Many of you might have skimmed over the piece in last Sunday's NYTimes about the illustrator Linzie Hunter, who used subject lines from spam she received to practice hand lettering. She posted some of her attempts on the photo sharing site flickr.com. After being noticed by the greater design community (and being mentioned in the traditional media Times), she found a non-Internet, material world publisher for her spam subject line illustrations. Makes a great Christmas gift?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/linzie/sets/72157602417089145/
The NYTimes article, free but with lots of unavoidable banner ads, is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02wwln-consumed-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The NYTimes archive, which used to require a subscription, has recently joined the "free, but with banner ads" crowd.
Discussing Facebook with my undergrad students (all of whom, 100%, have Facebook pages), it became clear that they have developed, or think they have developed, the ability to absolutely ignore advertisements. Several students disputed the contention that Facebook carried advertising at all. So the Internet is either helping folks to develop a new, highly adaptable skill of ignoring details in one's environment (increased processing efficiency, unless what you don't process is an approaching hungry tiger or an oncoming bus), or it is cleverly developing its own capacities to by-pass the higher mental functions and to inject ads straight into the unconscious. The return of the hypodermic model of media effects! I knew it would come back around if I waited long enough.
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