Ask Erik: Episode Forty

Here at Ask Erik we've spent a lot of time reading novels and comic books, playing video games, and watching television and movies in order to amass a deep vault of pop culture knowledge.  While constantly striving to gain new information, it only seems prudent to share some of that knowledge to help solve some of the world's greatest questions.

What's the real world ramifications of Blockbuster finally going completely out of business?  Is it really such a big deal that the NSA spies on everybody?  Just how creepy is it to give a Microsoft product a genuine mascot who looks like she just fell out of an anime?

Once a week Erik tackles a question asked to h- you know what, no, we're going to look at that last question, because seriously, what the hell?
 
 Okay, I guess the first thing we need to do is make sure everybody sees this video.  I was going to embed it in this post, but Youtube won't let me.

Go ahead, watch.  I'll wait.



All done?  Good.

The character's name is Inori Aizawa, and she's the new official "mascot" for Internet Explorer, it seems.  I have to admit, I did not see this coming.  Not even if you asked me which Internet browser I thought would get a mascot like that first, I still wouldn't have picked Internet Explorer, and I've seen the drawings of anime girls based on every version of Windows.

I'll admit, I'm amazed the official one doesn't have blue hair.  After all, ya gotta have blue hair!  ...where was I?  Oh, right.

I guess it's inevitable, though.  With the rising markets in China and far eastern nations, companies need to link themselves in culturally relevant ways.  After all, they can't all go for the "listen to Eminem and drink Mountain Dew and eat Taco Bell, bro" method of something like Call of Duty.  That seems to be a distinctively lowest common denominator American approach.  We know the influence has already been seeping in, after all, look at the AI system in one of the biggest video game franchises of all time:

At least the official one has more clothing on.  Although, I'm willing to bet that within an hour there was already crudely drawn filthy pictures of the character floating around on the Internet because it's the Internet. 

With this creation, however, and with how Windows seems to be determined to make everybody's system tailored specifically to them with customization features, it leaves me wondering what the future holds.  Will there be different versions of software, each with their own mascot and "voice?"  With the advances in voice commands, will you be able to give each one a name and give it directions without touching a keyboard?  Will you be able to program a personality into them to determine how they respond?

"Jeeves, open a new tab and find me directions to the airport.  Samantha, load up my travel music play list.  Ishigawa, email the following documents to everyone in my work email group..."

I think we're a long way away from that, however, and I think that, for the more immediate future, the problem Microsoft might have is that it could be letting their major browser be undergoing "Disneyfication."  You might get young people (and old perverts) interested in the idea of their web browser using a cute cartoon girl to represent important messages ("I just blocked this site!  I just deleted a trojan!  Updates are available!  Do you trust this site?"), but many adults probably wouldn't want something like that popping up on their computers at work or in other professional settings.  Unless Microsoft's goal is to have this version of Internet Explorer always be separately downloadable from a normal version, I fear they might be distancing themselves further from the mass market appeal of something like Google Chrome and Firefox.

Then again, maybe downloads will explode in the Asian sector of the Internet and Microsoft will once again regain a strong foothold on web browser software...at least until we get avatars for Firefox and Chrome.

The Internet is yet to let me down when it comes to pictures for this blog.

I swear, some people will cosplay as anything.

Oh, and to answer that question... if you download it for your kids to guide them through safe sites, it's fine.  If you download it and your primary purchase is to browse the Internet for message boards to yell at or watch porn... it's pretty creepy.