found drama

You’re caught in a labyrinth of ads. Worse, they’re ads on your phone. You are aware that you are somehow hypnotized and unable to look away until you escape the ads, until you have viewed every last one, and though you are not physically surrounded, you also cannot look away or put the phone down. So you attempt to find your way out. You tap the little X’s and the buttons that say “Exit” and the links that say “Close”. But each one falls away or slides away or crossfades to reveal another. There are ads within ads. Ads that spawn other ads. Ads that lead to more ads. Ads that are played like games. Ads with narrative backstories that require another ad to be viewed before it makes any sense. Worse: now the ads have become corrupt — in the software sense, not the ethical sense — and are visually glitchy, but still you cannot look away.

About Rob Friesel