gRaFfiti

What have I been doing? Better yet, what do I do?

Graffiti.

The spray-paint-can-and-otherwise artists would probably scoff at allowing a rube like myself into the fold. I'm a rube. This I know. This is true.

My anxieties in even fancying that I'd have some magic connection once the word was uttered thus placing myself into a category of similarity with the graffiti artist issue from encounters with the ephemeral cnidocyst surface of a simulated world whose very fabric is a searchable data object. My encounter with it is simply a function of search. The natures of the places found conform to genres, some of which reflect strategies for search in that they focus on being found by keyword. But even the related environment reflects this same purpose algorithm of taking compiled information about your click behavior to reflect that back to you in 'recommended' links to click.

It's a trap.

It's a maze of choices, each one leading to some tantalizing thumbnail of a well-silhouetted female body that may or may not exist, at least, for one tenth of a second thus comprising a frame grab that could exist, be chosen, and made to represent the link to a several-minute video presented to elicit a response sought in the first selection. And here's the rub. We are telegraphing our desire to a vast cloud of computation that produces for us more of what we want. And more of what we want is constantly repackaged to us in various different ways simply to generate clicks

Clicks, keystrokes, time, so much time, spent completely distracted, as if before a casino slot on some bus vacation with a dreaming, endless pile of retirement loot from which to spend, spend, spend. This model, this model of behaviorally induced robbery is a clever scheme under which to lock people into cycles of distracted machine operation. The operation of a machine dramatizes the robbery into an interplay between the playful gesture of the machine interface itself, the person as a drone to a rewards-inducement algorithm for payout programmed to perfectly upset that player over time in order to keep him or her there until the last cent of her month's retirement allotment has been spent. That model, as it stands, is simply a way to sell consent to financial oppression. As long as the overhead from the proprietor to keep the player playing, distracted, and hopeful doesn't outpace the spending by your average player you're in business. And that's it. The horizon is simple: find better ways to induce people to keep playing, losing, and feeling hopeful.

Hell.

There is no hope in their model. No. It's simpler than that. It's in the interface itself. Did you ever watch a video poker player slap those bright, clicky, illuminated, rectangles? It's automatic, rhythmic, and it all happens in split seconds. Reflex. Puffing on a cigarette. Drinking a refreshed light beer. Tapping a screen and a few lighted rectangles as the turn applies. This constellation of behavior is induced at every turn by drugs (beer and cigarettes sold stool-side), emotional tenor (gaming machine interface, its gaming environment), rewards (ultimately this is money paid out but positive beeps and lighting schemes apply; also, let's not forget the haptic satisfaction of the buttons themselves).

Hell. Let's reveal the kinds of things that I do that warrant no merit, time, or any stop in this philosophical blarg. I am oppressed by the very thought of being searched. That being said, trolling has taken on a new significance. To end a long and sometimes tangential diatribe I'll provide evidence of how I interact in an intellectually engaged manner with the general public given the available means of persuasion.

Gasp:

In the beginning was the word.

I am sorry God.