Pleeeease tell me a member of this administration used fucking Comic Sans in a letter to Congress
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NPR is messaging directly at a 50 something year old white woman named Karen who lives in a household in the top 5% of incomes and has a 4 year degree or more. She probably lives in a blue state and votes Democrat, but likes to think that she would vote GOP for the right candidate (she probably kept an open mind about Romney/McCain/Dole for examples of the types of Republicans she likes)… but her strong feelings about feminism and reproductive rights keep her voting very nearly a straight Democratic ticket.
Why cater to this very specific listener? Because Karen is willing to donate 100 dollars a month to NPR for that bumper sticker on the back of her Lexus/Benz/Prius. When she gets really old she’ll at least consider putting NPR in her will. She’s the person who keeps the lights on at NPR stations around the country.
I forgot the name of the listener that they use as an example internally, but none of this is stuff I made up. I very strongly remember reading multiple articles 2-3 years ago (that I can’t find anymore after 2-3 minutes of looking) where they described in exacting detail who NPR’s target audience is. I embellished it a LITTLE bit because it’s legit funny.
Unsurprisingly Karen is stealth very pro status quo. It’s been great for her after all. She feels bad about racism because she’s economically secure enough to not have to be scared of black people taking her or her husbands job/privilege. She understands that her primary privilege comes from class not race at a subconscious level. Unfortunately the more sociopathic Karen’s are the exact people who will call the cops when their black neighbor goes jogging.
Not going to lie as a former poor white I kind of hate Karen a little. She’s mean to the servants who make her lifestyle possible at a higher than normal rate, and I find that incredibly irritating.
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Not like it hasn’t happened before:
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1181299742980132870
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Cycle through migrant caravans, homeless people and sanctuary cities permanently and you can keep all the scared old white folks safely in their homes watching Fox News and voting like it’s their job for whoever Fox tells them to.
It’s brilliant. Their voting block is too scared to leave the suburbs much less the US and ever realize their entire worldview is a complete lie. We are already living in a dyatopian world where a huge percentage of our country gets all thought and belief from a flat screen in their house and never does a moment of critical thought about anything. It’s terrifying when you really think about it.
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NPR takes huge amounts of money from the Kochs. Their audience is upper middle class white people. They want no part of wholesale economic change.
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And when they do leave they plug right back in to Fox News Radio on XM. Good times.
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Not that we didn’t already know we were getting trolled, but I feel like the Comic Sans is laying it on a little thick.
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I also grew up poor, and now I am not poor (I am not going to try to categorize myself more specifically, because that take will take us to the inevitable “is $X really rich?” debate that is not productive). Suffice to say - I am “rich” enough to have people that I could be mean to. We have a cleaning service, we have a dog walker. I have always tried to be as nice and reasonable and accommodating as I can be to them, because they just seem like people to me because I grew up with lots of people like them and, you know, I am not a sociopath. Sometimes their reactions catch me off guard - like they expect to be mistreated so they act like my basic acts of decency are huge acts of kindness. I can’t imagine what kind of shit they must have to usually deal with.
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I got a letter in comic sans from one of our business partners last week, I almost burst out laughing.
I’m thinking about responding in wingdings.
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Unfortunately I worked in call centers for years so I have a sample of casual cruelty that is statistically relevant. Upper middle class white women with time on their hands are the absolute worst and it isn’t remotely close.
On a related note my sales metrics were always completely insane, which means it definitely wasn’t me triggering their cruelty. If you called a call center and got me you pretty much hit AA. I was going to fix your problem quickly and competently and then leverage that to sell you stuff you probably wanted (Karen in particular usually had a landline back in the day and I’d usually get her to save herself 50 bucks a month switching that phone she never used to the cable company… it was easily the biggest sale I could make and a ridiculous hitrate on it with middle aged callers was at the core of my overperformance)
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They really are the absolute worst. I don’t know how these service industry people refrain from telling them off.
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We would lose our jobs and it would take 5-6 weeks to get another paycheck from the next one. You know what’s worse than being treated like a subhuman by some asshole? Being homeless. You get really good at dissociating from situations like that or you end up homeless at the bottom of the ladder in America.
If I had slightly less self control as a teenager I probably would have ended up in the justice system as a 15 year old for plunging my managers hand into the fryer at my first McJob (it was a Jack in the Box). That lady was seriously emotionally abusive and I had anger issues combined with enough childhood abuse to make violence seem like a pretty normal way to resolve something like that.
I fantasized about it nearly every day until I finally quit after a few weeks/months (I honestly don’t remember… I think I lasted long enough to get 4-5 checks). My typical check at that job was like 180 dollars for 40 hours of work. This would have been in 2000 so it wasn’t much even with inflation.
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No wonder they eventually drink too much or develop an oxy habit.
The biggest privilege in the world is the privilege to fail. I spent the better part of a decade as basically a compete fuck up, making many poor decisions that would have had serious life altering consequences for a poor person. When I finally got my shit together, it was basically all fine. And I always knew if I got in real trouble somebody would bail me out.
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Of course in a normal world this would be huge and likely guarantee an impeachment conviction it will instead just lead to attacks on the GAO by republican senators.
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He broke the law!?!?!
Wow, when is the arraignment?
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It would be awesome if they marched one copy of the impeachment articles to the Senate and another straight to the President. It would be like serving a summons - the President has to be handed it in person.
I had an experience like this recently with the lawn service where I freaked out when they got there because I realized I hadn’t picked up the dog poop. They seemed mildly amused that I cared because apparently everyone else just lets them run over it with their mowers and get sprayed with it.
I’ll never understand people who get mad at fast food employees for providing lousy service. That person makes like 250-300 bucks every two weeks at this job. The people getting mad generally make that in a day. They seem to expect these people to basically work for free AND do it with a smile… and if anything is wrong apologize after they’ve hurled a bunch of abuse at them. Honestly everyone in this country should be required to work a menial job for a couple of years when they are young. Fuck national service, I want everyone to work some combination of retail, fast food, call centers, landscaping, or hotels before they are allowed to be considered an adult.
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