Project background:

I decided to find a bunch of ads on Youtube that were marketing recent technology and do a little project where I create videos that put them in dialogue with each other.

I should preface this post by saying that I am not anti-technology, but I am against a lot of what these products represent. Capital above function and utility leads corporations to prioritize the attentional domination of the consumer, maximizing use and dependence in order to maximize profits. Recently, I just saw the movie Friendship (2025) and Tim Robinson’s character works for a company that specializes in the creation of “habit-forming” technologies. When Paul Rudd’s character introduces the language of “addiction,” he is comically shot down by Robinson. This encounter about sums up my current feelings. Technology should not be designed with the intention for the consumer to become habitually dependent on the product.

Additionally, modern AI technology is environmentally devastating and the widespread use of these new products should be regulated against until more sustainable energy systems allow for use that does not harm other earthly ecosystems.

If you’re checking this page out, I’m sure you are inundated with enough advertisements in your daily life, so– you’re welcome.

Old and New Smart Phones

In the first commercial, young people are presented as technological experts explaining the latest tech features on the latest Galaxy S4 to older adults: “Hey man… you should really think about buying one!” Also thrown in is several digs at Apple, signaling superiority over the competitor’s product (more on that in the section entitled “Apple vs.”).

In the second commercial, we see a troubling shift. The primary consumer for the new Galaxy phone is a teenage girl. The phone is granted a certain degree of animacy and is presented as experiencing heartbreak after seeing the young girl come and go in front of the window. The phone fantasizes about the girl as emoticons display the two of them holding hands with hearts flying around them. Presumably the girl fantasizes about the phone as well–I mean, it was love at first sight, right? After later purchasing the phone and unboxing it, we view the girl from the perspective of the phone. The phone speaks via a textual slogan that rather ominously states “you are the gift.” The lack of subtlety is nothing short of comedic. I’m sure every parent dreams for their teenage daughter to form a psychological dependence with her phone. This concern becomes even more pronounced as we see the development of the talking Gemini products in the next section.

The third commercial is a punchy, comedic portrayal of a teenage boy with a fashion that I think could be described as coming from the 80s? I don’t know. I’m only 24. Anyway, the boy flexes his muscles, presumably posing and posturing to post the photos on Instagram to entice someone like the teenage girl from the previous commercial (if she hasn’t already fallen too deeply in love with her Galaxy phone). After reviewing the photos, the boy notices that his mom is visible in the mirror. So he edits reality with a click, and removes her. A more accurate portrayal might involve him editing reality to make his muscles look bigger or removing some of his acne.

There are two key differences between the old and new commercials in my eyes: 1) who they are targeting (adults vs. teenagers) and 2) the number of people featured in the ad. In the first ad, we see a celebration involving a community of people sharing photos and laughing. In the second and third, we see young people having a much more isolated experience with their phones.

AI Relationships

In Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about the difference between a gift and a commodity, where a gift represents something created and given, something imbued with some sort of relational obligation. She provides an example of collecting wild strawberries to use in a cake for her father. The gift is not the strawberries, but the care, attention, and effort the strawberries are instilled with. A commodity is something that is bought and owned. After purchased, a woven basket is no longer imbued with any sort of relationality–a degree of meaning is lost.

The first commercial represents a theft and an exploitation of the concept of gifting. The mother, visibly annoyed by the care and attention her daughters brought to their gifts, quickly uses AI to create a gift which gives the illusion of care, time, intention, and attention. Instead of being momentarily exiled from the nuclear unit for forgetting, she has hacked the system with the use of AI.

The next two commercials of the “genius” line represented here demonstrate how AI erases personality in favor of a normative tone.

In the second commercial, Warren’s creative but unprofessional language is translated to be acceptable in the work place. All of Warren’s personality is erased in the message sent to his boss, who clearly is confused because of the shift in communicative style. His personal expression is diminished. Warren didn’t say anything that was particularly harmful in his message; it just isn’t the language we typically use in the work setting. But I believe it’s better to aspire to create a more inclusive work place that allows more diverse personality than to offload the evolution of language to a machine that gets to define the normative.

The quirky and spirited pudding man translates his frustration into kindness and unauthentically represents his emotions. Instead of learning a healthy way to express his frustration, he outsources this skill to the AI. Besides, even an unhealthy spiteful message full of good writing and flare makes the world more interesting. What happens if the pudding wasn’t returned? The rage builds and may be expressed even more harmfully.

In contrast to Apple’s “I am genius” commercials, google is advertising a talking companion with their AI. In these commercials, Google paves the way for widespread acceptance of AI friends. Gemini becomes not only a stand-in for friends, but for therapists, parents, and even lovers.

We see a man seemingly too depressed to get out of bed be encouraged by Gemini, women asking it to protect them from spiders and uploading photos to ask for outfit advice. A girl on a bed flirtatiously asks if she can ask it “silly questions.” A father using it to help him wrangle a rowdy son. All of these encounters to me signify a trend away from human support networks and relations and a move towards AI companionship. Is this really what we want?

The quizzical old man in the last clip asks his wife, “who are you talking to?” and she responds by introducing him to Gemini. I’m not sure the husband consented to the throuple that seems to be emerging… at the end of the final commercial, Gemini via text on the screen announces “now we’re talking.” Does this scare anyone else? To me, it almost comes across as threatening… like they are announcing their verbal presence in our world. Gotta love double-meanings.

Erotic Apple

In these Apple ads, we see new tech presented in an erotic manner. Which, frankly, I don’t like.

In 1975, Laura Mulvey first writes about the concept of the male gaze in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Mulvey discusses a heterosexual male gaze that objectifies women. The gaze is both demonstrated through the camera lens and the characters in the cinema. The camera lens frequently slices up the female body with cuts or camera movement that dissects the body as object (think about a slow pan up as the woman walks that shows her legs before anything else).

These commercials are an extension of the male gaze. The camera cuts up the device as we slowly move across its body while seductive music calls out for us to try and reach through the screen and touch the device–after all, it has the “biggest display,” and the “thinnest design.” Light, music, text, and throbbing heart beats (last commercial) all work together to seduce the viewer into buying the product.

In the first commercial, a male narrator represents the ego ideal, which Mulvey borrows from Freud and Lacan. The ego ideal is a guy on screen that male audience members are meant to idolize and associate with. In the commercial, a male narrator speaks softly, under his breath, signaling intimacy. Implicit in this commercial is a message to men that if you have this sexy phone, you may be sexier for that girl you’re trying to impress.

Companies Introduce their new AI smart phones

These commercials introduce the iPhone 16 Pro and the Google Pixel 9 Pro with all of their new features, including AI features that allow you to edit reality in photos with features like “best take” and “add me,” writing in the style of Shakespeare, and Genmoji.

In the faux one take Apple “Takka” commercial, I like that they are authentically representing places like a subway by showing almost everyone completely absorbed in digital worlds rather than speaking with one another.

I have to confess I love the Genmoji commercial. This tool seems pretty fun, frivolous, and exciting. But as much as I love horses wearing ties, I don’t think creating them is worth their present environmental impact.

Our phone is better!!

I guess Apple is concerned about our privacy and doesn’t track us and Galaxy keeps the same plugs? Take your pick.

Not satisfied with your options, you can always buy a dumb phone like me 🙂

Miscellaneous Tech

In the “Dear Apple” commercial, supposedly real people read their real letters they wrote to Apple that explain how the Apple watch saved their lives. What’s being suggested in this commercial is that without the Apple Watch, we are unsafe. We are risking our lives. The one girl’s doctor said “it was [her] watch that saved [her] life.” While I’m not denying the positive impacts technology like this can have, I find it to be ethically dubious to market a product to people in this way.

At the very beginning of 2022, I wrote the first act of a screenplay about a company, Kiwi Corp. The protagonist advertises the Kiwi Watch with an ad that closely parallels this one, where the implied message is that you need a watch in order to live a healthy life and save you from the dangers of the world. I was shocked when I saw this commercial in my search… perhaps I should’ve pitched it to Apple in 2022, eh?

The Apple Vision Pro AR goggles and Meta’s RayBan AI Glasses take cyborgism to a whole other level. I’m glad the father is able to split his attention enough to kick the soccer ball in the house with his son. I wonder if his son can see the love in the father’s eyes or if that’s a bug they can work out. Maybe the screen can project his love to his son?