sex drugs and intellectual freedom

SDIF readers, we’d like you to meet Draynd. Some of you may remember him from the riveting(?) 3rd debate liveblog we hosted just last week. He’ll be dropping by regularly to get all Chicken Little on some new fad or trend or actual catastrophe (Wall St. Oh noes!). He doesn’t really like anyone or anything, so everything is fair game. Except Anderson Cooper. He is not allowed to make fun of Anderson Cooper. I love that man. Anyway, without further ado…

This week: Ooh, child tracking…now with GPS!

First, let me thank the staff and writers at Sex Drugs and Intellectual Freedom for letting me air my unrealistic and irrational fears of species failure. It’s truly an honor to be among such greatness [Oh, keep it coming, yeah, yeah that's the spot... -Ed.] on the precipice of our cultural demise. Second, this may be longer than most because I’m all about an entrance… Anyway, on with it:

It started with just a pitter-patter of obscure articles about the next best thing in not parenting. There was even a company with a cool, bubbly website offering even more products. Then the unthinkable happened, the cool kids announced (on the anniversary of 9.11? coincidence?*) they had a patent on something similar and hiker’s got on board.

I assure you (because we’ve only just met), I’m as pro-barely-supervising children as the next terrible father. My opposition to the concept of a GPS-enhanced shoe doesn’t come from its obvious benefit to the neglectful. (Hell, who doesn’t want their children constantly tracked while enthusiastically navigating youporn.com one-handed?)

How it falls:

I’ll notice a sharp drop in the “lost in the wilderness” population. With everyone knowing where they are all the time, Discovery Channel turns to short-sighted, unintelligent smut to lure viewers. The cable audience tumbles to the intellectual level of Fox News “watchers,” evening the scales at third grade literacy.

To boost its audience, the NBA adds “Power Bling” statistics to its “thinkings,” based on pressure and location feeds from the all-stars’ kicks. All other sports add something like it. With an easily installed “thingy,” anyone can follow real-time feeds from their favorite players’ sensors using their iPhone Awesome.

Every high-schooler buys a pair of the sneakers or an Awesome, each with a “sender.” Mothers get iPhone Fems because Oprah highlights a boy found in a forest using his shoes’ “sender” and his mother’s Fem. Every father gets an iPhone Boss (with the tracking “thingy” and “sender”) because his boss has one and every boss gets one to be ironic.

By choice, everyone is being “looked,” save the oldest, youngest and poorest. No one pays attention to them (things are soo much different in the ambiguously-defined future). The government uses feeds to apprehend accused criminals, re-zone residential neighborhoods and follow anyone who questions their motives or actions.

Advertising, as eager as it is “all-over,” jumps on the feeds. They offer opt-in services, giving you points for each time you walk into a partner store. Then they put “4-u” messages in their front windows, use elaborate profiling to know what and when you’ll buy and modify their signs to read “[your name]’s footware” or “[your name]’s gadgets” in a desperate attempt at relevancy.

Boom! The sky litters the landscape like a modern K-T layer… wait, did you follow that? Show of hands… okay, I can’t see you.

For those who didn’t: I walk past a store I’ve never been to and get a text on my iPhone Ego about their “sweet sweaters.” With the national IQ at dangerously, can-barely-use-crayons levels, most can’t resist the “4-u” messages and the country’s economic entrails burst onto Mexican streets. (Obviously.)

Why did I have to buy an Ego, you ask? Anyone who’s everyone has one to update their Twezzer (micro-micro-blogging at sixty characters or less) because sub-sub-notebooks are too cumbersome.

*Yes. Emphatically, yes.

You can find Draynd freaking out on a regular basis at UpTheDrain.