Wait—an ad guy protesting societal spoilage?

Many would decry advertising as being one of hell's main handbasket carriers, a lump in the breast of capitalism, the proverbial skid mark in civilization's underwear, so yes, that would be irony (and not the less filling, tastes great version of t-shirts and trucker hats, but the genuine Webster's version, amusement of supercilious intellectuals and codeine to the wound of their grad school debt).

So where does an ad copywriter (that degenerate subspecies, sociological dead end, whore for any corporate john, and scruffy, sneaker-wearing ne'er-do-well) get off having some sort of standards? Isn't it rich for a perpetrator of rhetorical legerdemain and sleights of language to plant a flag on the slippery slope of mass communication? That's a good one, you say—and rightly so.

To address the cynical guffaws and raised eyebrows I would humbly posit that I'm a different kind of ad guy—a functioning interwebular schizophrenic, if you will. I love the internets with an idolatrous zeal, my circle of instant-messenger life is always green, and they'll pry my wi-fi from my cold, dead hands—yet I gnash my teeth at the youtubifying of our attention spans, the felonies against a defenseless language, and the overriding idiocracy of the ether.

What helps me pull up the shades each morning is grappling with questions like these: is it possible to bring grace and wit to the monosyllabic wastes of LOL-land? To sustain the dignity of the printed page through its arch-enemy? To help anonymously create a food-service feedback loop? To build on a global gadget revolution with a three-dollar app? To make a blog something more than an inner monologue with a megaphone? To find in-depth information on a social network? To answer the question "What are you doing?" without blabulating re: my belly button?

Some answers I'm proud of; others have only prompted more questions. But I hope you'll join me—because on the internet, anything is possible.

Nate Davis copywriter