On Monday, there was a tweet I couldn’t ignore.
The result, shown above, is both an act of protest (fsociety) and of acquiescence (read on).
My Twitter modality is largely unidirectional. I don’t expect responses to my actions. I don’t expect, and very rarely stumble into sustained dialog as a result of an RT or dashed-off reply.
Despite a more than passing resemblance between E Corp and NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, when @whatismrrobot reached out, I did the unthinkable and provided a street address. Yes — PII and all that. And over a weakly authenticated channel. No NDA. No opt-in. No privacy disclosure.
A Mr. Robot surrogate of some sort had somehow reached out through that noisy social network chatter. I lowered my guard, recalled recent hand-wringing over Season 3 ratings, responded with a guarded assent.
A day later FedEx announced a shipment from Los Angeles (yes, not a suburb), from Department “Mr Robot.” The rest is . . . well, very, very minor history. But memorable, in a Don Draper sort of way. A show known for its digital dystopia and destruction, decoy and dissolution did the unthinkable. It reached out and touched me.
Answer? Encrypted
TV is ordinarily a cold medium. If only Marshall McLuhan were around to offer a better explanation. But no. The API is undiscoverable. The answer, if there is one, is probably encrypted.
But please don’t delete me while I check anyway.
