Will Seattle Like IKE? Beware Invasion of the Giant Kiosks

The world is in turmoil. Crisis abides. We’re up to our alligators in assholes (even the metaphors are upside down) who, when they’re not trying to shut down the government, are roaming the streets kidnapping harmless and hardworking people. There’s even a new detention-without-due-process center in Florida that’s named for alligators—a creepy jape that our current President finds amusing. Things couldn’t possibly get worse. So they probably will.

At times like these, it’s important to remember that when we’re constantly distracted by macro problems, things can start to go awry at the micro level. If we don’t pay attention, one day when we eventually wake up from this national nightmare — and I believe we will — we might discover that all kinds of strange things have slipped by unnoticed. In short, don’t forget to sweat the small stuff.

Last week, when I was looking around at a local disaster that needed a closer look, I discovered that the Seattle City Council has approved one of the silliest and possibly most useless “civic improvement” schemes it has ever entertained. If you are a follower of city politics, you’ll know that is a high bar. Remember the collapse of the Pronto bike-share system in 2014? It collapsed in just over two years. And that was after the council threw in an additional $2 million trying to save it, earning Seattle the dubious distinction of becoming one of a handful of cities in the world that had to scuttle a bike-sharing program.

Briefly, here’s Seattle’s latest moment of civic lunacy. A billboard company called Orange Barrel Media (if there is a name that evokes a more vivid image of obstruction and public inconvenience, I can’t think of it) has sold the city on allowing it to install as many as 80 of its 8-foot-tall IKE (Interactive Kiosk Experience) illuminated and animated digital advertising kiosks on our sidewalks. According to the plan, about 30 of them will be installed downtown, while the rest would be scattered around in Sodo, Ballard, and the University District.

The primary inducement in exchange for giving them free access to the eyes and attention of unsuspecting pedestrians is that IKE will give the city a cut of the revenues they make on the advertising they display on public sidewalks. Oh yes, and they will install their sidewalk billboards for free.

The Seattle sign code, such as it is, seems to prohibit this kind of advertising. The Seattle Design Commission, apparently aware of that and suspicious about whether the benefits of digital advertising on the sidewalk makes up for what we might lose, voted 5-4 against allowing the kiosks. Nevertheless, the City Council persisted and approved the scheme. So sometime soon, these looming, brightly-illuminated sidewalk billboards could be coming to a neighborhood near you. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. And don’t forget to carry sunglasses.

Unlike most of our current troubles, there’s nothing especially life-or-liberty at stake here, aside from further degradation of the visual environment in our city. If you’re one of those people who assumed that after decades of failing to stem the rising tide of homelessness and drugs and a pandemic that slowly strangled the city, we had nothing left to lose, you’d be wrong. The corporate version of Professor Harold Hill marched into city hall touting this dubious boon and discovered that there was still some civic currency left to squander.

The main purpose of the impending herd of street kiosks is to display brightly lit and digitally animated advertisements for national and international corporations. IKE has promised that they will also display interactive maps, information about local events, transit schedules, and way-finding advice for lost and confused tourists and citizens. You know, all those things that their smart phones already provide.

One of the rationales offered by City Hall, the mayor, and the Downtown Seattle Association — who all promoted the IKE kiosks — for welcoming this intrusion into the pedestrian space is that they will help the tourists who will come here (assuming their countries of origin are not under a random travel ban) to attend the FIFA World Cup in 2026. But they won’t be installed in the Waterfront, Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, and Chinatown International District neighborhoods. This odd hedge inspired the first of many questions I have about this enterprise: If the kiosks are tourist-friendly enhancements, why won’t they be located in the neighborhoods tourists are most likely to visit? And I have many more.

First, given that the IKE kiosks will undoubtedly change the streetscapes wherever they are installed, what exactly are we getting in return for ceding some of our civic real estate, for free, to them? Money is the primary benefit that the city and IKE has promised, but so far, the facts presented have been vague and unverifiable. I discovered more about this when I visited the IKE pages on the Orange Barrel Media website and watched a video extolling their virtues.

Backed by a snazzy, finger-snappy, soft jazz soundtrack and a peppy voiceover, the short video shows many examples of IKE kiosks firmly cemented into sidewalks of cities all over the county, all enthusiastically interacted with by groups of shiny, happy, mesmerized people who are swiping their hands across the huge screens as if they have never seen an oversize digital display before.

Boy, are those kiosks big, bright and lively, towering two-to-three feet over the avid consumers of ads and other possibly more useful information. One of the kiosks displays a buzz-killing example of the purported public services they could provide. It’s a severe thunderstorm warning that (given the recent dismantling of the National Weather Service) should probably include the caveat, “If you’re reading this for the first time right here and right now, it’s too late to seek shelter.”

The cheerful video voice-over goes on to hint at the amount of money that a city can expect to receive from their cut of IKE’s advertising revenue, describing it as “significant.” Other possible benefits are described in equally coy marketing speak, with phrases like “encourages economic development” and “a best-in-class public engagement platform,” whatever that means. My favorite is: “IKE delivers social equity.” Fabulous! Let’s order six dozen more. I can think of several locations that could use a lot more of that and I can’t wait to see the results.

Leaving aside my high hopes for achieving citywide social equity at absolutely no cost, I still have so many questions about this scheme and its alleged benefits. Local boosters have been kvelling about how the kiosks can take a selfie of you and send it to your phone. Really? Why? And is there anyone alive who wants to give their mobile number to an unknown entity in exchange for something their phone already does?

This last “benefit” has not exactly delighted the ACLU of Washington, for obvious reasons. The same built-in camera that IKE uses to take and send you a selfie could obviously be used for public surveillance. The City Council says that those cameras won’t be turned on unless the city approves it. But there they are, waiting to be of service in case we change our minds.

IKE says this about that on their website: “IKE Smart City only tracks anonymized data, such as pedestrian counts, app usage, and dwell times. We are dedicated to protecting user privacy identity and do not collect, sell or store any personally identifiable information.” I hope that’s all true, but it does come across as a rather large and very familiar bucket of fungible euphemism.

Some fear that the IKE kiosks, like almost everything that stands still long enough in any city, would be graffiti magnets. Anticipating the same problem, IKE’s agreement with Seattle includes the promise to keep them clean and operational, removing graffiti and repairing other kinds of damage within “a few” days. I’m assuming that would also include damage caused by any electric scooters and e-bikes that already careen giddily down our sidewalks, mingling and occasionally colliding with pedestrians. At least the kiosks will have a better chance of coming out on top of one of those collisions than pedestrians usually do.

Another claim is that the kiosks will drive customers to local businesses. That’s cool, but it brings up the question of whether local companies would be able to afford to advertise their goods and services on IKE kiosks. How much does it cost to buy advertising on the kiosks? And what’s the proportion of ads to public service announcements that we’ll be seeing? One source I found said it would be 75% ads and 25% public-service content. I’m assuming that will vary from city to city, but I’m not sure who decides or confirms this.

What will it be like for residents to co-exist with these things in neighborhoods where they live, work, eat, sleep, and use the streets every day? How bright are the ads that are displayed on these screens? Are there regulations about much light they produce at say, 3 am? Are they ever turned off, or will they display animated advertising 24 hours a day? Can the brightness be adjusted if it proves distracting or degrades the quality of life in a residential environment? And will brightly-lit kiosks on the sidewalks present a distraction to drivers?

My favorite who-asked-for-this feature is the Emergency Call System. You can see it on some of the kiosks shown in the IKE video. It’s a largish button on the side that’s labeled 911, with the word EMERGENCY printed above it. Apparently, when you push that button, the police will be summoned to your location. I’ll admit that this will be a welcome service for indigent people or anyone who needs help and doesn’t have a mobile phone — and I hope they will make use of it — although it does have an obvious downside. If you know a child between the ages of 3 and 13 who wouldn’t be tempted to test that button when no one is looking, I think you might be thinking of an imaginary child. “Search me, officer. I was just standing here letting this machine take a selfie of me. But I think the little rascal you’re looking for went thataway.” It’s funny, but it’s not.

And about the free money. That portion of advertising revenue that will be shared with the neighborhood associations where they are located remains unspecified. According to their website, about 20 other cities have financially benefited from installing IKE kiosks, including Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Oakland. How much money is that, exactly? I found a story in GeekWire from early May, that said it “could generate, on average, $1.1 million per year.” But surely there must be some specific information available somewhere about how much money those cities have received in exchange for letting IKE into their sidewalks. If there is, I couldn’t find it on their website.

The council and Downtown Seattle Association may have bitten hard on all this bait, but many of the citizens who have been paying attention to this situation are not buying it. That’s the impression I got from the impressive number of negative comments I found appended to both of David Kroman’s excellent stories in The Seattle Times about the IKE invasion. According to my AI query, those comments were enhanced by a few thousand additional “thumbs-up” icons. The only letters to the editor I could find in The Seattle Times about IKE coming here were solidly against the idea. Outside of City Hall, it seems, the fans are few and far between.

If you’re curious and want to meet one of these hulking soldiers of commerce in person, there’s one installed at City Hall. Tall and dark and looming, it’s about the size and shape of a Sasquatch, which at least gives it a kind of local vibe. I’m assuming that the 911 call button on that model is deactivated. But in case it’s not, remember to suppress your inner child, keep your hands to yourself, and resist the urge to see if it works. Even though the larger world is still in turmoil. And crisis still abides.