Sunday, September 10, 2023

What John Carpenter Got Wrong About They Live

Rowdy Roddy Piper, what a wonderful screen presence.  And the movie They Live just hit the 35 year anniversary mark.  The iconic scene where he dons the special sunglasses and can see who is an alien, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.  And I’m all out of bubblegum.”

Yeah, that’s all bullshit.  Because the approximately 3 out of 4 people with vision correction don’t actually need glasses or contacts at all.  That makes the idea of prescription glasses irrelevant.  The bubblegum market is about to tank.  How do we know this?  This gal told us so:


Old school grifting without the conspiracy theories.  A conspiracy grifter would still be talking about Ivermectin and curing Covid.  But the goal of the grifter is to promote the woo just long enough to profit, and your marketing plan needs a hook.  And the only way to separate yourself from the pack of other grifters is to outstupid them.  Find those that are desperate enough to believe that something remarkable, something that sounds too good to be true because it isn’t true, will solve your problems.

So here’s what we know so far.  The shtick is that you don’t need glasses, because your problems are mental, emotional and spiritual.  Not sure how that physical modifier got in the list, because that’s real.  The quickie Tik Tok video was to promote an online seminar on how you can fix your mental and spiritual vision problems with essential oils.  Essential oil grifting operates in the homeopathy turf.  The products are not regulated by the FDA like supplements are not regulated.  They won’t directly kill you because they’re not toxic, but they won’t do you any good either.  Just suck up your money you could use on more beneficial products.  That which does not kill me makes me poorer.

Specifically, the oils in question are from doTerra.  Their own blog claims they are not a pyramid scheme, the first line of defense for an actual pyramid scheme.  So they might be one or not and I can’t definitely say so here or I’ll get sued for being a concerned citizen.  Their own info states they are a direct selling company, not a pyramid scheme.  A direct selling company is not a pyramid scheme like Amway is not a pyramid scheme.  Which essentially (oil) means they operate as an MLM pyramid scheme under a different name that sounds nicer than admitting you are a pyramid scheme.

In order to outstupid rivals in the not a pyramid scheme, some individuals in the not a pyramid scheme decided to latch on to the Ivermectin cures Covid bandwagon.  And the FTC was not happy. 

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-takes-action-against-doterra-distributors-false-covid-19-health-claims

So being in the not a pyramid scheme is all fun and games until somebody dies from believing in your useless treatment instead of actual medicine.  It doesn’t directly kill you, but take a gander at what Steve Jobs untreated pancreatic cancer looked like.  He certainly had the money for treatment and looked like a skeleton at the end.

And these muddying the water not a pyramid scheme offers are quite popular in the conspiracy grifter not also a pyramid scheme crowd.  Not directly, they don’t really want the competition sucking money from their new members at the bottom of the not a pyramid scheme.  No, they find their way into the comments, looking to see if somebody is interested in being in multiple not a pyramid schemes at the same time.

The ingenious parts of the don’t need your glasses not a pyramid scheme grifting is that although instantly dismissed by a large percent, so damn many people need glasses the math is in their favor.  No need to send out millions of emails, let the fish come to you.  And just like prominent anti-vaxxers can operate on how evil the vaccines are while actually being vaccinated, it’s a simple matter for a vision corrected not a pyramid scheme grifter to make their pitch while wearing contact lenses.  And reliance on how enough people will be willing enough to try and keep using the not a pyramid scheme products and realize it’s not working as claimed, and when they go to hop in the car to buy some bubblegum they will simply suck it up and wear their glasses.

They Live was Carpenter’s stab at yuppie capitalist culture.  An interesting reboot would be turning the magic sunglasses part into seeing grifters for what they are instead of aliens.  Maybe throw in some magic bubblegum, because that’s unlikely to directly kill you.  Yeah, I’d pay to see that.  Unless I had to recruit others to see the movie to afford the ticket price.

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