“A BED IS NO LONGER FURNITURE—IT’S A CONTENT PLATFORM”
May 5, 2016 12:23 PM   Subscribe

Sleep is more than the sum of its socio-economic consequences. A new generation is planting sleep in a broader spectrum of consciousness. The poles aren’t asleep and awake–they’re omniscient and dead.😉
K-HOLE, the "internet trend forcasting group", has followed up its 2015 report on Chaos Magic with what appears to be a legit report on how Sillicon Valley is monitizing sleep. (if the actual article is too sleep inducing, Ars has a write up)
posted by rebent (49 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
K-HOLE previously
posted by rebent at 12:25 PM on May 5, 2016


Is this another Shingy thing?
posted by rhizome at 12:33 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


No.

Just...no.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:36 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Is this another Shingy thing?


Don't be ridiculous- Shingy sleeps upright at a standing desk, so he doesn't mess up his hair.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:37 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Sleep has practically become a luxury good. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll suggests that the richer you are, the better you sleep.
Yes, it is a luxury good. No, it should not be. It's a public health issue. It should be treated like one, just like clean tap water. The free market gives us just-in-time worker scheduling algorithms and zero-hours contracts, and then "fixes" the problems that result by giving us 24-hour daycares and Silicon Valley sleep monetization.

8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what we will. Only government can provide that. If government doesn't, only the well-off will enjoy the "luxury" of sleep. We're already too far down that path.
posted by clawsoon at 12:38 PM on May 5, 2016 [34 favorites]


Ties nicely with the hygiene bed in the latest _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 post.
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 12:43 PM on May 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'll sleep when they are dead...
posted by ennui.bz at 12:45 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Of course, he conceded, that's "inherently hard to answer because sleep hasn’t changed all that much over the past couple thousand years."
So he didn't even bother googling it, because segmented sleep appears to have only stopped in the last few hundred years.
posted by Etrigan at 12:48 PM on May 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


Advanced products aren’t commodities, they’re content. Uber is more data than car, Per Se is more reputation than food, and Delos is more amenities than real estate. Whenever we enter the realm of quality judgment we enter the realm of brand […] The future of sleep won’t be its absence, it will be a new class of people leveraging its creative potential. Slowave is the response to this realization.

The amazing thing about K-Hole is that they are literally beyond parody. Once you're getting paid for this kind of argle-bargle there's no further joke possible — the joke is on everyone else, on the world that allows this to happen.
posted by RogerB at 12:48 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


What's left after you take my Saturday afternoon nap away? Sure, take my privacy, but take my nap and you will have a real fight on your hands. Keep naps free!!! Are they really trying to monetize me pulling my baseball hat down over my eyes and sleeping on my couch?
posted by AugustWest at 12:52 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


"It came from a mattress company that hired a marketing company to turn a fact of nature into a cultural trend."

Or maybe it came from a mattress company that hired a marketing company to write something that would get noticed by the press, the industry, and click-happy technorati, in other words, an ad.
posted by doctorfrog at 12:53 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'll tell ya, with some of the lousy dreams I've had lately, it's more of a discontent platform...
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:56 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Even the ars article is too sleep-inducing. Can someone give those of us allergic to SV-speak a tl;dr? I'm having a hard time imagining how an "Uber, but for sleep!" would work.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:02 PM on May 5, 2016


Seriously, what is this?

I'm trying to read it but I have to step away every 2 sentences or so. This is probably the densest chunk of tech-speak bullshit I've ever encountered.
posted by AtoBtoA at 1:07 PM on May 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is like someone doing a bad Carles impression.
posted by StopMakingSense at 1:11 PM on May 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


*sloclap*
posted by Kabanos at 1:11 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not content with having a buying experience even more unpleasant than used cars, the mattress industry casts about for an even better way to monetize a basic human right.
posted by indubitable at 1:12 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


It'll go great with your new Smart Pipe.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:15 PM on May 5, 2016


All these years, I thought k-hole was a parody site.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:50 PM on May 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


I don't have much time to comment on this because my supervisor gets an alert if I don't answer an email within four minutes. I truly apologise for falling asleep at my desk, but it was 3am.
posted by adept256 at 1:51 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yes, the idea of sleep as somehow being a "content platform" is ridiculous, but I think that this is really burying the lede that:
  • There is a market research firm called "KHole"
  • This firm specializes in producing reports about millennials which look like something Marshall Mcluhan would make if he had just watched Vice for 48 hours straight
  • Nobody can tell whether or not they're taking the piss, and finally
  • It is apparently successful
What a world
posted by phack at 1:52 PM on May 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


burying the lede

Not that I disagree it's quite something, but given that all that information dates from ca. 2011 I'm pretty sure it's the background, not the lede, at this point
posted by RogerB at 2:02 PM on May 5, 2016


Ok, add on another in that case.
  • It's been successful in doing this (whatever this is) for at least 5 years
posted by phack at 2:13 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


My sleep is already nice and disrupted on its own, thanks.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:24 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Phack, K-HOLE is also apparently the group responsible for Normcore, so that's yet another strike against them.
posted by thecaddy at 2:28 PM on May 5, 2016


Yes, luckily i'm still the only one who knows when it's time to change my sheets.

The Effective Hedonists :)
posted by sapagan at 2:28 PM on May 5, 2016


What about all those mites feasting on your dead flesh as you sleep? How can we monetize that?
posted by Kabanos at 2:28 PM on May 5, 2016


isn't "k-hole" a reference to getting fucked up on ketamine? i mean it probably explains some, but not all of this
posted by Hoopo at 2:29 PM on May 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


You guys do know why Google is getting into self-driving cars, right? It will be a giant content platform because nobody will be driving. So they will have you watch ads while you drive around. Restaurants will throw up ads when you get in the car for Sunday brunch. Beer ads on Friday. Long drives will have movies with commercials.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:34 PM on May 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


At CES 2016, I lost track of the number of companies that were pushing devices meant to help you hack your sleep and optimize your biology. These consumer gadgets are going to be sold to an overworked and under-rested population as the capitalist solution to their problems.

At one vendor, I asked, "Who are you consulting with for medical advice on these sleep patterns you're promoting?" and the college student who is launching their device said, "Um, our founder's read so much literature, he's basically the same as an expert now."

This is what's going to be in holiday gift guides come December. Workers of the U.S., it's on you to hack your sleep! Don't question the conditions that are leading to your exhaustion in the first place.
posted by sobell at 2:38 PM on May 5, 2016 [10 favorites]


This is making me downright happy and proud that I have no mattress and no car.

/rebel
posted by Michele in California at 2:41 PM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


hack your sleep and optimize your biology

*grumble*

Sleep is not to be hacked. Just sleep, for the love of butt.

I have two fingers of Bourbon after supper, sipped while coloring some pattern or other and watching trashy TV. At midnight, I take my daily medications, pee, then pass the fuck out til 8:45AM. No "hacking" or "optimizing" required.

Fuck these guys. My mattress is where the husband, dogs, and I pile up, snore, and ignore the rest of the world.
posted by MissySedai at 2:47 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


So I have to start putting quarters in my CPAP machine?
posted by lagomorphius at 2:58 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


They got everybody in America to start wearing wristbands that nag them if they don't take enough fucking steps in a day, and even get people to check email while they poop; you think they won't find a way to gamify and monetize sleep?
posted by briank at 3:10 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


              ME, AFTER READING SLEEPSLEEPSLEEPSLEEP.COM
            --------------------------------------------
IDEOLOGY   |  Sleep as escape
GOAL       |  Removal from the sick world
MOTIVATION |  THIS FUCKING REPORT, Y'ALL
STRATEGY   |  Alcohol and benzos
posted by suckerpunch at 3:11 PM on May 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


So I have to start putting quarters in my CPAP machine?

Until the company pivots, shuts down their CPAP authentication servers, and bricks the CPAP machine. And maybe you with it.
posted by chimaera at 3:21 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


this is the part where they sell us on Lightspeed Briefs
posted by indubitable at 3:28 PM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I hope Apple doesn't read this.
posted by ZeusHumms at 4:21 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


http://sleepyti.me/ is all you need
posted by BungaDunga at 4:21 PM on May 5, 2016


The real evil is revealed with the next round of funding. In order to monetize, after promising a good night's sleep, forever, for free, the clear strategy is to charge money in order to wake up in the morning. No payment, no waking up on Saturday or Sunday. You'll sleep from Friday night until Monday morning.
posted by fragmede at 4:30 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Unauthorized recall, description, reproduction, presentation or distribution of dreams experienced while under the influence of SleepCorp(TM) technology is forbidden. By using SleepCorp(TM) technology, you assign SleepCorp(TM) an unlimited, transferable license to the narrative, emotional, and sensory experiences while asleep. You agree to binding arbitration..."
posted by BungaDunga at 4:46 PM on May 5, 2016


-afinil drugs are quite nice. I can't think of much else that has the same level of excellent sleep cessation effects.
posted by Ferreous at 5:00 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I make my living researching sleep & treating sleep disorders and this article make no sense to me. It seems to be an attempt at harnessing societies anxiety about sleep by throwing around corporate tech lingo and pseudo life hacking bullshit with the goal of selling mattresses or as they call them... content platforms. I really hope this is some kind of bizarre Delilloesq parody.

In a probably unnecessary effort to counteract the smoke and mirror sleep angst this article tries to generate consider reading a real paper on pre-industrial sleep patterns in the modern age or this article on the paper.

And if you happen to have insomnia, check out the American College of Physicians new recommendations for chronic insomnia. It only took them 30+ years to figure that this was a good idea. If you want to cure your insomnia find a CBT-I provider here.

Speaking of people trying to monetize sleep, for the record, Fitbit & Jawbones are really bad if not useless for measuring actual sleep. That being said, even if they worked well for monitoring sleep, which they don't because they are designed to primarily monitor rapid movements not slow to non-existent sleep like movements, the majority of sleep specialists greatly prefer a persons subjective report in the form of a sleep diary.

Why? As a clinician, once I've ruled out sleep apnea, RLS, circadian rythym disorder, etc. I don't care what an objective measure of your sleep thinks is happening. What I care about is what you think is happening.
posted by Jernau at 5:00 PM on May 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


-afinil drugs are quite nice. I can't think of much else that has the same level of excellent sleep cessation effects.

Interestingly, Modafinil has also been tested as a treatment for chronic insomnia. TL;DR Long and short of it, Modafinil raises compliance rates for therapy.
posted by Jernau at 5:11 PM on May 5, 2016


There's so many layers of irony and next level nonsense going on here I can't tell if this the greatest trolling ever (which I think it is) or the stupidest thing I've ever seen and a sign of the end (which I think it is).

K-Hole

Just sleep, for the love of butt.

I'm not sure I see the connection, but I'm sure I agree.
posted by bongo_x at 8:39 PM on May 5, 2016


8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what we will. Only government can provide that. If government doesn't, only the well-off will enjoy the "luxury" of sleep. We're already too far down that path.
posted by clawsoon at 2:38 PM on May 5


I agree with that slogan when it was used way back, but, today, I would require it to be: "8 hours for work including round trip commute time, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what we will.

It was fine when you could live near your place of employment, but seems less and less likely every day with the way housing costs are proceeding. Two hour or longer total commuting times (and that's if you don't encounter hellish traffic jams) are far too common these days, IMHO.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 9:28 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm having a hard time imagining how an "Uber, but for sleep!" would work.

Well, off the top of my head, a large bus with sleeping compartments? Driving slowly around the city, picking up "clients" who nap on bunks covered in some sort of disposable/disinfectable sheets? Charged by the hour, clients dropped off within a certain distance of where they were picked up?

Damn, I've said too much.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:55 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Hang on Ernie. It's goin' to be a bumpy ride."
posted by sneebler at 6:40 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Without comment
posted by prismatic7 at 11:11 PM on May 6, 2016


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