YES! I have been VIOLATED! And I will go into all the sordid details of the event right here.
When I start my computer I usually end up with Thunderbird and a web browser quietly running away on the desktop. Today TB was minimized and IE was active on the desktop with CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and Omaha.com open in separate tabs. CNN was on top.
I had turned aside to challenge the LA Times daily crossword when a melodious voice speaking of “Mom’s Bunghole Lube” (I hope that’s a fictitious product.) burst forth upon my solitude. What The Heck???…. After grabbing the volume control and obtaining a less than painful audio level it took me almost a minute to figure out that this was a video snippet running on the Fox News home page. I had to whack a teeny mute button a couple of times but ultimately the noise went away.
Having regained a modicum of silence I went back to my crossword only to shortly be subjected to an annoying voice crooning the the benefits of “Dad’s Knee Lint Remover”. (Again, my apologies if that’s a real product.) Once more it was Fox News and I was forced to chase that elusive mute button to make it go away.
Mind that I’m all for the free enterprise system of doing things. If I visit a web site I expect to be presented with opportunities to purchase things I neither need nor want. If I click on a video I will even sit through a 15 second commercial before it starts (I will not sit through a commercial that lasts any longer than that though! Take note CNN!) However, I draw the line at being repeatedly pummeled by voices emanating from pages that aren’t even being actively perused.
I refuse to be forced to consume commercial messages against my will. I want my advertisements delivered as they are in a newspaper or magazine — if they are there and if I’m interested I may look at them, otherwise they don’t intrude on my visit either aurally or visually. ADVERTISERS TAKE NOTE! — If you pop up, flash, rotate, change color, sound off, or otherwise interfere with my main purpose for visiting a web page you are only going to piss me off! As you can guess, that is not going to leave me inclined to purchase your product.
But, you say, we are continuously bombarded by useless advertising on both TV and radio! True, but both media have an aural component that we expect to be there and which often becomes an unnoticed part of the background. I usually surf the web in silence, or at most have a quiet audio track running in the background. I don’t expect to be surprised by unwanted audio input. I also do a lot of my browsing when everyone else is asleep, unexpected aural intrusions are not received well in this circumstance.
So, Fox News has forsaken its place of honor among my browser tabs, they have lost a viewer of more than two years duration because they chose to irritate rather than inform. And I would caution the rest of the world out there clamoring for the attention of myself and my browser — We are a fickle lot, we consumers; especially we WEB consumers! We want what we want, when we want it and we don’t want a lot of stuff we didn’t ask for! Press us a little too hard and we go elsewhere, and there are certainly a whole lot of elsewheres to visit on the web.
I would have hoped it was the imbalanced reporting, the shameless presentation of commentary as news and the contemptible appeal to emotion (primarily fear) that was responsible for eliminating the Fox News tab from your browser window. But, if all it took was an intrusive audio track for a fictitious product (much like the “news” presented by Fox), at least the result was the same.
I find your obvious left-wing, liberal bias both anathematic and a perfect balance for my well concealed anarchist leanings. (I have been known to be somewhere far right of conservative!)
I read and listen to a broad scope of “news” sources in an oft ill-destined effort to obtain a measure of balance in my understanding of world and local events. Regard the old saying “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer!”.