Rob Cottingham

Meeting your social media humor needs since 1963

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26 Jun 2010

Help get 100,000 people to opt out of the Yellow Pages

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Category: Cartoons

David Eaves has created a Facebook Group aimed at getting 100,000 Canadians to opt out of receiving those tree-killing, energy-burning, shelf-space-taking-up tomes known as the Yellow Pages.

You get them on your doorstep every year, whether you’ve asked for them or not. They’re possibly the world’s biggest piece of physical spam (in the unsolicited marketing sense).

And for a growing number of people, they’re useless, because an online search is easier, faster and – if you’re using a service like Yelp – social, drawing on recommendations from your personal network.

The only way to stop receiving the Yellow Pages is via their opt-out web service. It only takes a minute, and you’ll be free of them for the next two years. In support of Dave’s campaign, I whipped up this cartoon on my iPhone. Feel free to share and repost (and if you wanted to include a credit to me, that would be ducky).

By the way, if you’re American, that opt-out link won’t work for you… but you may find this list of contact info useful.

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  • Don

    Hi Rob,

    I really like your cartoons, especially the the spy stuff since I was born & raised in the military during the Cold War & have friends in Gov’t. that get a real chuckle from the cartoons also.

    Anyway, one of the threats to modern tech and many countries around the globe is an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon attack or even a similar naturally occurring solar radiation event that could damage or destroy “delicate” electronics, such as microchips, that are found everywhere these days. This is especially true in relation to computers, the internet, cell phones, the power grid & TV/Radio communications in general. Even a lot, if not all, of the land-line phone have chips in them. So, if there is an EMP radiation event that does not kill people, but fries our computers & the internet, what will people use to find phone numbers if their land-line phones do still work?

    I do not have any affiliation with the phone companies or their book publishers other than being a user/consumer of their services.

    Thanks for all of your efforts to make our lives more positive, more entertaining, more lighthearted & fun while also trying to bring attention to various issues. Keep up the great work w/ trying various technologies, like the Iphone, to accomplish your artistic goals. I’m not an artist, but my wife is & I’ve always been surrounded by it since birth, so I am attentive & appreciative.

    Stay alert, be safe/healthy & have fun.

    Best regards, Don

  • http://www.robcottingham.ca/ Rob Cottingham

    Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Don! And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the kind words about the cartoon. You’ve zeroed in exactly on what I’m trying to accomplish, and that means a lot to me.

    It’s been a while since I turned my mind to EMP attacks. In the late 80s thinking about them was actually a substantial part of my work, but I’ll admit they hadn’t occurred to me in connection with the Yellow Pages.

    Or, for the matter, in connection with cartooning. I know that in the event of the collapse of our electronic infrastructure, cartooning will probably be low on most people’s priority lists – but for me, it’ll be one of the things that keep me sane. So it’s probably a good thing I haven’t completely abandoned paper; if the EMP hits, my iPad and Cintiq would mainly be useful for helping to prop up my sketchpad.

    Again, thanks so much for the comment!

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Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. Please attribute to Rob Cottingham with a link to the content's original page on this web site. For more information, contact Rob at rob@robcottingham.ca.

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