Pumping up the volume
Trying to listening to tunes on YouTube, Kevin gets a popup of NJEA's latest ad bashing Gov. Christie.
On YouTube, I am the DJ.
Algorithms? Please.
I search for, find, and spin a dazzling array of tunes.
I don't need a surreptitious digital "genome" to second-guess my musical tastes.
But it turns out that YouTube does know me, or at least, knows where I live.
On Tuesday evening, before I could groove to The Black Keys' 'Howlin' for You' (love it), and before I could click on the minuscule "skip commercial" tab, I had to watch New Jersey's very own Chris Christie. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjg9oYRSzO4)
The image was not of a towering governor who should be president – see Fox News for that -- but an ominous guy whose "choices" help globe-trotting millionaires at the expense of students.
The hard-hitting spot was brought to me by the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), unleashing yet another advertising campaign for our edification.
I'll give the teachers' union credit: Using YouTube to go after Governor YouTube is downright fresh.
But the infiltration of YouTube and Pandora and everything else by commercials?
The colonization of every last molecule of our minds by the digital descendants of Mad Men?
It's the same old song.