We used to call it “surfing” the internet. Very West Coast, in hindsight. (This East Coaster remembers it as being more akin to “dredging”. Or, perhaps a better metaphor, mudlarking. But maybe that’s just my Atlanticist bias– I can also barely swim). Anyway, SURF! Notice the active principle: FIND that wave! SURF it, baby! Fire up that modem and listen as it performs the minutes-long ritual screeching necessary to get you CONNECTED! To the FUTURE!

Alas, ancient days. Now? You pick up your ever-present appliance with the handful of apps that you actually use, or your laptop with its handful of websites (that are essentially just browser interfaces to the same backends as the apps). Nobody surfs anymore. We don’t even forage, anymore. We just peer down into the trough, occasionally, and chew on whatever gets poured in front of us. This isn’t even grazing: This is being fed.

It seldom occurs to the cow to ask why the grass and oats are free.

The one piece of good news here, though? We don’t have to be cows.

So, imagine yourself a 21st century cyber-cow. The grains, oh how they pour. The trough is always full. It actually gets kind of boring, eventually– done more out of habit than to satisfy any immediate hunger. Not unlike a cow chewing her cud on a lovely summer’s day.

But, sometimes, as you feed? Miracle of Miracles: A SHINY OBJECT is presented to you. Lucky you! A NEW THING! Glorious, and Beautiful. Shiny, Validating, and all encrusted with ego-fulfilling dopamine. JUST FOR YOU. Glory to the Algorithm!

But, before you let yourself consume this SHINY OBJECT with your cognitive digestive system, please. Ask. Yourself. The Four Questions:

1. Why, of all the things I could be seeing right now, am I seeing this SHINY OBJECT, in particular?
2. Who paid for me to see SHINY OBJECT, “for free”?
3. What reaction was I expected to have, to SHINY OBJECT?
4. Why did (2) value my expected reaction (3), to SHINY OBJECT, enough to pay for me to have it?

Question the First: The Shiny Object.

Why, of all the things I could be seeing right now, am I seeing this SHINY OBJECT, in particular?

Good question, no? Could’ve been just another nice cat picture. Or more birthday reminders about your favorite celebs. But that’s just the normal churn, to keep you feeding. Then for a split second it’s the website proprietor calling for race war. Oh dear. Anyway, I wonder who’s birthday it is today?

Rather than a direct quote, it might be a political ad full of lies. Or (more likely these days) a glib meme that can’t really be “argued” with in the conventional/logical sense. (Sartre’s old observation about arguing with Nazis applies: The illogic is the whole point).

By the time you see it, the source or creator of that meme will often be anonymous. And, if not, you can’t generally tell who paid for its creation. But, amidst all that noise and haste, try to get into the habit of asking: Of all the Shiny Objects out there, why am I seeing this one, in particular, right now?

Question the Second: The Hidden Subject.

Who paid for me to see this SHINY OBJECT, “for free”?

In Website Proprietor’s case, the answer is easy to figure out. He is the “I” in every tweet. The not-so-Hidden Subject.

But not all routes to your precious eyeballs and limbic system are so… direct. Call this The Hidden Subject. Somewhere out there, someone wanted you, and people like you, to see this Shiny Object. There was an “I” in sentences like these: I want them to believe this. I want them to feel this. I want them to do this.

So, while by this point most of us realize that SHINY OBJECT was crafted for our infotainment pleasure… it may not be obvious why, by whom, for whom. Get into the habit of wondering this, several hundred times a day.

Always look for that Hidden Subject.

Question Penultimate: You are an Indirect Object.

What reaction was I expected to have, to this SHINY OBJECT?

Note the subheading. Or, more fully: You are the indirect object of a sentence composed by somebody else, for somebody else. Just be aware of that, and your instincts will grow.

SHINY OBJECT wasn’t just explicitly crafted to grab a few hundred milliseconds of your attention. It was explicitly crafted to make you think or feel something that otherwise would not have been thought, or felt, by you.

What does that say about the Hidden Subject’s beliefs and desires? What does it say about your beliefs and desires? (Or at least the Hidden Subject’s presumptions of them). Ask yourself this.

The Final Question: Why?

Why did (2) value my expected reaction (3), to SHINY OBJECT, enough to pay for me to have it?

Another good question, no? A wise man would just type “Best left as an exercise for the Reader” and sign off here. I am not that wise man.

Keep in mind that quite a lot of innocuous content fits this pattern, too, and that is fine. Sometimes the shoe company really does just want to sell you some shoes. That particular Hidden Subject’s most evil thought of the day was: I need them to buy some of my stupid shoes or I’ll starve!

But applying the Four Questions still works here, though, and can help sort out basic advertising from its Unholy Hellspawn, so-called Public Relations. A field that has ironically more unpublic than ever. And seems less about “Relations” than about outright control.

But that’s an entirely different story. Remember, kids: “Less Moo, more Mu!”

Be Seeing You.