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Pay careful attention to the response from Backblaze: > "Hi Brett! The pixels we use are primarily for audience building when we advertise on other platforms l
by berniemadoff69 6y ago
Pay careful attention to the response from Backblaze:
> "Hi Brett! The pixels we use are primarily for audience building when we advertise on other platforms like Facebook for example." [...]
The carefully calculated cutesy "Hi Brett!" with the exclamation point is the same reason big tech companies use infantile graphics [0]: by seeming playful, they create the illusion they are a Safe Friend you can Trust.
[0] http://jollo.org/LNT/public/nursery.html http://jollo.org/LNT/public/nursery.html
- Edman274 6y agoUsing a salutation, and addressing someone by name is not a conspiracy to make people trust you. The things that you should care about are the banality of evil, and that no one believes that they've done anything wrong. I live in the Midwest and my job is to make low-impact CRUD applications for a small car insurance company. I would use the same salutation, because I have been taught that that is what I'm supposed to do. I wasn't coached in some session on how to trick people into thinking I'm their buddy - it just becomes part of the shared social vocabulary.
- Scene_Cast2 6y agoModern business vocabulary has shifted from "Dear Mr. LastName," to "Hi FirstName!". This shift happened first in more "trendy" places, although most everyone has already moved on to using informal language in customer relations. I do agree with your point about banality of evil.
- pbourke 6y agoI refuse, with every last fibre of my being, that fucking exclamation mark.
- numpad0 6y agoCool! Just a quick recap: resistance is futile.
- chris_wot 6y agoIs it ever!
- KptMarchewa 6y agoJust look at your own HN page. Throwing stones while living in a glass house. Hi there!
- pbourke 6y agoHa - you’re right. I suppose I object to "Hi $FirstName!" becoming the standard in professional communication. Often there’s nothing exciting that follows that exclamation mark, and the comma has been the standard so far.
- berniemadoff69 6y agoBackblaze is role-playing 'trusted friend' on twitter the same way McDonalds and Wendys get into 'fights' on twitter. It's just corporate playbook stuff; I wouldn't say it's a conspiracy. Here's the latest posts on backblaze's twitter: https://i.imgur.com/mMkylym.png https://i.imgur.com/mMkylym.png
- brianjunyinchan 6y agoAbsolutely. Better to focus on what actually matters, and keep the action dense.
- rPlayer6554 6y agoDear Mr. Madoff69, I believe that your analysis has flaws. It would be quite awkward on social media to use the a more formal way of addressing people. Twitter and other platforms have a "style" of conversation and trying to fit the square peg of formal writing into the round hole of internet conversation sounds stilted. I do not understand why you think corporations would decide to do that, no matter what their intentions are. I humbly await your response. Yours Truly, Mr. rPlayer P.S. I hope your Grandmother is doing well. Please send my regards. P.P.S. Please invest in my new cloud computing blockchain biotech startup where we sell NFTs.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoDear Mr. rPlayer, Please update your signature to conform with the current standards, as outlined in the last month's circular. Best Regards, TeMPOraL -- TeMPOraL, Internet Compliance Officer (ICO) ACME LLC - Synergizing Creative Accounting ACME LLC, NaN NaN, Null Islands. The content of this message is confidential and intended for the recipient specified in message only. It is strictly forbidden to share any part of this message with any third party, without a written consent of the sender. If you received this message by mistake, please reply to this message and follow with its deletion, so that we can ensure such a mistake does not occur in the future. Please do not print this message unless it is necessary. Every unprinted message helps the environment. Think of the trees!
- dgellow 6y agoIt's even better with the small tree icon hosted by an external service, thus leaking some data when you open the email :)
- ylyn 6y agoThey could have just left off the greeting.
- simias 6y agoI don't use twitter so I don't know what the etiquette over there but outside of emails I wouldn't normally expect any salutation in an internet message. So for me it's not so much that the salutation not formal enough, it's more that it's odd that it exists at all. But then again maybe usages differ in twitterworld.
- neartheplain 6y agoThe flat corporate graphical style has a Know Your Meme page and rich parody-art ecosystem: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/corporate-art-style https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/corporate-art-sty...