Turking, in case you've forgotten, is the "work" I do on the Mechanical Turk website managed by Amazon where I usually choose to answer surveys for small amounts of compensation.
These surveys, usually conducted by universities or marketing organizations, seem to have one overall similarity in their makeup: they all want to figure out what makes the subject tick. For the colleges, they likely are conducted by psych departments to analyze public opinion or moral issues in the popular zeitgeist. For the corporate tools, well, you know what they want: how to sell more crap to sheeple. Either way, a huge component is to make the surveys as introspective into the mindset of the taker as much as possible.
I've actually had some misgivings of late regarding this as sometimes their line of questions can be very hard hitting to one's sense of privacy or core values. Although these survey requesters supposedly, according to Amazon, have no real access to one's true identity, not even our names, we're identified using only our mTurk number, the sensation of an invasion of privacy is still there when filling these intrusive questionnaires out. Not to preemptively mix metaphors too much, but remember in the movie "The Game" the questionnaire that Michael Douglas' character was asked to complete as part of the initiation to the mysterious "CRS" organization behind the titular ultra-participatory experience?
But for this morning's first survey, as I set down to a day of grinding out some turks, coffee mug ready at my side, I pull up this doozy which immediately has me recalling the famous brainwash scene, depicted in the pic above, in another fav movie of mine, namely "A Clockwork Orange." Poor Alex (Malcolm McDowell) forced to watch disturbing images while a rousing rendition of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" movement is piped over the loudspeakers.
Here's the actual "copy and paste" of some of the survey questions:
Rate the similarity of each pairing of scenarios below:
Scenario 1: A person pushes some to the ground
Scenario 2: A person watches a video of animals having sex
Scenario 1: A person tells someone their brother is more attractive
Scenario 2: A person drinks cow blood
Scenario 1: A person gets into fistfights
Scenario 2: A person eats a pizza off a dead body
Scenario 1: A person sets off a veteran's PTSD with fireworks
Scenario 2: A person strokes their mother's inner thigh
Scenario 1: A person beats someone up
Scenario 2: A person eats a potato salad with someone's flaking skin in it
Scenario 1: A person slaps someone in the face
Scenario 2: A person eats a burger with a mouse tail in it
Scenario 1: A person throws a basketball at the back of someone's head
Scenario 2: A person eats powdered donuts that also has someone's dandruff on it
Scenario 1: A person fulfills their aunt's dying wish by having sex with their recently deceased body
Scenario 2: A person aims their vomit into the air filter in someone's house
Fuck this 'ere cup of hot joe, me mateys, with this freakin' jobba, I needs me a bottle of ol' Moloko Plus drencom!
EDIT: When searching for a video of the scene described in this post, I couldn't find a good one...it must be heavily copyright protected. But, interestingly I did find the video embeded below, part of the psych exam conducted on Michael Douglas' character in "The Game" which I also mentioned above. I had forgotten this part. The montage of words and somewhat weird, and sometimes disturbing imagery, is no doubt an homage to the Kubrick film.