I’ve got some thoughts
I’ve been watching YouTube commentary videos to gather scenarios for my writings. I feel like a ghoul, wandering through a cemetery picking over the bones of people experiencing the worst days of their lives… and laughing about it. Because, my man: There are some truly ridiculous events happening in the world today.
The Rhode pop-up situation? The Needos? The out-of-control tipping nonsense? There’s wars happening, oil and grocery prices are through the roof, and people are FIGHTING each other in stores to GIVE THEIR MONEY TO BILLIONAIRES.
As a great man once said: "Mind-bottling, isn’t it?" As in: "You know, when things are so crazy, you get your thoughts trapped, like in a bottle."
We are all currently trapped in a bottle, and that bottle is a killing bottle, and we’re slowly dying so our bodies can be put on display as part of a collection. Like all those people collecting Labubus and all that other stupid shit that are just going to be filling landfills in the next ten years. That’s all of us! Being saved as part of scientific experimentation to see just how far a human can be pushed until they BREAK and refuse to spend any more money on stupid shit.
And like, "Do you people realize that there is video evidence of you acting a complete fool in public? Your children and grandchildren are going to be able to see those videos. When you apply for a job and they run your name, there’s a good chance that video is going to come up, ESPECIALLY since the future of AI surveillance means they’ll be able to run your picture through a database and call up every video you’ve ever appeared in. INCLUDING the videos that ten or twenty years from now you will be PRAYING people will forget."
I’m not saying people should have some decorum. I’m just thinking it real hard.
Like, feel free to act like a clown and be as embarrassing and stupid as you want to be, BUT DO IT AT HOME!
Don’t come to the airport. Don’t come to the grocery store. Don’t come to the restaurant, the cruise ship, the department store, the sporting event, etc. etc. etc. Stay the fuck home!
If you want to be out and about in public around other people? Have some manners. Be polite. Don’t make a spectacle and an annoyance of yourself.
"Main character syndrome" is just people being annoying in public and expecting other people to treat them kindly. They expect a grace and forbearance that people are getting tired of giving.
And them swinging around cameras and sticking them in peoples’ faces? Nobody wants that.
All those videos of annoying people at concerts and different venues USING RING LIGHTS? What are you doing??? Or the people in movie theaters trying to watch a movie while people are screaming into their phones, playing games on their phones with their screens on full brightness, having their ringers on with the flash set to go off with the ringtone? What are you people doing?!? Go home and watch Netflix. You don’t belong in a movie theater with normal people.
Everything is too expensive for annoying people to be making a spectacle of themselves in public.
Who wants to spend $50, $60, $100 to go see a movie and have a bunch of assholes loudly talk through the whole thing with their phones on full brightness? Who wants to go to a restaurant and spend a RIDICULOUS amount of money on subpar food AND have to listen to someone’s vapid drama loudly enacted at the next table? Who wants to be working in a PRIVATE business and have some asshole come in with their camera out so they can film you without your permission and use you for content they will then monetize for their own benefit?
NOBODY.
Nobody wants any of the shit going on, yet it keeps happening because some people have never learned tact. Grace. Kindness. Or minding their own fucking business!
I saw a YouTube comment that said "Instead of complaining about the clowns, ask yourself why you joined the circus."
It goes hand in hand with the classic saying that "The customer is always right IN MATTERS OF TASTE AND STYLE."
We are all tired, and frustrated, and ANGRY. Things are reaching a boiling point and billionaires and politicians are throwing gasoline on the flames.
Things like the Rhode pop-up spectacle? That is a symptom of the problem, and the problem is companies purposefully pushing consumers as far as they can in the name of making money. They purposefully create limited stock situations so they can show on social media that "Look at all these people that want our products!" when they could have just ordered enough stock in the first place.
They WANT to create a frenzy, and I honestly don’t think they’re ready for how things are going to turn out in the future. When the consumers are TIRED of being manipulated and abused and the lines of wannabe customers suddenly turn into an angry mob? I don’t think they’re ready for that.
And the billionaires and the CEOs and the company officials are going to be safe in their mansions and their ivory towers. It’s going to be the employees that are going to be facing the full force of an angry public.
We already see Starbucks employees being screamed at and physically attacked over stupid cups. Like, there is no reason why there isn’t enough products for the people that want them. It is a false scarcity that becomes real life abuse and it’s gross.
When I was in customer service, a fellow employee told me "All customers are liars, bitches, and thieves," and I’m sorry, but that is 100% truth.
You might be the sweetest, kindest, most gentle person in your everyday life. But if you’re having a bad day? You might be a bitch. And the person next to you might stick something in their bag or lie about being cheated or whatever. And the poor employee that has to deal with THOUSANDS of people ANGRY that they can’t get a limited edition hoodie because there’s only so many for that particular day yet they can SEE that there are DOZENS of unopened boxes of hoodies RIGHT THERE?
These companies are creating false scarcity as a tactic to manipulate their customers. And it’s been working SO FAR. But there will reach a breaking point, and when that happens? When people are tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and sunburnt to shit? When they have been standing in line for 10+ hours without a bathroom break only to reach the front and find out that everything they want is "gone"? Yet there are boxes and boxes RIGHT THERE?
We are literally watching people pushed to their breaking point as part of some kind of weird social experiment that doesn’t need to happen. They are being manipulated by billionaires and assholes who call themselves "influencers," who use algorithms to fuck with peoples’ heads in order to steal their money. And something has got to give.
These selfish fucks are either going to have to realize that "Hey, we’ve gotta stop doing this. We have to treat our customers better or they’re going to murder us in our mansions." Or we’re going to see some truly ugly events in the days to come.
The Facebook lawsuits proved that social media companies can and will manipulate the minds of their users. People were killing themselves. It’s the whole reason Facebook rebranded as Meta–to escape paying their lawsuits.
So we know that manipulated social media algorithms have resulted in very negative effects. And while all those sociology experiments have resulted in massive amounts of data… it was still just small pools of people. We really don’t know what will happen when the majority of people are all effected at once and they feed off of each other and they’re angry and sharing ideas and RAGING to the point where they are unwilling to stay home and stew in their misery.
We don’t know how the public is going to respond. Like, the last time people have been pushed like this? The Czars got murdered. France ran out of royalty. China became communist.
Honestly. You can only push the public so far before the public stops being kind, gentle, and polite. These billionaires are all being like Johnny Somali, and it’s about to be a mass hunt for Golden Goblins.
Think about it.
~Harper Kingsley
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