I know this is a stupid question but who buys the tabloids anyway?
Itâs a stupid question because based on the amounts theyâll pay paparazzi the answer is âway too many peopleâ. Even if Iâm generous and assume that the main revenue source for tabloids is really advertising and the prices the tabloids command is based on the number purchased by vendors and that the number of copies actually purchased by consumers is only a small fraction of that the answer is still âway too manyâ.
Iâm not above a little celebrity gossip, but I donât get the point of this column. Iâm reading an online recap of a print publication that came out a day or two ago, with news it in that was reported online at least a day or two prior to that. Stale celebrity trash is even less satisfying than fresh.
Indeed, is this going to be a regular thing? (I didnât realize after last week.) The endless recycling of the output of Christian Nightmares was already bad enough.
Itâs a trick. They just want to fatten you up so they can sell you more diet products. Or maybe youâre food for Them.
I used to buy The Weekly World News, but that was a whole different version of weirdness and who can resist a good story about celeb icons Jake The Alligator Man and Bat Boy?
Arenât the petty details of why you are inadequate mostly irrelevant when compared to the profound, foundational, truth that whatever you currently are is bad, wrong, unhealthy, and desperately in need of our diet and lifestyle tips?
If you havenât lost weight, its your lardassery that is killing you. If you have, you are wasting away(and, if female, are either obsese and gross or bony and not curvy enough to be lovable). If youâve done neither; itâs probably because your anxieties are paralyzing you and keeping you from living the life you want.
Itâs not about the boring specifics of your situation; itâs about the fact that a miserable consumer is a good consumer.
This is not a new thing. Tabloids have been spreading rumours about âtoo thinâ celebrities for years, the exact same way theyâve been fat shaming. I canât think of any specific instances, but Calista Flockhart was a common target, years and years ago.
Every time I go to a regular supermarket I start having my tabloid printer/âName of the Roseâ fantasyâŚ
I think all it did was point out that the trash is trash, but everyone including the readers of the trash knew that.
Ah, I remember the first appearance of Bat Boy. WWN sure did know how to write a good story.
Right. Itâs always either 5 pounds too âfatâ or 5 pounds too âskinny.â Depending on the camera angle. They all look dangerously thin to me.
âUnhappy? Buy something in a cardboard box!â
Thatâs product advertising in a nutshell.
Chillingly, despite that knowledge, I can still see strong correlations between my observed affect state and my purchasing habits. I know exactly what is happening even as it happens; and the gap between knowledge and (in)action remains a gulf of kind, not of degree, however large.
(In that vein; a not-so-funny story from our contemporary data-driven-and-alienated dystopia: Yâknow who noticed first when I changed medications? Not me. Not family. Not friends. Not my psychiatrist. Visaâs fraud-detection systems. Apparently my buying patterns changed enough to suggest a possible compromise, so their expert systems kicked in and checked up on me to make sure that I was still the same customer. Welcome to the futureâŚ)
Shit, they did that to me when I changed phone providers. 'âWhy the hell is my card cancelled?â âWell, we noticed frequent, regular payments leaving your account every monthâ âITâS THE FUCKING PHONE BILL!!! What, exactly did you think it was?â Yeesh.
Every time we travel abroad⌠buying plane tickets, booking hotels, all on our credit cards from our home town no problem, but then actually going on the trip? Ha! 3 days into the trip they cancel the cards. âsuspicious activityâ - even AFTER we call them to tell them weâre going on a trip. Every damn time! Algorithms!!!
That used to happen to me quite a bit. They seem to have gotten better the last 1 or 2 years, though. And we no longer call them, either.
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