Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we emulate the old British talk/game show Room 101 by nominating our pet hates and consigning those hates to oblivion in Room 101, the ultimate destination for all rubbish things. Assuming, that is, that our explanations convince our colleagues, which is not as easy as one might think.
[00:02:20] Jeremy: reality TV
[00:08:05] Stuart: Pepe the frog
[00:15:45] Jono: overly cartoony company mascots
[00:24:20] Jeremy: Facebook
[00:35:30] Stuart: peppers
[00:40:30] Jono: new features that slow down devices, um, because they prioritise new features over the operational modality of a device
Facebook, yes. I don’t know what advertising was like in the UK, but local stations in the United States spent decades running “is your shampoo trying to kill you? Film at 11” promotions for the nightly news, so it has never been a secret that fear (and hatred) are the easiest routes to engagement; cliffhanger endings before the commercial break in fiction fit here, too. Plus, Zuckerberg’s original vision for the site was to compare women’s appearances without their consent, so the benefit of the doubt doesn’t necessarily apply…
Cats, no. They’re just not tame, so they’re more roommates than pets. Sometimes they want to hang out, sometimes they’d rather ignore you in favor of their incomprehensible hobbies. Not being able to bribe them into friendliness is a feature, not a bug. As for litter boxes, the counter-argument is toilets, a special box where people go to relieve themselves and cover up the evidence for someone else to deal with; I’ve also known toilet-trained cats (yes, they flushed). “Here’s a video of a cat doing something” videos can definitely go, though.
My own recent pet peeve has been ad campaigns that seem opposed to the company or customer. For example, at least in the United States, Progressive Insurance has two ongoing ad campaigns. One boils down to “our company employs all sorts of horrible people,” and the other comes down to “customers need therapy after dealing with us.” They’re not the only company, but the fact that they’re an insurance company makes them an easy target, since their services are mostly mandated by law, so the space is just about big companies jockeying for monopoly position…
