I have a few rants brewing in my psyche today. I’ve been debating them a little bit, trying to decide if it was healthier for me to blow off some steam or to keep it all in and just deal with it.
I’ve decided to blow off some steam.
First of all, let’s start with the fellow drivers on the road. As automotive technology increases apparently the motorist’s common sense decreases. In New York, like many other states, you must turn on your headlights when your windshield wipers are on. It’s a law that makes sense to me; usually when it’s raining it’s dark enough or visibility is reduced enough to warrant the use of headlights. But because cars are becoming smarter than the drivers, motorists are relying on cars to turn their own lights on instead of having a human exerting the effort of turn the little knob on the turn signal stalk. This results in daytime running lights being on but not the actual head and taillights. So the purpose of the law is lost. I noticed a correlation this morning, the more expensive or bigger the vehicle, the less likely that the headlights will be on.
Secondly, combining this overly marketed, ad laden world with the ultra PC vibe we’ve got going on lately is making “normal” people feel ugly. Every commercial, every brochure, every pamphlet has picture perfect people with picture perfect teeth plastered on whatever the marketing material happens to be in a perfectly diverse group setting. There’s a man. There’s a woman. There’s a white person. There’s an African American person. There’s an Asian person. Where’s the drag queen? The Bosnian? The Italian? The Native American? The Cello Player? I’m sorry, but if you’re going to market to me, market to me in a realistic manner and just put *people* on the brochure. Quite frankly, I don’t care what race or sex you are when you’re trying to sell me something I probably don’t need. Just make it look normal. I realize that it’s quite easy for me to say that from my point of view, but just don’t insult my intelligence by making things appear to be all unified when there’s people killing each other all over the world for stupid shit.
And lastly, software developers really need to stop taking the above mentioned ratio of people and plastering them in software simply because they can. In my job I use a web based software program provided by a really big, mean, nasty telephone company that rhymes with “Horizon”. Said software program is peppered with pictures of Asian women smiling everywhere. I have no idea why, but there they are on screen after screen, smiling. They’re usually in mildly seductive poses whilst wearing an operator’s headset. I have nothing against Asian women, in fact, I find them to be quite attractive but c’mon, I’m running a line test for Betty Lou’s residential phone line, I don’t need a face staring at me while I’m doing it.
Thank you for listening. I feel loads better.
