Meta is being sued by California and other states for its social media being addictive and harmful to kids, as if social media is the only addictive and harmful aspect of modern life in America.
Don’t get me wrong. I hope that there’s a special place in purgatory for Mark Zuckerberg, whose founding business model was based on eavesdropping on private internet activity and monetizing the information, just like Google. But if everything that is addictive and harmful were sued out of existence, the economy would collapse.
If you think that’s hyperbole, you don’t watch TV shows, commercials, or the effluent that comes out of Hollywood and the pop culture.
You also don’t drive around Tucson and similar cities.
To that point, I was on the phone recently with my son as he was driving to work in Tucson. He exclaimed, “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” It was a sign at a marijuana dispensary advertising a back-to-school sale for teachers and students.
Think of the possibilities: back-to-school sales for liquor, cigarettes, strip clubs, pornography, tattoo parlors, hookah shops, and on-line and casino gambling.
Speaking of gambling, the football stadium at the University of Arizona in Tucson is named after a casino. Isn’t gambling addictive and harmful?
Who should be sued, the university or the Indian community that owns the casino?
There’s also a joint called the Tobacco Barn on a reservation. It sells tobacco products for less because they’re free of certain taxes. It doesn’t sell to kids, but parents who buy tobacco products are terrible role models. The same for parents who are constantly on their cellphone and social media.
Should the parents be sued?
Instead of driving around to see signs of harm and addiction, you can stay home and watch TV, which is a medium that is just as harmful and addictive as social media.
Commercials for unhealthy food are ubiquitous, and so are cooking shows and cooking contests—in a nation where over 20 percent of children are obese and where adults have staggering rates of diabetes and heart disease.
I used to work for a food conglomerate and would overhear the marketing whizzes talk about the importance of processed food having the right “mouth feel” to get kids to eat more.
A certain hamburger chain with an Irish-sounding name has perfected mouth feel. Cooked on a grill smeared with used crankcase oil, its hamburgers coat the tongue with a peculiar taste—a taste that produces a craving for a soda and an ice cream to wash it away.
“Ice cream” is a misnomer. The substance resembles ice cream but is something more akin to whipped, sweetened and frozen latex paint.
My wife and I pick up litter every day in the Tucson heat and continue to be amazed that when we find a cup of the substance thrown on the roadside, it doesn’t melt, and insects and animals won’t touch it.
Incidentally, the most foul-smelling food rotting on the roadside is leftover Chinese takeout. Insects and animals won’t touch it, either, even with chopsticks.
For sure, kids won’t learn good manners and modesty from TV.
Guys whose mothers never told them not to chew with their mouth open are often featured in food commercials. Ravenous lions devouring a gazelle have better manners. Somehow, the dudes can shove a 4-inch-thick hamburger in their mouth, as grease and cheese dribble down their chin or gets stuck in their beard if they’re hirsute. It would be less disgusting if they gnawed on a gazelle leg.
Meanwhile, hundreds of PhD sociologists are pondering why women are reluctant to marry.
Pizzas are advertised that have more grease on them than an auto mechanic’s overalls. The rubbery cheese plastered on top has the consistency of bathtub caulk but is more fattening and artery-clogging.
That’s apparently not greasy and fatty enough. Some pizzas come with a mayo-like dunking sauce, made of who knows what. Chances are, the main ingredients are hydrogenated and emulsified soybean oil, xanthan gum, MSG, phosphoric acid, polysorbate 80, and the chemicals BHA and BHT.
Bathtub caulk would be less addictive and harmful.
Fearful of being accused of body shaming, I don’t want to say that a steady diet of such stuff makes Americans plump. I will say, however, that it makes them immodest.
Women who would look better fully dressed are seen half-naked in commercials, sometimes spraying some sort of stuff resembling perfumed Pam cooking oil on their private areas. Maybe it’s intended to keep men away.
Men are getting even by spraying their lower parts with something that resembles insect repellant.
Speaking of immodesty, there is a TV series about naked men and women trying to survive in the wilderness. It’s guaranteed to make the viewer celibate.
No wonder the birth rate is plummeting.
Many women emulate the hooker look of celebrities, influencers and gold diggers. They glue fake eyelashes the size of broom bristles to their eyelids; they puff up their lips with Botox; they spray stucco-like make-up on their face; they push their rock-hard, silicone-filled cleavage up to their chin; and they wear tight-fitting clothes that reveal every crevasse, dimple and Brazilian butt-lift.
Their role model is Lauren Sanchez Bezos, the wife of billionaire Jeff Bezos. Maybe their hope is to land a billionaire with a shaved head who has the insecurities and boob fantasies of a teenager.
Many men have adopted a look that is a combination gigolo, gangbanger, stoner, and slob. They look as if they use a hedge trimmer to cut their hair and a weed-whacker to trim their beard. And, judging by the many commercials for the little blue pill, American men have trouble standing at attention, if you know what I mean. Maybe they’ve consumed too much polysorbate 80.
Men and women do share a common fashion fad: tattoos. The body “art” is more widespread here in Tucson than even graffiti, but unlike graffiti, it is nearly impossible to remove.
My problem with tattoos is that I don’t know the proper tattoo etiquette. Am I supposed to stare at the indecipherable “artwork” and insincerely compliment the wearer, or am I supposed to look away? If the former, I probably shouldn’t say what’s on my mind, such as: I can’t identify the face on your calf. Is that your girlfriend or your pet schnauzer?
Tattoos are certainly addictive, judging by the fact that they started decades ago as a small anchor or heart on a bicep, then grew into sleeve tattoos, and then spread like leprosy down legs and up necks and who knows where else. By the way, what exactly is in tattoo ink?
Buying stuff on credit is certainly addictive and harmful, especially big stuff like $60,000 Dodge Ram pickups with a hemi V-8 engine that guzzles four-dollars-a-gallon gas, driven by guys who have consumed too much polysorbate 80. The many commercials for loans and credit cards feed the addiction.
Kids are exposed to many other harmful aspects of modern life in America, but let’s conclude with the most harmful one: the addiction of adults to the government’s deficit spending. Kids will inherit the resulting national debt of $40 trillion.
Who can they sue?
Mr. Cantoni is an author, activist and retired business executive. Contact: [email protected].
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