The Origin of the bright yellow paperclip controversy starts with the boost in education during the Cold War. Mainly because:
1). Keeping up with the Jones’s in tech created more educated people finding out how politicians prefer them to be uneducated - boosting their chances for election by catering to close minded short term thinking types.
2). Emphasized how British English refuses to even pronounce the word controversy with the accent on the proper syllable.
As people got smarter, capitalists found that money could be made on new and exciting stuff. And scammers found that new exciting stuff could be used to their advantage. Claiming stuff that didn’t actually exist was actually also exciting new stuff was one route. But it’s a lot more fun to get into arguments with strangers. So in order for the yellow paper clip controversy to really take off, somebody (probably the Jesuits, Al Gore or a group of people that love sharing photos of their cats) pushed for the internet to be birthed. Now we have the perfect tool to assign arbitrary value or lack of value to something beyond what value of lack of value it has. And we can assert our dominance over complete strangers.
Beginning with the reality section, the bright yellow paperclip is (like Lindell’s pillows are just a ducking pillow), just a fucking paper paperclip. It happens to have acquired a bright yellow hue somehow. You can make it from metal like steel, then paint the thing yellow. Or you can mold yellow colored plastic into paperclip shape. Either process does not alter the fact that at its core it is just a fucking paperclip. Strangely, instead of being called plasticclips or metalclips they have acquired the name paperclip, despite actually functions of clipping non papery stuff, cleaning out earwax, and chaining Vicky’s supply of them into a big chain for an April Fools Day joke.
Presumably they have additional functions in being yellow beyond being just a fucking paperclip. There’s a reason you can color code in Excel - identifying some separated content as being meaningful to each other. The same way that two yellow Excel cells can mean, “Look over here! These things go together!”, the bright yellow paperclip can be assigned to similar packs of paper, or whatever, maybe saying, “Look here without having to look through the similar stacks of paper! These are the kids packs of papers, not the adults!” Presumably the adults have some other color coding or lack thereof.
And we’re off to the races. There are people that think bright pink paperclips are better in general, better for kids, an LGBT status symbol, yellow clips are the bestest, yellow clips are cool - but not as cool as blue, and yes, even some that think they are just fucking paperclips. You can have yourself a good, cheap day of fun at work by starting your water cooler conversation about the merits of bright yellow paperclips. Because people are idiots and enjoy the combat more than functionality of paperclips regardless of color.
Here’s some things to try out the next time it happens to you. Argue about if it’s made of metal, plastic, or something else entirely. Argue about the color. You can start with the old classic of yellowness, or maybe jump into anything else in your Crayola box. You’ve never lived until you have Tom sniveling and crying since you called him a Freemason tranny because he doesn’t use Raw Umber paperclips. You can argue about which country they were made in. Watch out though, this could lead to a conversation pertaining to actual value. Cheaper bright yellow paperclips have an edge over similar more expensive bright yellow paperclips. This can be defused by insisting that only the expensive clips are used in homeopathic remedies. You can argue about symbolism. We already talked about bright pink. How about insisting red paperclips made in Taiwan are actually Chinese? Red. China. Get it?
Once the conversation has started brewing, you need to finish the deal with a flourish. Do what Alex Jones would do. You’ve achieved engagement and people are actively talking and wasting their time on bright yellow paperclips. These people are gullible enough to believe that arguing about bright yellow paperclips has actual significance in the long term big picture. Take their money. Convince the CEO that you should be in charge of all paperclip purchasing decisions. Because these people are friggin’ idiots. Take your company designated funds (indirectly coming from their paychecks) and waste it on low quality, cheap paperclips - regardless of what color, and pocket at least half of the cash you were given. This is the way governments work and why government bright yellow paperclips are $50 a piece. The type of people getting all fired up about the color of paperclips are more likely to vote for you despite that you’ve been sleeping with Vicky behind your wife’s back.
Maybe your soon to be ex-wife can console herself with some fucking $50 a piece paperclips.
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