#194 Merry Chri$tma$

The worst aspect of the cyber-Christmas is christmaspam. The ancient Yule celebration from the Nordic lands that predates even the birth of Christ featured, among other things, like mistletoe and holly and the Solstice Evergreen (doesn’t sound as catchy as Christmas tree does it?) the butchering of a pig to sacrifice to the Norse goddess Freya. Yule be happy to know, that our modern version of the feast of Christmas ham has degenerated into the glut of Christmas spam.
People used to think the end of the catalogue business was here when the internet was created. No more bound books o’treats. The Christmas Wishbook was as yesterday as Michael Jackson’s nose. But merchants found out something interesting. Cyber didn’t mean less, it meant more. Think about it. If you’re shopping for something online you don’t just settle for a brief description of the object of your desire. No, you want a freakin book’s worth of info. Not only that, you want consumer ratings as well. And who in their right mind isn’t going to print out some part of the transaction from their home computer as physical proof. And what business that has retail outlets is not going to see the economy of using all those expensive pictures they took of their offerings and print them up in a catalogue format anyhow. So now, instead of one catalogue, you have a catalogue in your hand, a catalogue online, and reams of personal paper you’ve printed out to verify your transaction. Didn’t someone say simpler? And also now you’ve got, yep, double the junkmail next year—or triple if you bought from the same company online that you did at a retail outlet and you happened to have a minor variation in your name or address. The computer that spits out junkmail doesn’t distinguish between John Public and John Q. Public or even J. Quotidian Public. So if your clerk at the retail store typed in a different shorthand of your name the direct mail computer is going to assume there’s more that one willing buyer at your address. Which is why our family now gets four REI catalogues each year and my wife and daughter get Macy Catalogues up the ying-yang.
And, oh yeah, god forbid that you ever divorce and remarry. Cause you’ll keep getting junkmail in the name of your ex-spouse for the excruciating eternity it felt like you were married to her. And with all the computer cross-referencing of mailing lists you’ll likely get mail for her new spouse as well, and each of you will get catalogues based on whatever your newest lifestyle, cookie company or sport trend may be. I wonder if there’s some mailing list database program that kind of swaps address and zip code info-packets and does a recombinant DNA thing to mail out catalogues to new and unwary recipients in the commercial gene pool.
America, ya gotta love it.