THE MEDIA IS THE MESSAGE
(Always fool them) 1998?

According to Codex Data Systems "[a]n adult in the developed world is located, on average, in 300 databases. As these converge with the telecommunications spectrum, nearly everyone becomes entangled in a web of surveillance enveloping everything from bank accounts to email."     Up until about five years ago, I took great efforts to avoid being placed mailing lists of all kinds.  Then the reality adulthood, and its mundane attachments, such as the all-pacifying cashflow, crept up on me and I knew it was game over.  Not long after I registered my first domain name did I began receiving mountains of useless mail from marketers and  computer service companies.  Also, my affinity for making my purchases via the Internet means that privacy is out the door.   I have no hope of averting the information retrievers.  They know who I am. Or do they?     Once I realized that anonymity was all but impossible, I concluded that the best thing to do was saturate databases with false and conflicting data about myself.  One day I received a Consumer Mail Panel questionnaire in the mail.   According to their own literature, "Consumer Mail Panel, a facility of Market Facts, Inc., is nationally recognized as a reliable and accurate means of learning consumer reactions and attitudes. . ."     "Let the games begin!" I thought.  This company looks for hardcore demographic info: Age, education, salary, television viewing and consumption habits ñ the full shag.  Since all information provided is likely to be sold to direct mail list managers around the world, this was a golden opportunity to completely misrepresent myself for purposes of amusement.     Soon marketers and god knows who else will believe me to be a middle aged African American male who makes about $75,000 a year, but for some reason chooses to live in a mobile home.  My 'on-air persona' as it were, has an a master's of business administration, and is an avid TV viewer.  He owns a satellite dish, and enjoys buying 'treats' for his three cats [an odd aside: it is now 2005 and I have a master's in business journalism, am an avid TV viewer attempting to reform, and enjoy buying treats for my two cats!].  That oughtta throw them off for awhile.  I expect soon to receive solicitations to subscribe to everything from Mobile Home Today and Cat Lover to Afrosheen.  Maybe next time I'll be a high school dropout with an interest in computer games.

Promote Yourself At Their Expense     There is other fun to be had at the expense of list managers.  I used to get a lot of junk mail at my house. So much in fact, that I felt my municipal government should not bear the cost of disposing of or recycling the crap.  So, whenever I receive mail that includes a 'No Postage Necessary if Mailed in the United States' envelope, I stuff the entire contents of their marketing message (including the envelope it came in) into that free mailing envelope and return it to them.  Of course, I destroy any paper where I'm supposed to sign my name to an agreement, 'cause you gotta be careful (I've had my name forged, and been defrauded several times).     Later, I added a twist to this practice.  It occurred to me that since the postage was free, why not send THEM my own promotional literature?  Somewhere a human being is (under)paid to receive their company's direct mail responses. So, now every direct mail response from my household includes the pile of paper sent to me packed alongside an absurd promotional piece about my web site, or other nonsense.  Try this — it's fun.