Ever get the feeling you’re trapped in a never ending marketing campaign?

I know I do, and news stories like this one don’t help matters. Not that anyone should really be surprised. It was only a matter of time before corporations stuck their fangs into the proverbial necks of social networking sites, draining them of their innocence and legitimacy. They’ve all but destroyed YouTube and Facebook; now they’ve got their sights set on Twitter.  Or perhaps it would more accurate to simply issue a blanket obituary for genuine human interaction on-line because in all likelihood, Twitter was probably created with the full knowledge of its advertising potential. Indeed, it is quite naïve to think that these mediums are being corrupted because that implies they existed in an unadulterated state at some point.

This is why I don’t have a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter account. Sure, there are plenty of folks who use these as tools to communicate their genuine thoughts and opinions to people they actually know and love. But it’s getting more and more difficult to determine what is real from what is sponsored content. In fact, let’s stop referring to these forums as social networking sites altogether and call them what they really are: ad space.

Now don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong with this per say. Companies need to get the word out in order to make money; that’s an integral part of how capitalism works. Like it or not, this is the economic system we live under, and that’s not going to change any time soon. The thing that irks me is not the presence of product placement or branding on-line, but the need to manipulate seemingly impressionable users. This insults the intelligence of consumers everywhere and plays upon basic psychological vulnerabilities. By paying people to follow their Twitter accounts or artificially inflating the number of times their songs have been played, advertisers are counting on the idea that you are either too dumb to catch on or apathetic to the point of not caring. It’s well established that celebrities get paid to tweet about stuff, but no one would be willing to shell out $10,000 for 140 characters if it didn’t yield results. Naturally, every time you tweet your location or post a picture of your new pair of jeans, you are essentially giving a businessfree publicity.

So maybe the better question is: are advertisers right about us?

All signs point to yes. Now it’s entirely possible that social networking sites may be passing trends like Pet Rocks and Pogs, but I think their appeal is deeper than that. Much has been written about Americans worshiping fame; tweeting your every thought in the hopes that someone, somewhere will want to read it sounds like an act of sheer desperation and insecurity, at least it does to me. Sociologist Emile Durkheim coined the term anomie to describe extreme alienation he observed in the modern era; he would undoubtedly have a field day with the social networking phenomenon.  Other researchers are exploring the political and privacy implications of social networking as so-calledvoluntary surveillance and their potential impact on democracy as well their capacity to instigate revolutions. Along those same lines, it seems fitting to delve into the willingness to become an unpaid billboard when there is no tangible benefit for doing so. Chances are we won’t like what we uncover, but at least we’ll gain insight into otherwise inexplicable behavior.