Antisocial Marketing

I saw an ad on the subway this morning: “Your friends are tired of helping you move. Try [some service whose name I forgot] instead”. This ad reminded me of a lot of other marketing campaigns that are abstractly similar, e.g. “Your friends are sick of hearing about your relationship problems. Try [AI therapy app] instead”.

Even if these services are genuinely useful, the marketing pitch is centered on removing one more social interaction from your life. As if that’s something we want to be getting rid of. The intriguing thing is, these campaigns work. It seems like people are generally in favor of abandoning human connections for robots and technology. And we wonder why we’re so lonely…