Early Saturday evening shortly after the New Year’s. A cinema theatre on the outskirts of the city and in the center of shopping Mecca. It’s strangely crowded. Perhaps some have not yet noticed that Christmas is over, and others are already hunting post-New Year’s sales. The third exploit the last peaceful days of New Year holidays. “Go see this movie, you’ll have a lot of fun,” a member of the aforementioned network told me. At this time, I have to point out that I am not a member, I have not registered yet and wasn’t even invited. But I am a member of the family network, and these two sets happen to overlap, so sometimes, there is some spillover of information from one of a more or less closed networks to another one. Anyway, I fought my way through the lines of those waiting for popcorn and coke, with a ticket in my hand, found the hall/cinema, the tired seat at the edge of the row, and I was all set to party.

Five more minutes. Yawn. A look at my phone. I move my legs for two elderly guests to pass by my seat. And two more. When the next four make me move, I think that I might have dropped in at some sixtieth anniversary high school reunion. But this must have been a very big class, because they also occupied a row behind me and also a couple of rows in front of me. And almost all of them are looking at least an era older. So I sit there among them and I notice I have the least gray hair on my head, which does not happen very often. Especially not in this theater. I look around, startled, and I find some other younger visitors who are also amazed. Well, at least I’m not the only one. But as it seems, we wandered into another world, uninvited guests at the feast of another generation.

Then the movie, intended for some other social network begins. A movie? Can’t say much about it, as I did not quite identify with it. Again, I felt like I was on the wrong plane. Everyone is flying to hot Hawaii, and I was meant to be on my way to freezing Reykjavik. Everyone in the room is having fun, and I’m merely smiling sourly. “Ha, this one is really good!”, “Oh, I haven’t had this much laughter for ages!”, and similar comments fly around from the nearby seats. And their laughter is sincere and loud. Damn, that happens if you are listening to advice and don’t check what you were going to see.

And then I ask myself, how is it possible that almost everyone here is from the same “class”, only a few of us unfortunates had fallen from the moon? How did they know that this is the movie for them? Where did they hear about it? And I realize that I need to turn the focus to the phenomenon that is the real star of the evening. To the social network, one that beats those more familiar, digital, Facebook-ish and similar on every front. Because this one is infinitely more efficient. Almost mysteriously imperceptible, yet ubiquitous.

The Network of Legends

This network is immune to modern technologies. The technologies, underpinning the success of most contemporary social networks as a technology allowing unlimited, fast, effective communication. Communication is not only the condition, but also the reason for the existence of networks. But this network has developed such a sophisticated and diversified modes of communication that even if North Korea could crash complete Internet, their network wouldn’t even notice. An empty battery in the phone and operator’s antenna out of reach? No problem. Forgotten password for the computer? Who cares? Everything is delivered in a waiting line at the bank. At the gym. On Sundays after Mass. At the local patisserie while eating the sweetest cakes. On the street. Through the window. Even via mail (and not e-mail). At the “one-for-the-road” beer after fitness. In the waiting room for an orthopedic. At the anniversary. Even on the phone which has the wire tied to the apartment so you can’t take it with you.

And the information spread swiftly, so rapidly that modern technology could not follow this speed anyway. It’s effective. Everything is spread and known. Everything. The solution of the Saturday paper prize crossword? No problem. Where can you get the cheapest apples? In which restaurant was the waiter replaced and the new one is simply rude? How did that man earn money for such a house? Two for the price of one blouse? The movie you should not miss? What are the new “must not eat” foods that scientists have discovered can hurt your health? Who died? Who is divorced, who is getting married? How was the trip? Everything. And all of it fast, efficient. Information darting back and forth, expanding, enriching, coloring, and working. Communications platform that beats any other and is basically indestructible.

But this is only one advantage. There’s more though. For example, this network does not require registration and entering of tons of personal information. There are no monthly or annual fees. No membership cards. No compulsory attendance at meetings. No participation at the general assemblies and exercising the function of club treasurer. Nothing. Nada. It’s like a Swiss watch, ticking without any legal, formal, marital, familiar/kinship rules, and other clutter. It has no Code of Honor, nor a president, nor an election. Not even a rich, genius owner in a gray T-shirt.

But it has members. Many of them, lots of members, and more and more every day. Yes, indeed even less every day, but still all over, the inflow is greater than the decline. And what members they are! Not only are they extremely informed, but they are also the most experienced around. They have already seen it all, experienced everything. They know everything. And tell each other everything. They have been everywhere, heck, they are everywhere. All around the world, their members are in the every pore of the society, infinitely effectively. They know all about modern technologies (i.e., enough to know how to avoid them), about doctors, medicines, discounts and other benefits, sweepstakes, employment, dismissals, holes in the laws, and much more. They have their unique image, silver hair and distinctive fashion and accessories. They live more cheaply because they make the most of all possible discounts. Moreover, they are deservingly living mainly on the social account of which they formerly held together (meaning they get pensions from the State?). They are the legends, some figuratively, many of them even literally.

And they wait. Patiently wait and wait until we join them. Me. And you. All of us, if we only live long enough. Time will bring everyone around and a silent invitation is all we get. And when that day comes, it won’t do any good if we shout like Groucho Marx that we don’t want to belong to the club that wants us as a member. All of us, even the biggest skeptics, we will, and you will, get into this social network, whether we want to or not, passive or active. Forever.

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I just want to argue the fact that I now have to pay to watch a video on national television Internet site by watching a 15-seconds commercial package of suffering. At least I can turn off the volume… So, all this advertising, worse, promotional cacophony, as it approaches the climax, throws me into the state of self-reflecting analysis of the reasons, causes, consequences, and drivers of the business I am, truth be told, also a part of, inevitably.

The fact seems to be that almost no one really likes advertising. “Almost”, in this case, means I have to exclude all of us who actually do like it, because it can be something fun, creative, and very emotional. And all of those who make a good living because of advertising. And all the media who need it like a desert needs water. And all those and others… So, does it mean that, in fact, many people love it? Well, not quite. The real emotional-erotic feelings of humanity toward advertising range from platonic-ambivalent-ignorant to extremely repulsive. 5-year-olds who can repeat every latest TV ad they saw in the commercial break are excluded here. Their brains are still very much like Sponge Bob, and they still can’t tell what’s really important or what’s just useless, but they will learn soon enough. Many others, on the other hand, would give couple of fingers to get rid of it, but you can’t.

Advertising has grown a beard so long and roots so wide that I won’t even dare to try to find its origins, but if not before, it was well alive at the ages of goods trading when some miserable sheep keeper, full of milk and sweaty under hundred layers of wool, which he had pulled over his head, was able to cleverly rename that same wool into a merino and angora and cashmere wool (with capital first letters) and what-not, so he could exchange it for a few pounds of carrots, apples, a prehistoric version of PlayStation, and a pint of milk for a home-made beer, which effectively erased his memory of where he gets home to his better half while the beer was still fresh enough. Must have had a marvelous brainstorm in his synapses to have figured out the integrated marketing strategy, where to hit the target group and which media to use. Later this undoubtedly became a real hobby to many, until in the twentieth century, it finally became quite serious, multi-billion and world spinning business.

Then came the golden fifties and sixties, Beetles and lemons, real Mad Men, colors, festivals, media, and it all crashed in the previously described unbearable whistling and buzzing and screaming and glaring, and there was soon too much of everything. Unfortunately, the radio did not destroy the print, television did not destroy the radio, the Internet didn’t destroy the TV, everything is just accumulating and multiplying. And then we felt that there will be a big bang, when all three thousand or how many advertising messages hit us every day, compacted in an extraordinary concentrate, would suddenly burst into the width of the universe, flow far away from us, and suddenly leave the liberating silence all around us.

We grew used to overlooking. Watching beyond. Closing our eyes. Ignoring it. Not seeing, not hearing, not feeling it. Not registering. We are no longer a wall, we are more like the horizon over which the infinite and continuous murmur of the sea in the distance spreads. A murmur that never mutes, but we aren’t listening any more. Once we used the advertising block to flee to the bathroom just to be hit by another ad from the magazine there, but now we can stare at the TV, but we don’t see anything. Perhaps the future will put this almost revolutionary leap in the evolution of mankind onto some exceedingly eminent pedestal, and today, we still don’t quite understand it.

But there is something else we don’t understand. That same advertising (if all this mess of messages that occupy a myriad of forms is pumped into one word for a simplification) moved from a violent, omnipresent, and completely visible at the same time into almost imperceptible and hidden somewhere behind. If it has previously been mostly noticeable (because it must be by definition), it’s now mainly a must, omnipresent and omnipotent. If it was previously only the tip of the iceberg, it’s now everything that is hidden under the sea. Previously, it was the horn of the car, now it’s the engine. Advertising has perhaps imperceptibly, yet effectively, began to run the world.

Am I exaggerating? Absolutely. A bit of this, however, is true. Think about just how much time you spend on the Internet (in one form or another). How many hours? Every day? Okay, you have a number in front of you? And now think of the Internet and the one-two-three pages you frequently visit. Did you just mention Facebook? What about Google? Only two of the biggest. All, or almost all, of what they give us, especially Google, which seems to be more altruistic and omnipotent than the good man who visits us in December, is apparently free of charge. Search engines. Mail. Photo services, chat rooms, walls, apps, maps, games, translators, and much more. As if somewhere far away, someone is sitting at a giant table and pushing buttons for the gifts that are being sent to us, gift after gift. But “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone has to pay for all of that. And that someone is advertising. That someone is millions of businesses that pay for ads, information, links, contacts, databases, analytics, and targeting, and thus enable Google and Facebook and all the others to keep giving us everything that we wish and need, and which we can’t live without anymore. That someone is you who clicked with the mouse, typed “how to lose weight and a week without starving” (tip) into the search engine and watched and explored and visited… All I can say is: thank you.

Today, the entire world is one giant advertisement. And without advertising, it would have probably just stopped. All that we have left is a bit of ignorance, pretending that the unbearable noise really started to move away, or face it. But there is another way. We can try to be Elon Musks and create better, different, more advanced and friendlier machines that drive the world. At the end, the essence of all the advertising is a message, a piece of information that needs to find its way from the sender to the person to whom it is intended. Maybe next time, we can send it in a better, friendlier, and more efficient way. There are many ways, some of them are good. And we can always look for those that are better than the others.

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