Modern Digital Life Can Be #SoIrritating

People are irritated and Edge Gel, for one, is doing something about it.

Via its @EdgeShaveZone Twitter page and #soirritating hashtag, Edge is slowly developing a following of gripers in effort to “own irritation prevention” in consumers minds.
According to Ad Age, Jeffrey Wolf, Edge’s senior brand manager, terms it “the anti-irritation platform.” And it’s not limited to shaving by any stretch. To solve her irritation, Edge last month sent a megaphone to a University of Alabama professor who said her husband wasn’t listening to her.
By the way, I’m highly irritated that YouTube took my account down for copyright violations last night.

I’m also irritated that I can’t find anyone at the Googleplex to resolve this issue. I don’t own the copyrights to the commercials I post to YouTube, but I’m being asked to promote said material by the copyright holders, who then, in rare instances come back and claim a copyright violation, for whatever reason.
When a notice of a copyright violation comes down, YouTube removes the video in question. YouTube also counts that as a strike against you. Three strikes and you’re out. If you want to counter their unilateral ruling in favor of the copyright holder, YouTube asks you to download an 18-page document–The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998–and find your way from there.

I called 650-253-0000 this morning only to be told The Google (YouTube’s parent company) doesn’t provide phone support. I might be okay with that, if it was clear and easy to send an email to customer service, but that is not the case.
All of this brings me back to the problem I have with the iTunes store. Because I changed my iTunes ID a few years ago, I now have hundreds of albums that I bought from Apple on an external hard drive that will not play on any of the multiple Apple devices I also paid buckets of money for. The music can not be burned to disc either. Why? Because technology, like life, is imperfect.
Ultimately, YouTube’s need to side with copyright holders without ever engaging in any kind of dialogue with their users, then making it next to impossible to find a human to address one’s concerns, is not that big of a deal. Not when you consider conditions in Haiti, the shrinking polar icecaps, the economy, etc. But if you want to live inside the machine for a moment, it is a big deal. It’s also bullshit, just like digital rights management (DRM) is utter bullshit.