drugs-4

A five-panel black-and-white comic. A young man with swept-back hair approaches a seated kid wearing glasses and asks, "Hey kid, you wanna buy some drugs?" The kid hesitantly answers, "Uh, I dunno. Yeah, sure, okay." The man replies "Great!" The kid asks, "Are you gonna sell me drugs now?" The man answers, "No. I'm registering your desire for drugs and selling that data to a third party much more valuable and weirdly even more legal." The kid asks, "Is this a better world or a worse world?" and the man, reading off the data, says, "Emotionally vulnerable may buy poetry and/or ice cream." The joke: the man isn't actually a drug dealer, he's a data broker harvesting and reselling the kid's expressed desires, which is more profitable and legal than selling drugs. Votey (aftercomic): a bald man stares blankly with an uneasy expression while a voice urges, "Make more noise with your face for me to give to Amazon!" — extending the bit to surveillance capitalism harvesting facial expressions.