When you push the post button, you throw your bottled message into the deep blue ocean of the web. You have a goal: to leave the island. This is your chance.
You know that, for this to work, your bottle must first reach someone. As long as it floats in the liquid void where no man sees, you are hopeless. You plan for this, measuring the winds and the tide, testing the buoyancy of bottle shapes, the friction of bottle surfaces, the tints of glass that are most visible from the beach. You must choose precisely the right vehicle or your message may never be seen.
But even if the bottle reaches someone, more is required. The bottled message must connect with the finder in a way that will prompt action. This means, first, that the finder must be able to understand your message. If you write to the wrong audience—say you write in English but the bottle is found by a Sentinelese tribesman—your efforts will be in vain.
Even readability is not enough. Your message must so overcome the finder’s natural laziness and indifference that it convinces her to call for the rescue ships. If your message leaves her indifferent as to your plight, then all is lost. You must convince her that the message is no joke. She must understand exactly what you ask of her.
With these concerns heavy on your mind, you meticulously craft your message to be clear and authentic. You close with a direct appeal for the reader to send a rescue and give detailed directions for how to find you.
At this point, you have done what you can do without involving others. You have:
- Used a medium that is calculated to reach a defined audience
- Crafted a message that is targeted to that audience
- Stated a clear call to action that leaves the audience with no doubt about what action it should take
But you know that this isn’t likely to be enough. Too much is left to chance. The forces of nature are against you. To make matters worse, you recall news reports that there is already a mass of bottles beating about in the ocean. The water’s edge is teeming and the beach sands are cluttered with bottles that look just like yours. If you simply toss your bottle out into the salty sea, it has little chance of cutting through the clutter.
There is another option, though you hesitate to consider it. A tribe on your island can help your bottle reach your audience. They can steer your bottle through the clutter to the nearest beach and make it appear more important than the other bottles. This is not an eleemosynary activity; the tribesmen don’t care about you or your message. They work for a price.
This sounds like your best chance of escape, but there is a problem. The sea gods frown on this activity. They believe that the relative importance of each bottle should be determined by the quality of the message inside the bottle. You have tried to reason with the sea gods about this. How can the quality of the message be determined when the bottle never reaches a reader? Their response: Just focus on crafting better messages and leave the rest to us. Islanders who violate this command risk immediate bottle submersion.
You used to have faith in the sea gods. After all, they did design the system. But lately you have noticed that the only people who get off the island are those that pay the tribesmen. The sea gods have dispersed multitudes of their minions to explain this effect away, claiming that it cannot be quantified and that they will ultimately prevail in the end. But you find the explanations to be unconvincing in the light of your experience.
You have a choice to make: Do you trust the Google gods, or do you help your content along?
About Jack Falconberg