Rabbit Creative

I’ve loosely followed the happenings over at the Consumerist for about a year now. Reading articles here and there and reading about half the comments for each article.

The articles themselves are decent. They’re revealing and interesting to read.

Some of the comments, however, are a different story. The following were taken from this article:

Our bank has me properly trained.

All I had to do was upgrade my account to playa level, in accordance with the higher balance, and I could use a lot more of my money daily.

Wanting to make a purchase @ Best Buy, and he Banks with Bank of America?? That’s like admitting you are a stupid consumer.

If you can afford to put it on the debit card, you can just as well put it on the credit card and immeidately pay down the balance without incurring interest. This is credit cards 101 stuff here LOL.

They reek of playing by the rules and using workarounds to “correct” an issue that, in my mind, shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.

On a positive note, there are some level-headed, reasonable commentators as well.

I think the OP has a right to be mad. It’s HIS money.

“OP” means “original poster,” and usually refers to the author of the article about which people are commenting.

I think it is a big deal that he was denied access to his own money. It’s not Bank of America’s money, it’s his money.

I’d like to focus on this comment for a moment:

I am so sick of consumers like you who think there’s no problem anywhere until something happens to you personally, and that if problems happen to others its their fault because they are not as slick or whatever as you are.

See anything odd?

This part, I am so sick of consumers like you…

I’ve been noticing this house of mirrors kind of dichotomy for quite some time.

It’s one in which I must be very careful about the language I use. Each word is both ally and enemy. Use a word in one context and it becomes a scholar of truth. The same word in a different context can turn on you like beaten dog. And some words, ought not be used at all.

In its common usage, “consumer” is one of them.

Using the term “consumer” as a description of a human being is like throwing your chips into the pile. You’ve agreed to play the game. Their game. A game you cannot win because of the very definition of the word.

Sure, everyone consumes. Consume food. Consume “goods.” Consume air. “Consumer” doesn’t seem like such a bad word. Does it?

Have you ever met someone that was able to argue their way into or out of anything? Regardless of how ridiculous their stance may have sounded in the beginning, you were eventually able to see their point of view.

Like most things, language isn’t permanent. Quite literally, a word means no more and no less than what I say it does. In my mind and in my communications. You can agree or disagree to use it in the same way. The practice of “rewiring” words is deceptive. It’s also common. The best defense is to be aware of it.

Words are like opinions. Opinions are subjective. You understand what I am saying because of the agreed upon definitions of the words I am using. Or you don’t. Or you understand some, but not all. Or you understand, but disagree. The last one is rare.

Now, imagine for a moment that you and I are good friends with staggering wealth. We agree to redefine a word, say, “consumer,” to mean “unit of consumption that leads to profit.”

With our financial influence we begin to use the word “consumer” in all communications. The word, to a degree, fits, or makes sense, in the contexts it is being used, and so catches on.

Finally, you take the bait. “I’m a consumer, damn it! I have rights!”

No, no you don’t. Humans have rights. Consumers, per the game (context) you’re playing, do not.

Same word, different contexts. I use the word context here to describe a social climate. By social climate I mean a rather large group of humans who subscribe to a certain set of rules. This is that. This is considered good form, that isn’t. So on and so forth. I don’t call it culture because I believe culture to mean something produced serendipitously over time, not arbitrarily as in my above example.

Now we come full circle. The very name of the website, “consumerist.com,” leads me to believe the people engaged therein have all agreed to step into yours and mine’s house of mirrors. No matter how much progress they make in “improving” it, we will always be the game masters. Should they come close to completion, with a stroke of the pen we will return them to the beginning. New restrictions, new technicalities, new rules. Unending rules. Arbitrary rules. Rules designed to keep them minimally satisfied, and always busy enough to prevent them from really thinking about the situation they’re in.

If you’ve come this far, and I trust you have because I believe you to be intelligent, it is of the utmost importance that you realize there are games within games. Breaking out of one is often not good enough. There are many games we have been fooled into playing.

I’ll end this by saying that simple is good. If a system is so big you can’t hold the entire thing in your head at once, it’s too complex. Break it down and distribute. The Constitution is a small, relatively simple document. The IRS tax code is a large, complex document.