Now, I don’t know if this is really targeted advertising, but the ads on amazon.com do tend to shadow whatever it is I have purchased or I have searched for, for example Basic Flight Physiology, given my recent obsession with space medicine.

But then, the second ad on my home page is for the Anna Kournikova Molded Multiway Sports Bra. First off, I was shocked (in a ha-ha funny way) that the tagline for this ad is “Because the only thing that should bounce is the ball.” Besides mixing borderline transgendered metaphors (boobs? balls?!), it made me ponder just exactly the kind of in-roads Fox TV has made in our culture. It is now perfectly OK to say things like “ass” and “piss” in cartoons, much less prime time. You can refer to the penis as a “wiener.” You can make jokes about clitorises (hmmm, is this Latin? Should it be clitores?)

But back to the point. I was secondly insulted. What is Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com trying to tell me? That I need a bra? That I’m a fucking fat ass with (to steal a phrase from Chuck Palahniuk) “bitch tits”? That I’m a raging alcoholic with severe cirrhosis to the point that I have gynecomastia? Bastards!! (OK, OK, maybe I should cut down on the cimetidine. And the Stoli martinis. Damn. Now I’m really self-conscious.)

At least amazon.com doesn’t sell dildoes. (Not “your dildo.” “A dildo.” Anyway. That’s from “Fight Club”^1,2

Fight Club (1999) • IMDb

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