Imagine this: you’re strolling through the Commons, politely avoiding the street musicians, when a couple — tourists, apparently — approach you and ask if you can take a photograph of them. Not being in any particular hurry, you oblige. They hand you their snazzy new camera-cum-phone, you snap a picture, and they thank you. “Cool, huh?” they remark as you hand back the electronic device. You nod in agreement, and they begin singing their camera-phone’s praises, enumerating its various features. Clearly they just can’t resist showing off their new toy.

Oh, and their spiel is subsidized by Sony Ericcson.

This is the new wave of advertising — “stealth advertising,” it’s called. The idea is to promote products in such a way that consumers don’t know they’re being targeted. Actors hawk their wares to unsuspecting passersby, who emerge thinking that they just had an innocent interaction with a friendly stranger, the kind of serendipitous connection that renews one’s faith in mankind. They don’t know that it’s scripted, and they never will.

It’s a disturbing thought, and one that makes you reevaluate the intentions of everyone who approaches you. Was that guy who gave you a light clandestinely marketing for Zippo? Was that girl who lent you a pencil in your econ class one of Bic’s cronies? Was that panhandler who asked you for money really part of an underground campaign for Calvin Klein’s new fragrance, Destitution?

It’s easy to see why people object to stealth advertising. It tries to simulate word-of-mouth, which has long been the most effective way of getting someone to buy something; if someone else tells you that a product is good, you’re more likely to try it. Overt advertisements, such as billboards and television spots, may promote brand-name recognition, but people know they’re staged and are more wary of buying into their claims. Cleaning product comparisons are disclaimed with the word “dramatization,” and we are perfectly aware that Michael Phelps’s smooth, well-muscled, Speedo-clad body isn’t appearing in an AT&T Wireless commercial simply because he likes the product.

Recommendations from average people, people to whom we can relate, are vital for sifting through the overwhelming number of products on the market — but recommendations are only useful if they come from someone who has no personal stock in the product at hand, and that’s where stealth advertising is misleading. There is no “dramatization” scrolling across the bottom of the screen or a recognizable celebrity spouting witty catchphrases. These are strangers, seemingly our peers, seemingly friendly and trustworthy. And they’re lying. They’re pretending to be something they’re not.

But here’s the thing: so does everyone. We’re all stealth advertisers in a sense, peddling our wares to the highest bidder; the difference is that instead of receiving monetary compensation from big corporations, we do it for social commodities. We put on the persona that serves us best in each situation, revealing the characteristics that are most flattering and hiding the unflattering ones with all our might.

Of course, there’s a difference between representing different aspects of oneself and misrepresenting oneself. People do that in spades as well, but I’ll be among the first to impugn anyone who uses the “everyone else does it, so it isn’t that bad” excuse. Stealth advertising is lying for personal gain, and, as such, it’s wrong. But is it any worse than lying about your age or glossing over some of the juicier aspects of your teenage years?

The truth is, you can never really know whether someone is telling the truth about himself or his motives; in fact, you can never really know someone, period. Humans have a tendency to ignore the reality of other people’s lives, the fact that everyone has an existence as legitimate as one’s own. We don’t do much thinking about how other people also have 24 hours to fill every day, that they are constantly thinking and feeling and interacting and wondering where the bathroom is in the restaurant.

Whether we realize it or not, our knowledge of other people is limited to our interactions with them; it’s the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle writ large. In elementary school you thought your teachers slept under their desks, emerging in the morning to splash their faces in the water fountain and welcome students into their classrooms, and, admit it, you still sort of think that.

Stealth advertising takes advantage of the shortcomings of human interaction, and in doing so it throws these shortcomings into sharp relief: We are fallible. We can be duped. By trusting people, we open ourselves up to the possibility of being hurt. It’s easier to shrug off sleight when the infractor’s motivations are intrinsic and therefore impossible to ever truly know; when the motivation is extrinsic, in the form of money or other tangible goods, it’s difficult to ignore.

Stealth advertising is so disturbing because it is understandable, and with that understanding comes the uneasy realization that anyone could lie to you for any number of reasons, none of which you’ll ever know.

So what’s the use in trusting anyone, then? Life is a game of poker, some might say; you can’t see anyone else’s hand, so you’d better watch your back. But I prefer to think of life as a game of Twister, everyone crammed together on the same board, limbs tangled and bodies intertwined. Maybe you’ll fall; maybe you’ll take a few people down with you. But you can get back up — and besides, if nobody fell, it would make for a pretty damn boring game.

(Attn: Milton Bradley, contact me at eak32@cornell.edu for information on where to send the check.)