Spot The Difference
Here's a series of recent tweets from excellent pop-sci writer and academic ninja Ben Goldacre, on those infuriating "charity muggers" who stop you in the street and ask you to set up a direct debit to a charity, of which their company gets a cut:
charity muggers mean your experience of walking down the street is defined by having to say "no" all the time. this is really corrosive.
also, when i'm walking down the street, i'm thinking, and it's really important time to me. someone is paid to ruin it, for a margin.
RT @Natt: Realised the other day that I had developed a semi-permanent street-scowl to discourage them. And to put me in a bad mood.
how can this be healthy for a community? not sort of thing you'd make illegal, but massive, collective censure, surely?
okay, i want an idea for collective action, that any individual approached can use, to eradicate charity mugging. t-shirt+glory to best.
RT @WHOMcD: Eckhart saw this coming. Forced facial expressions drive mood. Charities may be materially increasing the crime rate!
OK: you're minding your own business, and someone interrupts your train of thought, impinges on your time, asks you intrusive questions, persists when you say no politely and gets tetchy when you say no directly. Remind you of anything?
The difference between this and the kind of street harassment women put up with all. the. fucking. time. is that chuggers aren't actually frightening and probably won't outright swear or spit at you or try to follow you home. And I'm none-too-foxy, but I still get catcalled more often than I get approached by a chugger.
Ben's started a #chuggerstop tag. It has a few people defending chuggers by saying they raise a lot for charidee. Strangely, however, there's been no "can't you just take three seconds to be polite" and no "they think you look wealthy and generous, so you should be flattered!" and no "just ignore it" and no "well you should expect that to happen if you go to the shopping centre at that time of day" and certainly no "don't get so angry, haven't you anything important to worry about?"
I can't think of a witty closing sentence, so I'll just beat my head against this handy wall.
THUNK.
THONK.
THOP.
charity muggers mean your experience of walking down the street is defined by having to say "no" all the time. this is really corrosive.
also, when i'm walking down the street, i'm thinking, and it's really important time to me. someone is paid to ruin it, for a margin.
RT @Natt: Realised the other day that I had developed a semi-permanent street-scowl to discourage them. And to put me in a bad mood.
how can this be healthy for a community? not sort of thing you'd make illegal, but massive, collective censure, surely?
okay, i want an idea for collective action, that any individual approached can use, to eradicate charity mugging. t-shirt+glory to best.
RT @WHOMcD: Eckhart saw this coming. Forced facial expressions drive mood. Charities may be materially increasing the crime rate!
OK: you're minding your own business, and someone interrupts your train of thought, impinges on your time, asks you intrusive questions, persists when you say no politely and gets tetchy when you say no directly. Remind you of anything?
The difference between this and the kind of street harassment women put up with all. the. fucking. time. is that chuggers aren't actually frightening and probably won't outright swear or spit at you or try to follow you home. And I'm none-too-foxy, but I still get catcalled more often than I get approached by a chugger.
Ben's started a #chuggerstop tag. It has a few people defending chuggers by saying they raise a lot for charidee. Strangely, however, there's been no "can't you just take three seconds to be polite" and no "they think you look wealthy and generous, so you should be flattered!" and no "just ignore it" and no "well you should expect that to happen if you go to the shopping centre at that time of day" and certainly no "don't get so angry, haven't you anything important to worry about?"
I can't think of a witty closing sentence, so I'll just beat my head against this handy wall.
THUNK.
THONK.
THOP.
Labels: Blaming
posted by MissPrism at 11:45 am
8 Comments:
Oh my God, this. I especially love Goldacre's rumination on why being repeatedly interrupted in the street when he's trying to walk/think/do his own thing is disruptive and annoying and damaging to his quality of life -- which is a totally legitimate point, it's just amusing that the idea seems so totally novel to him.
http://www.thatsfuckingstupid.com/index.php/2009/08/bengoldacre-and-chuggerstop/
Daily Mail headline reads:
Ben Goldacre in 'disappearing up his own ass' shocker.
It's just got worse. This morning, one of 'em came to my front door, rang the doorbell, waited until I opened the door and started his spiel. This is irritating on the same scale as the monkeys who ring me up trying to sell me fitted kitchens.
You forgot: "You can't blame for their natural behaviour, it's expressed in their genes on the charity-chromosome."
This is a fantastic post. I don't know why it hasn't attracted more comments--maybe nothing to add?
Well, I found "Fuck off & die" was an effective answer to the "Hello, darling" types, but for charity muggers refusing to acknowledge their existence is probably even better. More depressing to them, if you will.
Your writing style is very witty and I am really enjoying your blog!
Oh, very very nice.
I loathe chuggers, and that is exactly the reason why they drive me insane. Harassment is harassment; it's only a matter of degree.
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