June 1997 target audience by Leslie Harpold |
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You Won't C-Me
I have long and languorously enjoyed the sense of privacy the phone has
offered me. I love that I can have an important business conversation in
my underwear, or even more scandalous, when awakened from a dead sleep
after staying up all night to work on a project. As long as I can get
lucid fast enough and know what I'm talking about, I can drift right back
to the arms of Morpheus Baby as if I had been up and at 'em with the birds.
I work at home a lot, and keep my own hours. It works really well for me.
I think I put enough personal information on my web sites, in my articles
and here in the pages of SMUG, I'm not afraid to open up a vein and tell
you the most embarrassing details of my life. The difference between that
and if I had to talk to you all on C-U-See-Me is that I have control over
when and how these details emerge. If it was a real time video conference,
you could catch me on a bad hair day, or wearing my black industrial "home"
glasses instead of the smart tiny wire titanium ones I wear out in public.
Due to the position of my computer, it would be easy to tell if I made my
bed that day or not, if my laundry basket was full to brimming or if I had
candlewax all over my mantle because I forgot to clean it up the night
before. That's way more than you want to know, I'm certain, or need to
know for any reason.
I don't have any kids. If I did, though, I wouldn't want to read them
bedtime stories on C-U-See-Me via laptop. Why? Not because I'm not
planning on being a loving mother, but I don't want my kids getting a weird
impression of what's real and what's TV. Kids have a hard enough time
coming to grips with there not being thousands of tiny people inside the
TV, they surely don't need to worry their parents are inside their
computer looking right back at them. In this ad, little Billy appears to
be about there, but his folks are yuppie enough to have set up a booming
computer system in his room. Lucky kid. Face it, the phone feels closer.
It's right there in your ear, just for you. Anyone could walk into the
room and break up the intimacy between Billy and Daddy. Computers are
something you do alone, and making them a family activity just feels wrong
to me. The real has already been sufficiently subverted, we don't need to
add the whole depersonalization of parenthood. TV is babysitter enough,
just because you give your kids a computer doesn't mean they are going to
get smart with it.
I'm not here today to talk about parenting, as someone with no kids, I
can't claim to be an expert. What I can say is why don't they just
advertise C-U-See-Me software for what it really is? When you go looking
for C-U-See-Me sites and related information on the web, you read about
people having a spicier version of cybersex. It's warts and all cybersex,
literally, since the camera doesn't really lie, (although good lighting and
makeup can fib a little) but essentially, most people with this software
use it to get off more than they use it to get on with the business of the
day.
I called White Pine software to ask them if they really believed this was
the ideal fix for Daddies-on-the-go.
Me: Hi, Can I ask you a question about C-U-See-Me?
White Pine: Sure, how can we help you?
Me: What do people use C-U-See-Me software for?
WP: Lots of things, business video conferencing, keeping in touch with
relatives and friends, talking to each other...
Me: And cybersex?
WP: I've heard of that, but the product has many applications.
Me: Do you think it's mostly cybersex, though?
WP: Um...
Me: All the web sites I've seen where C-U-See-Me is mentioned have kinda
slutty pictures on them from C-U-See-Me "conversations."
WP: I'm not really sure what people are doing once they have the product.
Me: Do you use the product?
WP: Yes, I use it to talk to my...
Me: (Interrupting) Have you used it for cybersex?
WP: I think you have something else on your mind besides product information.
(click)
So, my suspicions were neither confirmed nor denied, but I wish before they
hung up I'd asked if I could C-U-See-Me with the person I was talking to
for that phone call. There are numerous videoconferencing apps out there
with a more "businessy" slant, so I know that on some level, they must know
exactly what they created, if they didn't create it for that purpose expressly
in the first place. The first arenas to embrace new technology are always
pornography and gaming, why is White Pine trying to wash all the dirt off
them with this family values style ad campaign? Probably because they know
the naked people, the people who want to be seen in all their undressed
glory all over the internet will figure that trick out for themselves.
I think a better slogan would be "see people naked you'll never meet."
That would sell some software.
back to the junk drawer
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