Hey -- the world actually can get cheesier!

Just when you think the world can’t get any cheesier, it goes and surprises you.

Case in point: One of the major cell phone service providers in these parts, taking note of the fact that a lot of young people spend their days and nights walking around with these electronic appendages stuck in their ears; that’s when they’re not shooting questionable videos which they will then post on You Tube – you kids are going to be so ashamed in years to come when one of your own kids finds that old flick of you sitting on the potty and being filmed when you were 18 – or text messaging their friends or that predatory creep who is passing himself off as 19, when he is really 47.

So, OK, thought whizkids at this company (I hope none of the decision-makers actually have spawn of their own), if young people are doing all this salacious stuff on the Internet, why don’t we tap into this market? Why don’t we provide smut as part of our mobile-phone service? Really, I am not making this up. And they decided this would be a good thing. Aren’t you relieved to know that the corporate world is really caring about the well-being of your kids?

I say ‘kids’ because most people past a certain age – like me – see a cell phone as merely a telephone (hence something to be largely reviled). Anyhow, I don’t know how to do anything with mine other than to make or take a call, and I have no interest in doing anything else with it. I mean, nothing wrong with a little naughtiness in the right time or place, but not on my phone, for heaven’s sake. My mobile-phone, as I’ve stated before, mainly sits in my glove compartment for use if I have a highway emergency, or if I have to call home for some reason.

I’ll grant that I grew up in a different era. We got our libido-boosts from perusing the bra and panty ads in the Sear’s catalogue, or the very tame early Playboy mag, but I still know tackiness when I see it. In a world so replete with vulgarity of the lowest common denominator, do we need just a little more? Guess this particular company thinks so.

Now, the company in question (I’m not going to name them because they happen to be my service provider, and I don’t want to have my service cut off out of spite, as little as I use it, but I’ll give you a hint, their corporate name begins with a ‘T’) defends its decision as sound marketing. They deny that they are pandering or lowering the limbo-bar, but instead suggest (really) that in giving such a ‘pay’ service to wanking 15-year-olds they are keeping them from exploring the really evil stuff on the Internet, because they are only going to provide pictures of nudes, with no sexual interaction happening. Thin edge of the wedge, I say.

My point is – and I am no prude, but pretty broadminded about any shenanigans and frolics consenting adults want to get up to (I specify adults) – I find this indeed to be pandering of the lowest and most venal sort. It’s an attitude of, “they’re doing it anyway, so why don’t we cash in?”

Like I said, cheesy.