Since publishing my award-winning, “voice of a generation” teardowns of AI, I now receive notes at least once a fortnight from readers asking for my public comment on this or that announcement. Usually, I have nothing to say. Today, I do.
Below, dear readers, is an email forwarded me by a well-placed source (she asked specifically to be called this).
The email was sent to my source from the PR department at the publicly-traded company ZOOM ($ZM) inviting its customer base to, and this is a direct quote, “Celebrate AI Appreciation Day with Zoom AI Companion.”
Questions abound.
For one, what in the ever-loving fuck?
Secondly, what?
And before I forget, one more quick thing: pardon me for misreading but surely, dearest Shirley, this email could not actually be inviting me, a human being, to celebrate “AI Appreciation Day”???
Cracks knuckles, cracks neck knuckles (nuckles?), takes a deep breath, opens a bottle of water, takes a generous guzzle, DOES A SPIT TAKE, begins to type.
every day can’t be a holiday
It is easy to excuse this absolute fucking catastrophe as the inevitable conclusion of the plummeting standards that all holidays must meet in order to be listed on the calendar.
For example, today, July 18, is:
Insurance Nerd Day
National Caviar Day
Perfect Family Day (the heck?)
National Dapper Your Data Day
National Sour Candy Day
World Listening Day (?)
Like, what? I can see how some idiotic trade group lobby schmuckolas in the insurance, caviar, data, and sour candy industries decided to file for holidays, but who the hell is behind Perfect Family Day?
Actually that one is easy - some lil guy whose family sorta sucked decided he could fix everything by stomping down the stairs on July 18 and screaming “today is Perfect Family Day let’s all…voice cracks a little, looks down at the floor, kicks some invisible dirt…be a perfect family?”
I’ve spent the entirety of my Perfect Family Day searching for the origins of the holiday. Here’s what I’ve found:
It began in 1999 (likely by someone expecting the world to end when the clock struck Y2K who thought to themselves, ‘fuck it i’ll come up w weird holidays who cares’)
Besides AI-generated writeups on websites of credible institutions like National Today, Checkiday.com, and Holiday Calendar, there is nothing whatsoever online about the origins of the holiday
WAIT THAT’S IT. That’s how all this connects! The fucking AI is responsible for proliferating bullshit holidays and I’m supposed to…appreciate it?? Thanks, AI, for reminding me that my family isn’t perfect and that I’ll have to spend July 18 debasing myself trying to save my baby from being killed by my toddler who insists he’s ‘just playing’ by holding the baby’s head in his hands and shaking it like it’s National Maraca Day.
I could write a whole book on these holidays and frankly - with the right book deal (looking at just you Simon, that rat bastard Schuster can go fuck himself) - I will, but for now let’s focus up.
Appreciate this
Appreciation days are for teachers and other professions our society has decided not to compensate fairly. “Give the teachers a raise? No we’re not gonna give em a stinking raise, but you know what I’ll do? Give em a day of appreciation. NO they will not get the day off are you insane our kids futures are on the line.”
Look at all of these appreciation days on this one school’s calendar I found on Pinterest:
Notice the only group to get a whole month of appreciation? The School Board. Now if that ain’t tellin’ then my name ain’t Janet Yellin (delete this Alex for the love of god).
I looked it up and do you know who gets zero appreciation days? Executives at ZOOM ($ZM) that stand to benefit from replacing their workforce with shitty AI that does a worse job than humans ever could which itself, let’s not forget, is the point. The fact that the AI sucks is a feature not a ladybug - if the AI customer service sucks, people will be less likely to use it and Zoom ($ZM) will go up up up.
Other professions with zero appreciation days: stock brokers, CEOs, and lawyers.
Lawyers do, and this is real, have Love Your Lawyer Day (Nov 1), Love Litigating Lawyers Day (Aug 31) and International Be Kind To Lawyers Day (Apr 8). Wonder who musta come up with those lol.
Hold on
But wait this actually is very interesting. The only reason AI Celebration Day would be created and championed by Zoom ($ZM) is if the PR team at Zoom ($ZM) felt like AI needed a boost. A lil pick-me-up.
And the only reason AI would need a pick-me-up is if it was struggling. Ipso fuckin facto (big ups to the lawyers who made this possible), this is proof that AI is indeed bullshit and, what’s more, the AI itself knows it.
Imagine if the world started talking about how you were going to change everything because you were so good and then you show up and just sorta….stink? You’d lie, which the AI does very well, to try to cover, and when that didn’t work you’d fart around and start giving sarcastic-ass happy responses like “Thanks so much for that idea!”
Now the execs over at Zoom ($ZM) decided that rather than telling the public that, oh I don’t know, they were a wee bit overhyped on the whole AI thing, they’d just do the same thing the candy industry did for the piddling sour candy industry.
The whole thing makes me madder than I was on Anger Awareness Week (Dec 1 - 7). Also how do you even celebrate this day? Boot up ChatGPT and say thanks?? Ok fine:
If that isn’t a cry for help I don’t know what is.
National Appreciate People With Cold Hard Cash Day
Most holidays are some combo of ‘hey we appreciate all you do but will not compensate you fairly for it’ (mother’s day, father’s day, veteran’s day) and ‘go spend a bunch of money so the economy doesn’t kerplunk’ (mother’s day, father’s day, tgiving, xmas, nye).
These are both bad models.
That’s why I’m happy to announce that tomorrow, Friday July 19, is National Appreciate People With Cold Hard Cash Day.
That’s right babies, pick someone you appreciate and send them actual real money! Be it a writer you love (hi), an artist whose work blows you away on instagram but you never pay for it even though its basically one of the few things keeping you sane, or even your parents - just pick someone and tell them you love them by sending them money.
Also important on this day - delete Zoom. They suck and can eat a butt.
Thank you, and god bless our fruits.
some of us LOVE being insurance nerds exsqueeze you
You've got this all wrong, Alex.
It's actually the International *AL* appreciation day, where we celebrate the Alfreds, Alberts, Alphonses, Alphons's, Allens, Allans, Alans, Alysons, Alyssons, Allysons, Alistairs, Alisters, Alexs, Alexanders, Alexandras, Alexandrinas, Alexis's, Alexas, Alphonsos, Alfredas, Alfredos, Alices, Alecs, Alexandrias, Alessandras, Alessandros, Albertos, Albertas, Alicias, Alvins, Alyssas, Alishas, Aldrins, Aldens, Aldos, Alisias, Alannahs, Alejandros, Alejandras, Aldwins, Alis, Allies, Allisons, Alwins, Alfies, Alarics or Aloysius's. We celebrate the inestimable contribution they've all made to the human condition with gratitude and with love.
I think you know this, and you're annoyed that it's not celebrating you in particular.