How the future was being sold in 1993

Here are a few adds from the AT&T "You Will!" campaign from 1993, where one of Ma Bell's largest children tries to place itself in the future by telling you how great the future will be if you just keep AT&T in business!



Yes, that was Tom Selleck narrating the adds.

I remember watching these adds on my tv as a teenager, sitting on a moulding shag carpet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Everything looked so new, so accessible, so different than my life at the edge of waning fishing harbour. Just imagine, I could read a book from around the world, or send a fax from the beach.

High-tech! What I didn't notice at the time was the Blade Runner-ish colour and lighting choices.

Anyway, the future seemed so cool in this future. And looking back, almost all those promised inventions have been made and/or already dismissed.

Imagine, caring about faxes, reading books at strange angles on our screens, or still being able to find functioning public phones?

What is really telling about the mindset of this big telecom in this add is that the structure of this future is very company and platform specific. Everything goes on in the machines, not between them. This future is not networked, it's not open, it's not powered by Google. AT&T holds all the keys to this future kingdom.

And there are no cellphones.

Good thing the gates crashed, and we are all mucking around, trying to figure out our future communication.

Since this add aired, AT&T was sold out, shut down, and re-born as Cingular, then re-branded as AT&T. Will they ever die?