Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Shoppers spooked out, the Times frets

 Stalked by digital ads: the New York Times shares a twinge of concern about improvements in targeted marketing.  "Personalized retargeting or remarketing" leads to a fascinatingly posthuman experience, where desired objects pursue us.

...the writer Michael Learmonth described being stalked by a pair of pants he had considered buying on Zappos. 

The Times article also has an interesting gender focus.  Note the key role played by named women interviewees, and the emphasis on stereotypical, cliched women's purchases and concerns:

Bad as it was to be stalked by shoes, Ms. Matlin said that she felt even worse when she was hounded recently by ads for a dieting service she had used online. “They are still following me around, and it makes me feel fat,” she said. ...

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said she found the technique troubling. “I understand that advertising supports the Internet, but I am a little spooked out,” Ms. McCaskill said of behavioral targeting. “This is creepy.”

“What is the benefit of freaking customers out?” asks one interviewee.  Good question, and one with metrics awaiting, if not already being totaled up.

(thanks to Ed Webb's mandatory Twitter stream; image from blakespot)

Hello Kitty's infernal origins

Was Hello Kitty spawned from a pact with the devil?  Today's best urban legend: 

[A] child... had cancer. The parent made a pact with the devil that if the child was cured they would create a character in the devil's honor that would be adored worldwide. There are different variations but they all boil down to the point that Hello Kitty is evil...

You knew it would have been something like this, didn't you?

The Snopes debunking - clearly a defensive measure against the Mouthless One's minions - has more goodness.   

[W]e're wholly unaware of any Chinese language (there are many) wherein "kitty" means "demon."...

Sanrio spokesman Kazuhide Yoneyama said in 1999, "Without the mouth, it is easier for the person looking at Hello Kitty to project their feelings on to the character. The person can be happy or sad together with Hello Kitty."

(image noted here)

More badness via Facebook

A child pornography ring was busted last week, and Facebook was involved from both sides.  The alleged criminals used Facebook as a distribution system, then police worked with the Facebook corporation to crack the case.

The perps exploited Facebook's identity system: "The statement acknowledged the difficulty Facebook had in stopping the syndicate, as users would set up false new accounts after their accounts were deactivated."

(thanks to Ed Webb)

The internet of things vs the internet of humans

"Remember this day": more machines activated Verizon accounts than did humans, this quarter.

We humans are reaching full market penetration and growth in subscription sales to us is slowing down, but there are more potentially-connected objects than there are human beings, and those objects are coming online faster and faster

(via the EdWebbdroid)

Germany has developed a taste for cannibalism, .  A Berlin restaurant has just called for... well, donations is probably the best way to put it:

The restaurant, Flimé, has taken out ads in German papers calling for "members" to "donate" whatever body parts they like, provided they submit medical records.

Plus "proprietors say that they're looking to hire an 'open-minded surgeon.'"

(via Arnaud Leene on Twitter, Ed Webb via Diigo, plus any number of fine gourmands)

Evil tv monster just wants your love

Please watch more tv, because your television is a creepy, stalking mass of body parts: now that's a sales pitch!

 

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.

Stationary to make your pen afraid

Here's a fine bit of Gothic stationary:

One could say it gives "stationary" a new meaning, as in fixed in place:

  

 (via the awesome Andrew Connell, who's been doing such fine work at the Draculablog)

The first serving of man

Why did humans first eat other humans?  For the nutrition benefits, says ever-helpful Discovery News.

The humans-as-food determination negates other possibilities, such as cannibalism for ritual's sake, or cannibalism due to starvation. In this oldest known case of humans eating humans, other food was available to the diners, but human flesh was just part of their meat mix.

"meat mix".  Infocult, providing you with your daily recommended servings of Gothic horror.  You're welcome.

(fine pictured sculpture described here)

Infocult stalkers: Facebook or Twitter?

 Dear Infocult swarm, where are you more likely to look for this blog and its topics: Facebook or Twitter?  Please comment.

Bryan on Twitter; Bryan on Facebook.

(Here's why I ask: I'm receiving an increasing amount of Infocultish material through those two platforms.  Perhaps we should devote more effort to one or both.)

A one-person vinyl necropolis

Turn your death into an old-school LP: that's the service offered by AndVinly.  The company will take some of your cremated ashes and mix them into the record's vinyl; your chosen audio track plays on it.  You can design the record cover, and buy a bunch of extra services, too.

 

(via Ed Webb's Diigo, which everyone should follow)