you propose he do?
“now abusing his daughter’s trust” O_o He is giving her the correct answers. I imagine if she needed more context with these answers, she would ask for it.
“No desire to dig any deeper than the surface information he needs.” Why is it a bad thing that he isn't wasting his daughter’s(?) time with information she may very well already know? She might just be having trouble remembering specific information.
“First of all, who on earth doesn’t know about Mt. Vesuvius?” Alright, you got me there. This man is something of a fool.
“Who needs to know what they’re talking about when you have a talking AI that can bail you out,” All Alexa did was google it for him, likely reading from the same wikipedia he would have sought out anyhow.
I agree with your premise that ads are dumb, but I ain't know why you just had to rail on this rando who didn't know anything about Pompeii. That said, I ain’t even know why I’m defending him. He is, after all, some Amazon lackey. Hell, I ain't even know why I bothered digging into this bit, it was mostly a joke. I need some sleep.
Now that I'm here, does Alexa actually lower its volume if it detects you whispering? Cause that is neat.