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South Park's Season Premier Sets Off Everyone's Amazon Echo (maxim.com)
SonicSpike writes: It's hard to believe that Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn't know exactly what they were doing with Wednesday night's season premiere of South Park. This episode marked the beginning of the show's 21st season and as usual, South Park took on current issues like tiki torch-wielding white supremacists and... home digital assistants. The latter meant lots of gags in which Cartman and other characters addressed Amazon Echo's Alexa and Google Home as well. And that ended up being a problem for viewers who own those devices. (Editor's note: example 1, 2) South Park writers absolutely knew their lines would do this and probably had a hilarious time coming up with funny commands for the home assistants.
Ah yes.... name-calling. The classic resort of a person who doesn't actually have any real argument.
Perhaps you don't remember that Burger King got in a whole mess of trouble just last Spring when they did something along the same lines... hijacking people's voice-activated home devices in pretty much the exact same way.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You know, I always try to adopt a neutral, nonjudgmental attitude toward people adopting new technology, either positive or negative. Buying some piece of tech doesn't make someone cool; but on the flip side I always remind myself that it's not my place to judge how they spend their money.
Yet somehow, when it comes to these things, I just can't manage it. If someone tells me he's bought one of these things, and the next words out of his mouth aren't "So I can take it apart and hack it," I immediately think this person must be an idiot.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They also received one heck of a lot of negative backlash about it, including a reprimand from Google.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'