Lexus ads are the latest auto spots to dis social media

While there's a lot of attention paid to how much technology is being built into newcars, Lexus has at least three ads going in the other direction. 

The ads, which were unveiled this week, don't want you to sit around at home doing social media, but encourage you to hit the road. Preferably in a Lexus.

One ad, embedded above, makes fun of hitting the Like button:

This December, remember: you can stay in and "Like" something or you can get out there with your family and actually like something.

The ad below takes on another social media staple, sharing.

This December, remember: you can stay in and "Share" something or you can get out there with your friends and actually share something.

And the one below is a twist on adding friends on social media.

This December, remember: what starts with adding a friend could end with adding a close friend.

Of course, each of the ads will get attention on social media and by posting on YouTube, each video has a share button (though they are so new that none of them have crossed a hundred views as I write this). 

Lexus isn't the first car brand to go after social media. Among the many examples is this ad from Maruti Suzuki, an Indian car company, which positioned its Alto brand last year as "your new search engine."

The gold standard for this kind of ad is one called, appropriately enough, "Social Network," for the Toyota Venza, featuring a 20-something comparing her online-friend count to her that of her parents:

What do you think of the car-vs-computer ad idea? Post your comments below, please.

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The Onion's joyous crucifixion of social media gurus

The present is social. The future is social. Media is social.

It's quite amazing that people still manage to hate each other so much.

Perhaps things are a little more complex than we first thought -- or perhaps social media experts truly are the troubling bags of wind that "Saturday Night Live" recently suggested they might be.

Less leaping on the bandwagon and more skewering the still-twitching carcass, The Onion has just released a video that masquerades as a TED talk.

I am grateful to TechCrunch for spotting this phenomenon, in which a sprightly intellectual young thing explains that social media is "the driving force behind the new economy."

You see? And you thought it was unemployment.

He then asks: "What does that mean?" as a slide emerges with the words: "Nobody Knows."

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"I'm a successful social media consultant," he continues, "even though I've never had a thought or an original idea in my life."

He prides himself on putting social media on so many of the world's tongues.

"Social media eliminates the need to provide value to anyone," he declares, in a fit of spectacular honesty.

"Using your brains to think of an idea and your skills to implement it, that's the old model," he explains.

Anything that's old and requires effort is, quite simply, inefficient.

The whole thing is an utter joy, a celebration of "looking like you're doing work and people will pay you for it."

I am sure this is a life-motto that many of you will like and retweet in the coming minutes and hours.

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