Tip of the Day: Buy a book from a bookstore. And go see Meg Cabot! She's touring right now for the next month.
Maybe I'm feeling a little sensitive because my favorite coffee shop just closed (yes, the one I had my first launch party at. Sigh.) Or because the really cool tea shop my bookstore friends and I liked to go to just closed too. Or maybe I'm still just aggravated that my Borders is gone. But this Kindle commercial really pissed me off.
Yes, I get it. They need to sell their product. But don't bash bookstores and make people feel like a loser for going to one. To me this commercial sounded like:
Girl: Yay, I'm going to the bookstore to get a book I really want!
Boy: Why Lucy Loser? If you weren't such a losey lose loser you'd download books like me in 60 seconds (note, the whole commercial was only 31 seconds. You didn't download that fast.)
Girl: Oh wow, I don't want to be a loser. Forget how much fun it is to walk in a bookstore, see all the books, browse, and hold one in my hand. Guess I'll just stand here with you and download stuff.
Blech.
I'm not against Kindle or ereaders or anything, don't get me wrong. I just don't see why they had to put out a commercial where they try to make someone appear stupid, or not in the know, not cool or what have you, because she wants to go to the bookstore. Sure, it's easy to download books. There's an easier way to do everything. Why walk to the park with the kids when I can drive them? Why cook them dinner when I can microwave something in two minutes? I guess walking and cooking is for losers too.
What do you guys think?
Kristina, Miss Author in Action
Ugh. I hadn't seen that before. Bookstores rock. What an irritating commercial.
ReplyDeleteNot much of an ebook fan myself and after all the woes my husband has had with his ereader (not a Kindle) lately, which he initially quite liked, I'm even less sold on the idea.
"I guess walking and cooking is for losers too."
Probably! In our lame-ass instant gratification culture anything that takes more than half a second or involves more effort than touching a screen seems to be considered unhip in certain circles. I know I sound cranky, but I'm tird of a society that seems to fawn over technology just for the sake of it.
That aside, it doesn't make any sense to create a commercial that's trying to sell books but knocking places that sells them as uncool. If books are cool by extension why wouldn't the places that sell them be? Either that or maybe books aren't so cool after all?
Either way peer pressure tactics wouldn't make me want to buy a Kindle, they'd probably make me less likely to buy one for insulting my intelligence.
Amazon is heavily invested in you not going to bookstores. And yes, it's a boon to people like my mother who live in microtowns where you have to drive 45 minutes to find the closest bookstore, the world's tiniest Barnes and Noble.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't tell you how much I agree with your blog. You know what else would be easier? If I didn't check my kids' homework. Just let the teachers deal with their ignorance. Or let them wander the streets, that's what police are for. Bored? They can watch TV, that's hella faster than 60 seconds for a Kindle download!
I just finished reading Proofiness, the Dark Side of Math (five star recommendation from me) and it talked about how commercial need numbers. 60 seconds! Lashes 20 times more intense! Why are these good things? Who knows, just BUY!
Ugh! I'm with you! I miss my book store...and my café...
ReplyDeleteThey had better be careful about making books "uncool." Can we say "shoot yourself in the foot?"
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ReplyDeleteBlegh! How awful. I live in fear that one day, in the not too distant future, there will be no hard, tangible books available to those who refuse to purchase ereaders. That's a much scarier premise to me than most dystopian novels have come up with.
ReplyDelete(sorry double post)
As I deal daily with technology issues--threats of PIN skimming and hackers stealing info, batteries that need recharging or die altogether, screens that freeze/lock up, devices that reboot for no apparent reason, error messages, the Twitter fail-whale, constantly changing privacy policies and terms of service, passwords, and the constant need to keep upgrading every darn piece of software and hardware--
ReplyDeletethe more I appreciate my paper books.
I'm not anti-e-reader; I know they're here to stay, and I imagine I'll have to get one sometime. But they're not magic.