South Park Triggered a Whole Bunch of Alexas on Last Night's Episode
Ready to feel old? South Park has been offending everyone on the left, right and center for over 20 years at this point. From their little outpost in that snowy mountain town in Colorado, the characters of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's critically-acclaimed cartoon series have let few social trends go un-shat upon--literally, they love poop on that show. However, last season, the writers were caught off guard by the election of President Donald Trump, a move that found them needing to re-write their season finale day of. Not the best way to make a television show. It was, in actuality, one of the first big failures in the show's 20-year run.
The show's creators spent the coming months reflecting on the previous season and changes that they would make going forward, including saying that they were staying out of the Trump game this season. So you could excuse them for looking for a new audience, human or otherwise.
On last night's season premiere of South Park, while the main story centered on the rise of white nationalism, everybody's favorite 5th grader, Cartman, got his hands a slew of new digitial assistants, particularly the Alex-enabled Amazon Echo. However, while Alexa is great for ordering a new pair of underwear or telling you the weather, it's not great at discerning the voices on television from those at home.
During the episode, viewers complained that Cartman's repeated interaction with Alexa triggered their Alexas. Thus, throughout the night, people on Twitter were treated to a series of videos, pictures and testimonials of home assistants responding the Eric Cartman and even adding things like "Titty Chips" to their Amazon shopping list. At certain point, Cartman's commands to Alexa included other activation triggers for Siri-enabled devices and Google Homes. Sounds like a nightmare.
My Alexa put titty chips on my shopping list and said some pretty colorful things. Haven't laughed that hard on a while. #tittychips pic.twitter.com/IumPMXZK0I
— Tom Corson (@DynastyInfidel) September 14, 2017
Who else’s Alexa’s keep going off every time Cartman says something on the Alexa during this South Park episode 😂 #SouthPark21 pic.twitter.com/strwnTST23
— Kenny Eaton (@Kenny_623) September 14, 2017
Watching the new @SouthPark episode & my Alexa went off 😂😂😂 #SouthPark21 pic.twitter.com/0ehBuAxVpp
— Jessica Plunkett (@Jesserican) September 14, 2017
This isn't first time people speaking talking to Alexa on television affected those at home. Way back in December 2015, Vice reported that Echoes at home were responding to commercials for the product, specifically ones that say, "Alexa play my holiday playlist."
Commercial for @AmazonEcho just activated our own Echo. pic.twitter.com/F2w4U1lUJi
— David Masad (@badnetworker) December 4, 2015
Apparently Amazon's customer service is also annoyed that their Echos play Christmas music at request of commercial pic.twitter.com/dyGIUmIM7G
— Danielle Alberti (@DanielleAlberti) December 4, 2015
Does this mark a new era in the show, in which the writers will attempt to engage the digital assistants that so many have ignored. Are Alexas aged 18-34 the prime South Park demographic? What are Titty Chips? We'll just have to watch this season and find out.
Share Pin
Lexicanium Coeus
I remember when people shouted XBOX SHUT DOWN in multiplayer.
james_w
paying a company to have a device in your house constantly recording sound and storing that data….what a time to be alive
DAEGON1
I had never even heard of this device.
King Lad
"Hey, should we get rid of Cartman? He's being a dick and he gets away with it most of the time"
"No man, let's kill Kenny"
Captain Negative
Do you think that was actually the purpose of the episode?
He Who Has Not Been Named
The season premiere was last night? DAMN IT!
Walrus the Tree
Personally, I've never felt the need to use voice recognition for anything on any of my devices. I'm kind of a shy, quiet person, so that might be a factor. Now that I think about it, I could actually go for days without saying anything, provided those days are my generic routine. That thought actually terrified me for a second. I didn't realize it because 90% of the things I watch or do on the internet (which I give a lot of my time to) kind of make me feel like I'm having a casual conversation.
But, yeah, Alexa and all that. I just prefer to type. There's literally nothing Alexa can do that my phone can't do. And the original computer voice recognition celebrity, Siri, does half of what Alexa does, too, which makes it even worse.
Chewybunny
A poignant episode, highlighting the reality that so many of the demographics which fuel the alt-Right and Trump support stems from American workers that are getting removed from the labor pool because they cannot keep up with the rapidly changing realities of our economy. Interestingly SP got it right: the main factor is technology that has been taking away jobs, but a myriad of other factors: immigration, outsourcing, shrinking local markets, trigger real and sincere anger. Shouts of "You will not replace us" although by the alt-Right used to target immigration, in reality should be targeting technology. The other subtext of the episode, which I thought is great, is the idea that you can find "new" jobs for these economically abandoned people but the reality is, their skill levels are hopelessly useless in tackling the new economy.
In an era where the majority of the commentary coming out of network news regarding Trump voters, supporters, the alt-Right, etc, I find it pretty amazing that SP at least tackles the crux of the issues being economic anxiety, and how that anxiety is also leading people into developing legitimate hatred for anything/anyone perceived to push this anxiety on them.
Penultimate Keyboard Cat
Remember that episode where they stuff food up their butt and poop out of their mouth
lol
ClubFlourish
I still dont understand the point of these home assistants. What do they really assist you with that is that hard to accomplish on your own?
Chewybunny
It's not about whether or not you can accomplish it on your own. It is about making a lot of small every-day things easier to manage. For example, while I clean my house I like to listen to music. It's far easier to just say "Alexa, turn on some 80s underground" than to have to stop what I am doing, go to the device that is playing my music and manually switch it. Simoteneously, if I am going through cleaning my fridge and realize hey, I need to buy more eggs, I quickly tell Alexa, rather than have to stop, look for some sort of a notebook and write it down. Or find my phone, open the app, and say it. I usually poo-poo a lot of these gimmicky techs, but I genuinely love my Alexa.
BraveSirJimOfLawl
Why on God's beautiful blue marble of an Earth would you ever allow a microphone that is always on and permanently connected to the internet with access to a store and your credit card information into your home, and why the fuck would you pay $180 for it?
SonicLover
…because not all of us are tinfoil-wearing paranoiacs who think that anything that requires a single digit of private information is a front to steal that information from us?
Chewybunny
Because people are willing to give trust to Amazon, Google, and such with their most intimate information, in exchange for greater convenience in life.
| || || |_
Because people are cargo-culting idiots that NEED to have whatever the Joneses down the street have. If they don't have that new iPhone with 2 less features and a $200 higher price tag than last year's model, then people might think that they're poor!
view the rest of this conversation →