The future doesn't exactly look like the 1950s sci-fi stories. They were optimistic, you've got to give them that. By 2000, they expected mankind to be at its technological apex.

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Their imagined future was focused on high-technology; hover cars and robots, laser weaponry, space travel. They never suspected that people would become addicted to communication networks, spending upwards of three hours every single day exchanging and viewing written, auditory, and visual information. Even Asimov didn't see that coming.

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They thought the future would be an enhanced extrapolation of their current society. They thought it would look like this:

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It ended up looking more like this:

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Not the Era of the Atom, but the Era of Communication.

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Gottfried Leibniz, a German polymath, argued that because God is infinitely good and powerful, and therefore can conceive all potential outcomes and possibilities and alternate universes in His head, this universe, therefore, with God being good, must be the best possible universe.

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My point is: everything must ultimately be for good. We live in the Communication Era. People never stop talking, ever. This must be the best possible world. This future is better than anything the science-fiction writers ever dreamed of.

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Advertising is everywhere all the time. It's nearly omnipresent. Advertising is good.

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Social media means people never shut up. The conversation is always flowing, never slowing. And what's more incredible is that there are different social media channels for different styles of communication. If I want to show an idealized image of myself where I'm dressed in my Sunday Best, I need only post the Crème de la crème of my life to Facebook. If I want to peel back the veil for something resembling a 'back stage' preview of my life, that's what Snapchat is for. Twitter is for the plucking of specific thoughts from my thought stream, deemed significant enough to share with the world. LinkedIn is Facebook for my career. WhatsApp is for thoughtful dialogue between me and numerous parties. The entire world has become about me. My deepest Freudian fantasy is fulfilled.

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Because social media is all about me, and advertising has permeated social media, advertising has inevitably become all about me.

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Remember... this is the best possible world. It's sort of funny, isn't it?

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