Junk Mail

All my real bills (things that have to be paid) come online. When I get things from my mailbox, there are usually about 10 things total that are personal correspondence. The rest of the items are:

• REI catalogs for both my wife and I.
• Children’s clothing catalogs (usually 4 different ones a month).
• United Mileage mail for my 6 year old twins. They each get an offer twice a month.
• Delta Mileage mail for my 6 year old twins. (Don’t they check the age on their members? )
• Credit card offers that promise me the dreams I’ve always had. (I’ve dreamed for years about owing 30k at 21.23% interest.)
• Various charities sending me address labels. (They hope I’ll feel guilty about accepting the labels I guess so I’ll pay something?)
• Free news papers.
• Trial subscriptions to Magazines like “Stuff” and other publications that I don’t want my children to ask me about with questions like, “Why is that lady wearing her underwear all wet?”. I usually say something like, “She must have been undressing for a shower and then slipped.”

This is not the complete list, but I’m sure you’re getting the same.

Where are they getting all the paper? This is such waste! I have to recycle this all. I have to shred the credit card offers so the destitute won’t falsify information from my recycling bin. I’ve heard about paying for some environmental services that will stop the junk mail.

BUT, why is this something that I have to do something about? The ones who are taking the good oxygen producing plants and turning it into junk and sending it to me are the creators of this problem. They are the ones who need to do something about it.

Anyone know about starting legislation to stop this crap?

Today I get an offer from Bank of America…

“Some day, one day – today is the day. Write a check for cash.” I should state that I have a credit card with them and I haven’t used up all my credit yet. Anyway, here’s the rest of their copy.

“Your friends and family believe in you and so do we. Use the attached access checks as an additional way to optimize the financial flexibility of your [fancy credit card] account.”

Wow, BofA believes in me. I guess they’ve been talking to my friends and family, too. Clearly it’s BS. Not only is it BS, but it’s unconscionable. BofA is trying to make me feel some kind of a positive emotional response about people I care for in order to spend money that they’ll lend me. It’s clearly in their best interest (and I also mean in terms of compounding interest against me). Do they think I’m stupid? Yes, they do.

This kind of crappy psychological marketing copy is way too prevalent in our culture. It’s so prevalent that we accept it as common place. I think it’s a lack of thinking on the part of our culture over all. Are there others out there who think and want culture that is thinking, too?

Thought is welcome.