Edward Tufte, the guru of information graphics, uses the term Phluff to describe the effect PowerPoint slides can have on serious analysis. In The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, he describes Phluff as “a preoccupation with format not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.”

Phluff is everywhere, and for the most part we let it slide. It’s in the infotainment that passes as nightly news. It’s in the easy generalities we throw around in political and economic discussions. It’s in the disregard we have for statistical rigor and logical thinking. It’s particularly prevalent in video. When we see something on screen, it is harder for us to be analytical about what’s being shown to us. Visual images seem to bypass the frontal lobe on their way to the visual cortex. We react to TV and video images almost unthinkingly.

I’m no better than any other human in this regard. But every once in a while scratch my head and wonder if the stupidity television has foisted on us is going to overwhelm the Internet, turning it into a million-headed hydra, each head a microchannel inviting us to leave our brains at the door. If the Phluff overwhelms us, you’d better believe it will be ushered in under the banner of infotainment.

Take TheStreet.com. They recently posted a little video called “Mac Owners Are Snobs” (short ad proceeds the video). The video aims to make waves (and draw traffic) with this statement at the beginning: “Are you self-centered, arrogant, or conceited? You have a strong need for recognition? You must have a Mac, according to new research.” The voiceover continues with a slew of statistics-free generalities about Mac users being green, station-wagon-driving, sneaker-buying, liberal, perfectionists, and more. Are Mac users greener than PC users by five percentage points? By 20? By 30? Apparently, if the survey reveals that Mac users are more conceited than PC users by any margin, their relative conceitedness becomes absolute conceitedness.

Where statistics are actually introduced, the conclusions TheStreet.com draws from them are puzzling. At the end, the narrator proclaims that Mac users are far more satisfied with their purchases than PC users. Apparently, 70% of Mac users are satisfied, while only 59% of PC users are satisfied. I write a Mac blog, and even I don’t think 11 points is a massive difference.

TheStreet.com’s video is based on research provided by Mindset Media, a company that provides psychographic research to advertisers. Mindset’s CEO used to be a director at TheStreet.com, which may at least partially explain how a young online ad company managed to drum up publicity for its services via TheStreet.com’s video. More power to Mindset Media. Good PR is like gold, and it’s not easy to obtain. I’m sure Mindset Media uses far more precise definitions in its advertiser reports than TheStreet.com did in its video, and the marketing folks who pay for Mindset’s services examine the findings in close detail.

In the mean time, the Mac Owners Are Snobs video is likely getting big traffic. It has already generated over 150 comments at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, where most of the commenters are comparing anecdotal evidence as to whether or not they fit the Mac user profile portrayed in the video. Hardly anyone is talking about the fact that the video itself is not designed to answer any questions. It leads viewers by the nose, to get them to react emotionally. It is not informative in anything but a passing sense of the word. If its goal were to edify, it would have used more nuanced language in defining just how much greener, more self-centered, and more arrogant Mac users are, according to the study.

The video was designed to bring traffic to TheStreet.com, and to get people talking. Because that has become the goal for so much online media now. It’s about dialogue. Any kind of dialogue is good, according to this theory, as long as it brings traffic. The format is important. The content is meaningless, so long as it blurs the line between reporting and entertainment, stirs controversy, and takes no position of its own (”Hey, we’re just reporting what this survey said!”). Now we can hash through the same tired Mac/PC debates, only with the added benefit of stereotypes about the people who buy Macs and PCs.

And no, I’m not going to put some flip comment at the end of this to give it that smooth, ironic flavor.

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