Mette Lisby – Is it just me… – March 2020

… who has failed to take one of the biggest threats against us seriously?

Apparently not. It seems we are all very ill-prepared for the collection and use of our personal data. It’s a booming industry, and between uploading our private photos on Instagram and venting our every thought on Twitter, we are too busy to care about it.

I try, I really do. I always enter the ‘how we deal with your personal data’ section with the best of intentions, never just clicking the ‘I accept’ button, which apparently is where you sign away all the rights to your own life, plus your firstborn child. I always investigate, clicking the ‘more information’ option and, after that, I click ‘decline’ to every option not strictly necessary. That’s what I do. After that, if they keep lining up ‘terms of agreements’, my identity as conscious costumer rapidly fades and I simply resign and press a lame ‘I agree’.

I have every chance at hand to do research and understand what they’re asking me, but it seems too ambiguous to even try, and also, I’m too impatient because I really, really want to get to that article about Jennifer Aniston revealing which episode of Friends is her favorite.

This is the mental state of humanity today: anything that requires more than three minutes of engagement, we sign off on. That is great news for anyone trying to manipulate us, and anyone trying to make money from our data. We even know that this is exactly what’s happening, and we still don’t do anything about it. As if our own fate has become something we have passively signed away the rights for. We are like the guy who knows sugar will kill him, yet he keeps eating pie.

It’s the same with elections, where pundits call for politicians who can ‘excite’ voters. Voting about our own future is apparently not that interesting to us. We need to have something ‘exciting’ happen for us to care, someone to perform magic tricks in order for us to care about the future of our children.

When you think about it, we should all be outraged, filled with the urge to act, to do something! I know you’re probably too exhausted, but all you have to do is say ‘I agree’.

Mette Lisby is Denmark’s leading female comedian. She invites you to laugh along with her monthly humour columns. Since her stand-up debut in 1992, Mette has hosted the Danish version of Have I Got News For You and Room 101.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Scan Magazine.