Fearsome media can be a marketing technique. For instance, your television is sad, since you neglect it in favor of other devices. So it'll walk into your family's mealtime, on two horribly naked legs, and stare at you. Or show you its slavering maw:
Alternatively, the sad body-robot-remix-thing tv will sneak into your bed, girls. I'm not making this up:
If you're not careful, your stalkervision will sneak into your room at night and attack your computer, grinning like a mad thing.
It's like Videodrome turned upside down - yes, the tv is scary, disturbing, and wants your allegiance, but it's powerless, pathetic. Tv is psychotic, a villain - but only because your lack of love made it so. The new technology (laptops and desktops are the main culprits in these videos) is scary - because it makes the old ones sad. Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel, as filmed by David Cronenberg.
Surely it is simply Shelley's Creature, dogging its creator's steps in search of love, approval, basic human contact. We made it, but now decided we don't want it.
BTW, Chrome doesn't seem to like your comment form. No wonder CogDog broke up with it.
Posted by: Ed Webb | September 03, 2010 at 01:21
Frankenstein's creature had yellow eyes. But yes, we're still dealing with that greatest story of modernity.
What does Chrome do to yours? It's working fine even as I type this.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | September 03, 2010 at 15:33
For a while, Comcast's TV Guide channel showed listings with a pair of wild staring eyes above them. Every time we turned to that channel, I said, "Do you ever feel like the TV is watching you?"
Posted by: Michael Griffin | September 06, 2010 at 13:33
That's odd, Michael. What was Comcast thinking? Just surprising viewers with unusual content, I suppose. Or simply *terror*!
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | September 06, 2010 at 15:02