FFWD Weekly
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Viewpoint by Hamish MacAulay Surrounded by the testosterone of the latest round of auto shows, Ford became the first car company to jump on the Internet bandwagon. Instead of unveiling the future of over-priced gas-guzzlers (called "concept cars" by the industry), Ford produced a series of vehicles that look like breadboxes. Claiming to have developed the first collection of truly "wired" vehicles, Ford engineers simply stuffed every technological device they could imagine into something that looks like a Mac G4 with wheels. To others in the car establishment, Ford's concept vehicles were an overdue admission that the company cannot design cars. Most of the critics' companies, however, face the same number of recalls and lawsuits as Ford. Ford's concept cars are nothing more than one of the many signs that the Internet has been absorbed by even the most conservative elements of the corporate world. For a time briefer than rock and roll's heyday as a revolutionary force, the Internet has gone from being a counter-culture icon to a consumer-culture poster boy. The dreams of early Internet pioneers are not alone. The corporate world has developed a ferocious appetite for the next new, big thing, and can now strip a new, big thing down and plug it into a marketing scheme for products from online stocks to tampons in less than six months. This appetite has consumed every facet of North American and global culture in an increasingly expensive effort to convince North Americans to part with their money. The amount of consumer debt that Americans and Canadians are now carrying is proof of the marketeers' success. The shills of consumer culture have taken everything that reflects the human soul and turned it into a magazine ad or a 20-second television commercial, and they are desperately looking for new content for their next campaign. You name it – pop culture, high culture, anti-culture, religion, environmentalism – they are now being used to sell you products. The Baby Boomers were the last generation to avoid having their voices and beliefs co-opted and sold back to them by the corporate world before they turned 30. As the endless rehash of ’60s themes on every possible medium proves, the marketing machine is still making the Boomers pay for that oversight. All generations since, and from now on, will experience a surreal feedback loop that sees every element of rebellion or uniqueness they display copied in an effort to mass-market consumer goods back to them. The advertising world is even using the anti-conformist mentality to create a conformity of its own. The success of the campaigns shows that there is selling power in contradictions. Sprite uses a "do not let anyone tell you what to drink" message to tell you what to drink. Benetton puts labels that tell people to express their uniqueness on racks of identical clothes that it markets around the world. Kids' music is not despised by the establishment anymore – manufactured bands aside, cutting-edge music is more likely to end up in a television commercial than receive radio-play on a mainstream station. The distorted, commercial images of global culture are the latest big thing. Companies are intent on fostering the myth of the Internet as a global phenomena by using global images in their old-media advertising. The result is a bizarre dichotomy. The Internet is an important part of life and the economy only in the developed world. While 40 per cent of North Americans are online, only four per cent of the world's population have access to the Internet. If the world ever went online, the Internet would be overwhelmed and come to a standstill. Talk about being ready. Enough of that negativity, let’s get back to those cute actors representing children from around the world who want to know if we are ready to get rich from technology they will never use. * * * $187.5 billion (U.S.) spent on advertising in the U.S. in 1997 Canada's GDP was $577.8 billion U.S. in 1996 A recent Worldwatch survey estimated 40% of North Americans are online and 4% of the world's population

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