Good morning John! Thank you for your thoughtful and intelligent discussion of advertisements on Monday.
But now for something completely different...
[acoustic guitar]
[singing] Now and then I see you in my rearview mirror
as I drive by on my way to the grocery store
Your sandwich artists always seem quite kind, but your bread is crumbling all the time
it's been a while, I think I owe you an explanation
See, you can get addicted to a certain kind of sandwich
this recognition that a sub is not just a sub.
So when I found that their delivery was so fast it almost frightened me
Well I'll admit that I was glad to stop eating Subway.
So now I order Jimmy Johns. Their website stores my favourites and my credit card number
Sometimes you just need a sub, but I just cannot be bothered to care where it comes from
And it's true that they don't toast their subs, but if I wanted toasted then I'd go to Quizno's.
I prefer an un-wich though, so now you're just a Subway where I used to go.
The Subway... *whispers "where I used to go"*
The Subwayyyyyy....
The Subway... *whispers "where I used to go"*
The Subwayyyy...
Probably a lot of people in the comments right now are wondering "How much did Jimmy Johns pay me to make that video?"
and the answer is "No", no dollars at all were exchanged, I just saw this picture on Tumblr.
But although that song was not an advertisement, that thing over there is.
The American eyeball, or generally the affluent eyeball
(and yes you are affluent if you have an internet connection fast enough to watch YouTube Videos)
is one of the most valuable commodities in existence on earth right now.
So valuable, in fact, that many amazing services can be offered for free in exchange for nothing more than those eyeballs.
I don't like advertisements! Sorry to people in the advertising business
but I've seen too many Geico commercials that don't say anything about anything
to feel like you're not, like, wheedling around in my brain and making me do things I don't even know I'm doing.
But the internet is built on the idea that this stuff should be free, so that's problematic
because advertising is then the only model.
And if you want YouTube to be free and yet continue employing thousands of people
you're gonna have to look at ads.
But if you don't want YouTube videos to be supported by ads and you don't want them to be free then we should talk about that.
If there's a way to make an online company that doesn't rely on users providing their psyche and their behavioural habits to be put into a collective commons
that is then auctioned off literally to the highest bidder, let's have that conversation.
John, I'll see you tomorrow.
And I bought three subs to make that music video.
I just felt weird about going into the places and not buying subs if we were going to film, so now I have three submarine sandwiches.
[car revving in distance]
Shut up
This is a hot fish.
It's a hot fish, man. This is a hot fish. *Michael laughs* This is a hot fish. It's a hot, hot...ow.
Whoo! It's a hot fish. Ok. I'm gonna be ok. *nervous laughter* Hot fish.
