Opinion Overload: The New Survey Culture

"Campus Dining Survey." "Campus Parking Survey." "Public Transportation Survey." "Campus Technology Survey." These were the first four emails in my campus email inbox this morning. While I was looking at them, I got a phone call from the Honda dealership; they wanted me to complete a brief survey about my most recent experience in their service department. My answer: It was two years ago; I don't remember. In another email inbox, I had a survey from a Toyota dealership asking my father about his satisfaction in the Toyota brand. How this ended up in my email is completely beyond me. I've never owned a Toyota and the last time I went to a Toyota dealership was when I was car shopping in 2001.

I gave up on work and headed to Wal-Mart where, upon being handed my receipt, I was invited to complete yet another survey about my shopping experience for a chance to win a $1000 Wal-Mart gift card.

Back at home with groceries put away and the dog walked, I sit back down to my computer and open my campus email again. I have ANOTHER survey request about my satisfaction and usage habits of a textbook the department writes and prints and REQUIRES us to use. My personal email has a survey about parking in my apartment complex, which I find amusing since it's the fourth one this year and nothing has changed. (The complex, 2 years old now, built less than one parking space per apartment when some apartments have four cars to them. Somehow, our answering of surveys is supposed to direct them in how to resolve the problem, which I suggested that next time they don't be so ridiculously stupid. Perhaps it is unproductive responses like that that have caused them to send four surveys in one year about the same problem).

This has been going on for the last three or four years. I have been, and assume most of us have been, bombarded with survey requests from corporations, schools, retailers, and banks. Surveys on campus functions and infrastructure, textbook usage, shopping experiences, transportation habits, customer service, loan processes, marketing, money...dare I go on? No, I don't dare.

At first I felt flattered, naively of course, that they would seek my opinion. I would answer them thoughtfully. But with the glut of surveys that I am bombarded with now, I want to scream! None of my carefully answered surveys has made the lines at Wal-Mart any shorter, the staff more knowledgeable, or the produce more edible. My responses to Food Lion's surveys have in no way encouraged them to move the cluttered displays that transform their aisles into obstacle courses for people in mobility chairs or pushing a cart-- which is pretty much everybody. They haven't made the services at the bank any less expensive (when did I start paying them to use my money instead of them pay me?!) And they haven't encouraged the department for which I work to let me not use a textbook that I think is pretty much useless and an embarrassment to us. I don't ever eat on campus so I can't answer those surveys and aren't even sure why I get them since they aren't relevant, though I'm tempted to fill them in with random answers in order to skew their data. But all the time it has taken me to answer these surveys hasn't been rewarded with better services, more parking spaces, more widespread public transportation, or better books. I haven't gotten a damn thing from them but a lot of lost time I can never get back.

To make matters worse, these surveys, if they do allow you to put in a comment of your own at some point, limit it to a specific number of characters or only let you comment on things that you care nothing about. The questions are poorly formed and closed. These surveys don't seek information, knowledge. They only seek to make you feel important.

Once upon a time, way back in the 90s and before, surveys were used sparingly to collect quantitative data, to gauge quantitative trends. Now it's all qualitative questions they're asking and I'm not sure that surveys can actually work like that. I mean, how do you compile and reduce qualitative information to numbers? Maybe I didn't pay enough attention in statistics class.

On a personal level, surveys cause me a significant amount of anxiety. For example, I answered a mental health survey a few weeks ago and it asked me: "Did you have trouble thinking or concentrating?" Well, I always have trouble thinking or concentrating. It's hard to focus on work when there's drama at home or I have a head cold. What constitutes "trouble"? And if I answer "yes" to that question, does that somehow indict me? Make me a suspect in some sort of mental health crime? A Quality of Life Questionnaire wanted me to answer sixteen questions about my perception of my satisfaction with life quality by rating them on a scale of one (very poor) to five (very good) and I begin to panic because their is no objective definition provided for what is "very bad" or "very good." And sometimes I couldn't decide if it was average or above average...they didn't offer a 3.5 option on the scale. There's no room for indecision, self-reflection, or personal opinion. Your opinion is reduced into categories that are deemed most efficient for processing with no real engagement. It's on par with answering the monthly quiz questions about my sex life in Cosmopolitan magazine.

And then the surveys try not to be intrusive. "It will only take you ten minutes," they claim. But ten minutes or no, I still am not getting anything out of this at all. I have to pay for their time and services, but they don't have to pay for mine? And then if I delete their message, they send me a follow up email or automated phone message (American Express being notorious for this): "You still haven't answered our survey. Please complete the survey at your earliest convenience." I begin to feel badgered and guilty, judged inadequate by an email or phone survey.

To make matters worse, in the era of survey overload, people will answer surveys all day long for the mere hint of something free but will not answer the US Census, regarded by several of my neighbors with great suspicion. When they see a representative coming to their door, they hide in their apartment. But they'll answer surveys for Wal-Mart all day long. I don't get it.

I've decided I won't answer any more surveys. I'm done with them forever. I've even taken to filling out "other" on all necessary government, employment, and educational forms that ask about race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, and the like if I deem it's an option. If it's not, since they don't recognize sex other than male or female, I simply refuse to answer and leave it blank. It shouldn't be relevant anyway. I'm pretty sure this won't do any good, but it makes me feel a little better about it.

Dancing with the Garbage Monsters

Some choice quotes from Bristol Palin and her dance partner on Dancing with the Stars:

-"I'm a public advocate for teen pregnancy prevention."
Um...no. What the hell does that even mean? And is that what we're calling the MTV show Teen Mom now? A PSA starring public advocates for teen pregnancy prevention? No. Bristol and the Teen Moms are young woman who made choices that lead to consequences, and those choices/consequences are now being played out on TV as Monday and Tuesday night entertainment. They aren't just "normal girls," as Bristol says later, they have been made into reality TV stars. They are the "bad girls" who made bad choices and should be looked down upon, but really it's okay because they agreed to be filmed for TV, and therefore they get paid to talk about these choices and given opportunities other young, single mothers don't have. Teen pregnancy has become almost fetishized, which makes sense considering our totally messed up views on sex and sexuality and how all this is ultimately played out in our pop culture. We are so, so preoccupied with teens having sex and babies, aren't we? How funny since we tell them not to do those exact things...hmm...

-"This is the most frightening thing I've ever done in my life."
Yeah, those shimmy moves look like they could kill you. Or pull a muscle. I get it, you're being hyperbolic. But still--BARF.

-"She's only in the public eye because of her mom."
Okay, so then remind me again why she's a "star" on this show? Oh right, she's a "public advocate for teen pregnancy prevention." Because her mother is an abstinence-only-crazy-hate monster who was once a VP candidate. Totally makes sense.

-[When told she'll be dancing the cha-cha to Tom Jones "Momma Told Me Not to Come"] "It's like mine and Levi's relationship! Momma told me not to do it, but I did it anyway."
Yes, Bristol. You and every other teenager. I guess in that way you were a normal teen. And thanks for mentioning Levi again. Because I had totally forgotten about his Playgirl pics and the fame-whoriness of all this. (I had not forgotten about his Playgirl pics or the fame-whoriness of all this since it's constantly being brought up all the time.)

-"If I can do half of what Mark has taught me, bring some sexy to the cha-cha, and don't embarrass my mom, I'll be thrilled."
Whoops. Too late on that last one. (But seriously, I found that statement to be really sad.)

So Bristol dances to "Momma Told Me Not to Come" in a fitted, conservative looking gray dress that's supposed to make her look like her mother, which she then rips off to reveal a sexier, shorter red dress. "Oh, won't it be so cute and cheeky if you wear a conservative outfit (that's still fitted and sexy in that generically boring 'sexy secretary' way) and then you rip it off to reveal a sexier red dress and shimmy and gyrate to a song about momma telling you not to come? Don't get pregnant, guys!" And as much as I'm rolling my eyes at Bristol how ridiculous it is that she's considered a star for having a famous mom and for having a baby as a teen, the actual dance scene basically presents the conflicting messages a lot of young women hear. Women and girls are told to be "nice" girls, to wear the conservative but still sexy outfits, to not be sexual beings, but to be sexual objects. And then they are judged, and as long as they don't stray outside of the accepted norm, they are deemed acceptable women.

I've got nothing against Bristol Palin as a person as she seems nice enough, but I do have a problem with her public persona. And I find it increasingly boring to constantly hear about why she's considered relevant. Yes, she had a baby as a teenager. But can we move past that? Why are we still so fixated on it? Surely there's more to Bristol than her mother and her baby and baby-daddy. But apparently not. That's all women are, isn't it? We're nothing until we put out and get knocked up. And once that all goes away we're back to being nothing, our only value coming from what we are to others, and in how well we conform to the norm.

If you can't say anything nice...

Was over on videogum and saw this at the bottom of a post on Katy Perry being inarticulate in an interview. I assume it's because one of the tags was "Functionally Retarded Robots from Space," but I like to pretend that bing is a robot search engine that hates doing it's search engine job, so to amuse it's self it suggests what we're all thinking. And for some reason I imagine the bing robot search engine looks like Alf. That is one snarky robot search engine. Oh, bing!

The New Frankenstein

A couple weekends ago, Statler drags me out to The Cheesecake Factory at Southpoint Mall in Durham (not literally, of course, I'm being dramatic). In the hour and fifteen minutes we waited for a table, I got the opportunity to inspect the place pretty closely.

I've only been to one location of The Cheesecake Factory before and that was in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.. We went only for cheesecake, which I do not remember as being very good or very bad so that must mean it was the usual chain restaurant fare that is just tasty and timely enough for the customer to think they're happy, pay, and leave without actually being a memorable experience. I don't remember the location as standing out to me in any distinct way, granted this was ten years ago before I really thought about anything outside my own inner angst, but it blended in with all the other historic storefronts of houses and mom and pop stores that had morphed into Gaps and Banana Republics while somehow still floating under the guise of historic preservation.

Anyway, back to The Cheesecake Factory in Durham, which at first struck me as a horrific but grew on me as a garish, mockable delight. First, let me explain that Southpoint mall at Durham is apparently one of those malls designed to look like a city street, because for whatever reason suburbanites are seen as wanting a city shopping experience without having to leave the suburbs and actually visit a city (maybe city street shopping is more "authentic" or maybe it's the idea of being outdoors while not actually having to be in nature?). But the whole effect of these neighborhood malls is somewhat farcical in that they purport to be separate buildings, unique, individual, authentic, special, and unto themselves, but, as a consumer, I just end up feeling patronized. I guess I'm not supposed to notice the shoddy construction that is present in all buildings, the moldings that overlap much too far onto the adjacent buildings, the bricks that are all aligned or sometimes too perfectly staggared, a plastic lamp post painted to look like iron but really only looking like poorly painted plastic the closer you get to it, and the fact that this is in no way a city street. Ah, the simulacrum.

The Cheesecake Factory was made up red brick with a cafe style outcropping carefully surrounded by a metal (supposedly ironwork) rail common in American cafes where people want the experience of sitting outside and eating on the "street" without actually being part of that street (such careful distinctions must be made). The building had art deco windows and doors but the doors were surrounded by roman "columns" and the columns, in turn, were surrounded by Aegean tile. Inside, it was an absolute clusterfuck. There were large Egyptian columns with supposedly Egyptian faces painted on them that were carefully balanced to be not so exotic that I feel transported to somewhere else but odd enough that I couldn't help but notice them. There were Sistine Chapel style murals painted into the ceiling over plastic wicker chairs and floral print chintz booths that should only be found in diners or large, inexpensive chain hotel bars (personal opinion, of course). And to top off that dimly lit, charmingly uncomfortable ambiance was the nondescript music playing so loudly that Statler and I had to shout across the table at each other to be heard; and when the waitress told us the specials, I didn't have the heart to tell her that I hadn't heard a word she'd said.

The survey of the interior was finished off by our being handed menus that were spiral bound, glossy paged notebooks. The appetizer list alone was two pages long! The menu covered everything from Thai lettuce wraps, to quesadillas, to pasta in wine sauce. There was so much on it and so many different kinds of items on it, it was impossible to determine what might be their specialty. Well, of course their specialty is cheesecake, but why stop there! The place is the best evidence I've yet seen that supports my suspicion of an American cultural and culinary identity crisis.

My food was good. Not great. There was, in typical American fashion, about three meals worth of food on a single plate. Everything was so odd and also so nondescript at the same time; it was carefully crafted to be forgettable and overpriced-- a carefully contrived balance of getting top dollar for a meal and an experience that was "okay." I do think, though, that it was all worth it. The Cheesecake Factory had managed to capture a sort of abominable, frightening charm...somewhat like Frankenstein. I mean, I sort of rooted for Frankenstein, ya know? It wasn't his fault, really. More Victor Frankenstein, the creator, that was truly the monster.

So who creates places like The Cheesecake Factory? And more importantly, why do we go? Well, the first question goes back to the mall itself and beyond-- it's the same ubiquitous "they" that we use to refer to the masterminds behind government, business, marketing and other conspiracies.

The problem is that "they" is apt. It's not one person or one group: it's architects, interior designers, chefs, culinary experts, document designers, scientists studying why people make the choices they do, market researchers, advertisers, menu designers. On their own, they create the space. Together, through the long chain, the space takes on a life of its own. It becomes not the object of design being labeled and molded. Instead, it blurs the space between subject and object, the space begins to label those that create it, those that detest it, those that find solace in it, and those that have never been. Instead of telling it what sort of place it should be, the space begins to tell us what sort of consumers we should be, what foods we should like, what music creates dinner ambiance, where to walk, what food is popular, what design schemes are popular, how to sit, when to leave.

But it's an inanimate object you say? Yes and no. In the postmodern breakdown of signs is it really possible to believe still that the object has no power, only the subject? We create the space. Us. The consumers. Yet it defines us as much as we define it. I speak places like The Cheesecake Factory while it speaks me. I am now someone who eats at The Cheesecake Factory. This defines me as a middle-class professional with some spare money to blow (at least on that day), who likes options, who never eats alone so the menu choices have to be broad in order for us to all agree to go to one place and find something we want while usually suffering from a decision-making phobia at the same time, where the music is loud enough that we don't have to have a meaningful conversation with one another if we don't want to, and the seating uncomfortable enough that we don't feel obligated to linger in each others' company. We are the Dr. Frankensteins and the Frankenstein monster and the villagers running in terror.

While the sign over the door reads "The Cheesecake Factory," there is an underlying subtext that says "Welcome to the paradox of hypermodernity."

Mysteries of the Sphynx

What's that cat thinking? How does it feel? Cranky? Delighted? Giddy? Sleepy? Is it hungry? Bloated? Maybe it's high on catnip. Maybe it's plotting an escape. Or thinking of a sweater to knit. Or maybe they're just taking it all in.


Ikea released 100 cats in one of their stores to film a commercial. I took this screen grab from the footage. The commercial is pretty visually interesting, and for some reason this was my favorite scene. There's something really dreamy and whimsical about that sphynx in front of all those bare, starry-like light bulbs. I could look at that cat looking at those bulbs all day. Check out the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCB7RqGS684

DVR ate the video star

The VMAs came on tonight, (duh) and while I was watching, I kept thinking about how hilariously bad they are and how Luann and I had talked about watching together, but she ended up going out of town. She did, however, record it. Which got me thinking--remember back before DVR, in the dinosaur days of VHS, how if you wanted to watch a TV show but you were going to be out, or if some other show was on at the same time, you had to record it using your VCR? And then DVDs and DVRs came along and VHS became extinct, like all outdated technology eventually does. This got me wondering if VCRs and VHS nostalgia will start popping up everywhere. Kinda like how cassette tapes or records or SLR cameras are all over clothes and jewelry and other goods. Can't you see little VHS tape rings and pouches all over the place?

Maybe VHS tapes are just too boring looking, or maybe they just aren't outdated enough, or don't inspire that same sort of nostalgic feeling that cassette tapes do. But just like I made mixed tapes (by recording songs off the radio, naturally), I made mixed VHS tapes of shows and movies that I loved. Need some old, grainy, poorly spliced together Fraggle Rock episodes featuring the HBO opening credits? Or maybe a compilation of Christmas movies including a Muppet Family Christmas, The Christmas Toy, Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, Frosty, and a California Raisins Claymation Christmas special complete with the commercials? I've got 'em. Of course you can find that stuff on youtube, unless they've been taken down due to copyright. But there still is something sort of quaint about VHS itself that would seem to lend itself to that sort of nostalgic consumption.

If you do an Etsy search for VHS, there are some upcycled goods and art for sale, and some of them are pretty cool. So who knows, maybe we will see more VHS themed goods in the future. Or maybe VHS will go the way of Betamax and A-track tapes. Maybe we will laugh at them like we do the VMAs, how they once seemed so cool and relevant, and now seem so lame and pointless. Maybe some things are better left in the past.

This chicken's favorite movie is Labyrinth

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

More like this chicken looks like Bowie. I'm pretty sure this chicken has spandex pants on.

(Coolest chicken EVER.)

I love that this exists

Saw this at the library Friday...
I mean really, what's not to love? It's by R.L. Stine (because of course it is), the title is Calling All Creeps!, and as the cover depicts, it's about a kid that gets prank called by raptors.

Apparently it was creep day, because I also found this shoved in the back of another book:

In case you can't read that, these are the lyrics to "Zombie Dance Party." And the lyrics are:

Hear that sound, it's getting close,
A thousand shuffling feet?
The walking dead have come to town
For a Zombie Dance Party!

All we need are brains, sweet brains
And we're coming after yours.
You can try to run, that's half the fun
Of the Zombie Dance Party!

We're not very fast, or very smart
Be [Typo?] we've got a big head start.

So look out world, it's time to eat,
You call 'em "brains"--we call it "meat"!

It's a Zombie Dance Party!
A Zombie Dance Party!

It's a little "Thriller" mixed with The Cramps "Zombie Dance," but for kids! Never has the threat of death by zombie sounded so fun and festive. What's really funny about this is that I just watched my new favorite movie, Zombieland, on Tuesday. The only thing that would've made that movie better was if this song was included.

(By the way: does anyone else wonder why he didn't do sorta a pen name and go by "R.L. Stein?" Like Frankenstein? But how random is it that his name IS Stine, and he is "The Stephen King of children's literature?" Hmm...)