Imagine a beam of sound that is beamed directly into your skull. This beam can make you hear voices. Voices no one around you can hear.
It’s called hypersonic sound technology. Sound waves are shot out at a pitch undetectable to the human ear. These audio advertisements travel along harmlessly until they find something to smash into like your face. The waves then slow down to a pitch that you can hear. Since the thing slowing the waves down is your head, that’s where the voices sound like there are coming from.
It’s a powerful new technology, with a host of potentially useful applications. So of course it was first used to push a crappy basic-cable show.
The show was Paranormal State, and people walking by a billboard for the PS (that’s what the fans call it) in Manhattan would hear a voice saying “Who’s there? Who’s there?”
It is weird enough hearing ghostly voices, but did they have to push a show on the “Arts & Entertainment” network?
A&E shows don’t qualify as art, and barely, barely qualify as entertainment. I don’t even think A&E is serious about the ampersand anymore.
Anyway, I know that unlike their distinct seasons and their pizza, New York City won’t keep this advertising ray to themselves.
Soon there will be no way to tell if the hobo screaming about voices in his brain is a paranoid schizophrenic, or simply responding enthusiastically to an ad for Chris Angel Mindfreak.
In fact, I don’t see how non-hobos hit with this ray are supposed to know that they are not schizophrenic themselves. How does a normal person react when a voice inside their head commands them to watch A&E?
It’s an unnatural thought, somewhere on par with hearing your Chihuahua demand the hammer-murder of your parents.
Our only hope is that Los Angeles bans this invasive technology before it becomes commonplace. But in a city where the idea of an attractive public space is one dominated with building-sized posters for failed movies, I don’t think there’s much room for optimism.
