Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/11/new-game-show-pays-off-winner.html
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creating an inescapable hamster wheel of payments and misery.
Or, as John Oliver called it in re: municipal violation fines and payday loans, the “fuck barrel”. It’s become the basis of a large portion of the U.S. economy.
On the surface, it looks pretty harmless. But look a little deeper and you can see our ever-quickening march to becoming Panem, where the rich prosper and the rest are left to convince the audience at home of their worthiness to exist.
You’re being too kind. You don’t have to look deeper at all.
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I mean, imagine having a kid with brain damage and receiving fewer applause…
Less
– Bizarro-Stannis
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Barf. I mostly enjoyed the season of American Ninja I watched, but after a while it did seem like you had to know someone with terminal cancer in order to compete.
I don’t know, and probably don’t want to know, why that’s a turn on for American audiences.
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This has been making the rounds on the news sites. Lots of places seem to cite “Queen for a Day”, but everyone seems to have forgotten that they were doing this just twenty years ago.
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Because we don’t have universal healthcare?
ETA Hah! Forgot to say what I was going to say.
“Well, it’s about time!”
I’m shocked it has taken them this long to think of something like this.
Somehow I missed this. I guess the wheel has turned once more.
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Nope, this is unacceptable. We need a solution for all, not for the lucky winner.
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The Dystopia…it hurts.
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Others in the works include
ICE is Right
Beat the Glock
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So most shows if you lose you just walk away with $0.00.
This show if you lose you walk away with crippling on going dept? -$0.00
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That is John Brunner as fuck. I need another drink, and there is no fucking brandy.
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Well, the same crippling ongoing debt you had when you walked in.
But that would be an interesting incentive. If they added $5,000 to the debt of the person in 2nd place and $10,000 to the person in third. Shit would get real.
And now that I’ve watched the actual commercial… oh. my. god.
… the only game show working to END the student debt crisis.
How the fuck is this going to END anything? It’s profiting on the student debt crisis, you unbelievable tool in trousers! Arrrrghhh! soul… shriveling…
Watching them smash piggy banks and pop balloons filled with glitter using helmets made me think this was some kind of Nickelodeon show. Where’s the gak?
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My grandmother won an episode of Queen for the Day in the 1950s. My mom had polio, my grandpa had lost his farm due to multiple bad years of weather events. Probably assorted other things.
She won a bevy of items, though I don’t know what happened to the crown and scepter after she died. The Amana freezer she one was still a staple in her garage through the 90s, and probably beyond.
Providing particular relief to a person is nice and doesn’t preclude larger scale solutions. I’d love to have student loan reform but I’d also love to get on this show to get my particular loans forgiven. Especially since it’s trivia based on not sob-story based. Though I have a good one about surviving the Andria Doria…
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Good point.
This is the kind of thing that shows up in not-very-convincing dystopian fictions… like many other things happening in the US right now.
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Why does that fella over yonder have five thousand allocation units?
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He’s a man of big appetites.
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