" State wants the alleged techniques, presumably.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Norman said. “I wonder if we do want them.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s a bit difficult to explain … Look, have you been following television at all since you came home?”
“Occasionally, but since the Yatakang news broke I’ve been much too busy to catch more than an occasional news bulletin.”
“So have I, but—well, I guess I’m more familiar with the way trends get started here nowadays, so I can extrapolate from the couple or three programmes I have had time for.” Norman’s gaze moved over Elihu’s head to the far corner of the room.
“Engrelay Satelserv blankets most of Africa, doesn’t it?”
“The whole continent, I’d say. There are English-speaking people in every country on Earth nowadays, except possibly for China.”
“So you’re acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere?”
“Yes, of course—these two who always appear in station identification slots, doing exotic and romantic things.”
“Did you have a personalised set at any time, with your own identity matted into the Everywhere image?”
“Lord, no! It costs—what? About five thousand bucks, isn’t it?”
“About that. I haven’t got one either; the basic fee is for couple service, and being a bachelor I’ve never bothered. I just have the standard brownnose identity on my set.” He hesitated. “And—to be absolutely frank—a Scandahoovian one for the shiggy half of the pair. But I’ve watched friends’ sets plenty of times where they had the full service, and I tell you it’s eerie.
There’s something absolutely unique and indescribable about seeing your own face and hearing your own voice, matted into the basic signal. There you are wearing clothes you’ve never owned, doing things you’ve never done in places you’ve never been, and it has the immediacy of real life because nowadays television is the real world. You catch? We’re aware of the scale of the planet, so we don’t accept that our own circumscribed horizons constitute reality. Much more real is what’s relayed to us by the TV.”
“I can well understand that,” Elihu nodded. “And of course I’ve seen this on other people’s sets too. Also I agree entirely about what we regard as real. But I thought we were talking about the Yatakangi claim?”
“I still am,” Norman said. “Do you have a homimage attachment on your set? No, obviously not. I do. This does the same thing except with your environment; when they—let’s see … Ah yes! When they put up something like the splitscreen cuts they use to introduce SCANALYZER, one of the cuts is always what they call the ‘digging’ cut, and shows Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere sitting in your home wearing your faces watching the same programme you’re about to watch. You know this one?”
“I don’t think they have this service in Africa yet,” Elihu said. “I know the bit you mean, but it always shows a sort of idealised dream-home full of luxy gadgetry.”
“That used to be what they did here,” Norman said. “Only nowadays practically every American home is full of luxy gadgetry. You know Chad’s definition of the New Poor? People who are too far behind with time-payments on next year’s model to make the down-payment on the one for the year after?”
Elihu chuckled, then grew grave. “That’s too nearly literal to be funny,” he said.
“Prophet’s beard, it certainly is! I found time to look over some of Chad’s books after Guinevere’s party, and … Well, having met him I was inclined to think he was a conceited blowhard, but now I think he’s entitled to every scrap of vanity he likes to put on. "

― John Brunner , Stand on Zanzibar