astercontrol:

elf on the shelf is an improvement

when I was a kid, the mythos of the time said Santa could, all by himself, see you at every moment of your life. he was like an omniscient god. there was nothing to stop him.

parents these days are, instead, teaching kids that Santa needs a spy. a set of physical eyes in your home to watch you; a physical body to report back to him what it sees

the elf on the shelf is not looking at you everywhere. it can be avoided.

it can be moved, turned around.

even destroyed, if you dare.

it is a more accurate introduction to real-world surveillance

you’ve heard of elf on a shelf. in my day we had omnipresence judging howmanypresents

1 year of this post. what the heck am i doing with my life

(to be clear. elf on a shelf is still dystopian. it’s just slightly less dystopian than the other version of Santa-surveillance, while also paradoxically feeling more dystopian, because it is more similar to IRL surveillance. For better or worse –probably worse, because there is nothing good about any version of this whole concept– it is preparing children for some of the worst parts of the real world)

(also, I did not plan this whole post around making the pun “omnipresence judging howmanypresents,” that just came naturally. the pattern recognizer is eternal)