For Sale.

Dame Insomnia on her way to my bedside.

About five years ago, I switched from a Kindle to an iPad mini for my daily nightly reading. This week I decided to switch back to Kindle. 

Rightly or wrongly, truly or falsely, I've read enough to believe that the light from a computer, in whatever form it takes, Mac, pod, or phone, interferes with sleep patterns. Over the last few years, Dame Insomnia's grip on me has grown ever-more-potent, and I'm willing to do nearly anything to break that grip and get three straight hours of slumber a night.

About 36-hours after I ordered the Kindle, it arrived on the stone doorstep of my small seaside ramshackle up here on the Gingham Coast. I tore the flimsy packaging open and went to work synching my old Kindle app to my new device.

But first.

But first, I was hit with about seven screens of ads. Do I want to sign up for something called "Good Reads." Since I live between the sea and extensive wetlands (what we used to call a swamp) do I want to sign up for something called "Good Reeds." (joke.)

The ads were all so bland and un-promising, that I clicked them away in a, well, click. But still, I was annoyed. What's more, why does every illustration look exactly the same? Maybe someday someone will realize what's gained when you pay an illustrator and let that illustrator do something that attracts notice--which is why you hired an illustrator in the first place.

Mostly, I'm annoyed that the prevailing winds in our Oligarchic Corporatist state are completely devoid of respect for the consumers who have made that Oligarchic Corporatist state possible.  As above--just send crap their way. Crap messages with crap writing and crap illustrations and crap offers because everything's crap and why bother.

The giant corporations that come into our homes from about one-thousand different angles no longer feel like they are "guests" in our homes--uninvited guests at that. So, they no longer creep in on little mercantile feet, that barge in like the Mongols galloped through Europe not too many years ago. 

There was no Mongol E-Z pass.

Today advertisers act like personal space-invaders and we--that's you and I--are not their customers but rather their victims.

What set this off was deleting un-asked-for emails in my gmail this morning. I do this digital housekeeping every so often. It's a semiotic thing. I'm trying to believe I have some control over my own email boxes.

Under my "promotions" tab, though I had just cleared it ten days ago, I had over 1100 messages to delete. That's over 1100 unasked for slings and arrows corporate amerikkka and other institutional scammers are barraging me with. 

If you ever wonder how the Iranis feel after being bombarded with $40,000,000,000 worth of amerikkkan explosives, just look at your screens. 

What's happened in marketing should be thought about if you work with a brand that still strives to be different.

Semiotically, marketing has shifted.

The consumer isn't to be treated with respect. 
Boundaries (your 'property line') is no longer inviolate.
You, as a holder of money, are theirs.
They, as a getter of money, can do anything at anytime at any volume at any frequency with any ugliness and wrapped in unregulated lies, to separate you from what's yours

This is no longer "marketing."

It's "onslaughtering." 

Or slaughtering.

It's slaughtering decency, manners, respect.

No wonder as an industry, a society and a nation we are dying.