Cynics Unite!

[agoodwinsmith]

Just thinking about the razor blade rumours and now the latest water bottle hoo-ha:  I wonder whether viral marketing was operating all those years ago before we had a name for it.  There were suddenly rumors about razor blades in apples, and it was always found by someone your friend's mother's uncle's rodeo guru was related to, and they knew exactly which house gave it to them - even though apples are pretty much apples no matter where you go (especially if you are comparing the apples dished out by houses in a confined neighbourhood of one town).  But these reports never made it into the paper and people weren't charged.  Yes, 10 years later, there were people charged (with using pins, I think), but they seem to have copied the idea.  So, how providential that all the candy manufacturers just happened to be ready with safely packaged Halloween candy.  I was also wondering who funded the studies that show that all our plastic water bottles are evil and, why, again providentially, there are already stainless steel water bottles ready to assist us in our difficulties.

One final tangential geeeeeze:   You know that we all have protective sealing on consumable items, like vitamin pills, because of the Tylenol scare that saw two people dead from poisoning, right?  The company was thoroughly investigated, and it finally turned out the pills had been tampered with by a disgruntled family member of the victims - never anywhere near any manufactuing facilites.  But now we all have protective sealing on everything from bottles of mustard, to any kind of pill, to face creams, etc.  And the security film is usually sealed down without a pull-tab, so you have to resort to stabbing it in the centre and pulling from the centre towards the edges in several goopy strips.  It has gone too far: last week I had to wrestle my way past a security film to get at some pins.  Okay: do you see my harumph?  Not only are we plagued by security films because of something that never happened (someone did not tamper with the tylenol before it reached the victims' medicine cabinet), but it is now on things that wouldn't matter in a million years.

Comments

Cynical, I'll show you cynical!

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

All of these symptoms are a result of encouraging lawyers. Shakespeare had it right.

[shriker-tam.livejournal.com]

It drives me nuts how much packaging there is on everything here. At home almost nothing comes in boxes anymore if it's otherwise contained - like toothpaste just comes in the tube. But here everything is boxed and double packaged, and straws are wrapped in little individual paper tubes (also not done at home) and safety wrapped to insanity. And then at the shop you get everything double bagged, because the plastic bags are so bad the handles come off it you only use one...

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes. YES! The packaging makes me nuts.