![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Google Eats Itself
My friend John sent me a link to a site called Google Will Eat Itself. Their introductory text explains:
We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on a network of hidden Websites. With this money we automatically buy Google shares.
We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself - but in the end “we” own it!
By establishing this model we deconstruct the new global advertisment mechanisms by rendering them into a surreal click-based economic model.
After this process we hand over the common ownership of “our” Google Shares to the GTTP Ltd. [Google To The People Public Company] which distributes them back to the users (clickers) / public.
It’s definitely an interesting concept because over the long haul, you could probably make more owning Google shares than by selling ad space on your site. But I don’t think these people are in this as a business model. I think it’s supposed to be an art project or activism or something. And I have nothing against art or activism, but I have to say, that it’s things like this that kind of make me realize why nobody in the culture at large really values artists all that much, and how I was told growing up that “artist” wasn’t really a viable way to make money.
It’s sad but it’s not, and this is a great example why. While it’s a cool idea, they simply don’t “deconstruct the new global advertisment mechanisms.” They’re just scammers who have concocted an elaborate philosophical rationalization. How are these guys better than hundreds of thousands of other people who try to bilk Google and its advertisers out of money with click-fraud techniques?
And in case you think they aren’t committing fraud, they’re quite open about it:
Each time someone visits a Web-Sites within our network of sites, he/she triggers a series of robots. For each click we receive a micropaiment from Google.
They also advertise letters from Google about “decoy” accounts which have been found and shut-down.
I guess I just don’t really get what the whole point of this is. Yeah money is all one big con. Yeah it’s easy to beat the system when you break the rules that other people live by. But so what? I could run across the street with a gun and kill my neighbor and squat in his house and call it an art project. But where does that leave me? I guess I’m getting to the point in my life where I think it’s more interesting to actually play within the rules of the game and be successful that way. (Well, some of the rules, anyway.) It’s more of a challenge, and it’s more of a triumph when you build something from the ground up that actually enriches people’s lives, rather than just siphons money off into some Swiss bank account. Call me crazy, but that’s what I think art is supposed to be about. That’s not exactly what they taught me in art school, but that’s what my heart taught me. And that’s better than a hundred thousand “critiques of Google’s growing monopoly of information.”
January 18th, 2006 at 2:43 am
I wasn’t aware that Google was trying to monopolize information. They seem to be in the business of cataloging it and making it more readily available. Also, their advertisements, though still irritating insofar as they are advertisements, seem to be an acceptable compromise between invasive animated and popup ads, and no ads at all. As far as corporations go, Google seems to be pretty benign. Maybe instead of buying Google shares with that money, they should be buying up the shares of a genuinely evil corporation–say, Lockheed Martin–and trying to bring them down. Now THAT would enrich people’s lives.
January 18th, 2006 at 3:14 am
That’s a damn fine point! I’d also like to point out that Google ads - whatever you think of them - are helping me get closer to making a living as a writer without having to publish through anybody else or change around what and how I say things to suit somebody else’s editorial vision. While there are definitely things they could do better, as a whole, I think they’re enabling tons of people like me to carve out a niche for themselves on their own terms.
January 18th, 2006 at 4:03 am
yeah Google is going to help spawn a whole new generation of fag wannabee cult leaders, wannabee artists, wannabee writers, who feel powerful in their own tiny little worlds, censoring people on their fake blog sites. I guess that’s why losers won’t ever get published, because the whole point of being published is that your work is good and the writer is confident enough to withstand genuine criticism. And google is for rejects, I use yahoo. Lockheed martin, evil? lol I think the word “google” should be outlawed and people decapitated for using that word so liberally.
January 18th, 2006 at 10:34 am
yeah, I totally agree, dakota. why do they keep censoring you? this tim boucher really is exercising monumental control over your life, it’s astounding! and shocking. and just plain unfair. Jerkus!
I think we can both agree that you could use some relaxation time–it eats up so much energy to be pissed off at injustice all the time. Just relax. Like by coming over and watching Donnie Darko with me. I never heard back from you, so I can only assume you felt awkward about having to bring snacks. And I realized that it would sort of make me an ungracious host to ask you to do that. I mean, hospitality, right?–Anyway, I took care of it. There’s plenty of Yoohoo and Red Vine at my place now. So you shouldn’t feel too faggy or wannabee-ee (buzz buzz, right?). And if Donnie Darko is the deal breaker, I totally have an intimidating collection of DVDs. Everything from Full Metal Jacket to Cabin Boy. So I’m just gonna keep waiting by the computer. I’m on chapter three of Left Behind, by the way. Rayford Steele is so on it. I mean, some other folks in the book think folks are disappearing because of aliens, but he knows what the real deal is, unlike those wannabee faggy mcfag-fags!
Okay, I’m still waiting. See you soon!
Yoohoo and Yahoo Up! Google and Boucher down! Lets hold hands?
January 18th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Ahhhhh, i think thats a lovely offer north dakota and what an irony. I was only saying to dakota last week that he was here for a reason and fate has written it in the stars and sailed him along his stormy river to youre tranquil shore, lovely. Maybe the constant barricking was worth it after all tim, what price love…
January 18th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Dakota is at least sociologically interesting.
He is an example of the archonic forces working against gnosis??
You’ve got to feel for his plight.
However, if anyone like Dakota ever had the balls to address people in this way in person, he’d be humbled and wary from all the “fags” beating the crap out of him.
I don’t think it would match up to his little computer room sitting idea of a wussy fag.
I guess he probably doesn’t say and act this way to people in real non-anonymous life, or he likely wouldn’t be posting today. Tim, on the other hand, I am sure is the same guy in person. In this arena, it is Dakota who is feeling powerful in a tiny little world I suppose. I guess the best thing for J.R. is to let him post so he doesn’t keep crying about “censorship”, but ignore him completely. Or start a whole section on him, make him the cut rate internet blog room “Hollywood thuperthtar” he so wishes to be.
January 19th, 2006 at 6:16 am
I’d say art exists to expand people’s horizons… apart from just being beautiful. It’s the creative unconscious of the hive brain, finding patterns and creating them at the same time. That’s not to say that you can’t criticize and disagree with it as some seem to have started to think since the start of postmodernity. Anyway personally I think Google Will Eat Itself is actually quite an interesting attempt to illuminate how the internet has enabled regenerating formulas and memes to quickly be created and perpetuate themselves… For whatever purpose.
January 19th, 2006 at 6:21 am
Although when you think about it most memes aren’t really self-perpetuating; they’re not supposed to be. The internet would collapse without humans as someone wrote recently…
January 20th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
“Call me crazy, but that’s what I think art is supposed to be about. That’s not exactly what they taught me in art school, but that’s what my heart taught me.”—right the fuck on!