Got an e-mail the other day that Joel Johnson is getting back in the ‘blog with Gawker’s Consumerist. This makes me very happy.
I love to buy things, because things make me happy. I hate to buy things, because the entire process of shopping has been twisted to make shoppers beholden to companies. Companies both large and small who have been taught that customers do not matter. Worse, they’ve been taught this horrible lesson by those of us who shop. We have accepted that to be screwed over by business is an inescapable function of the transaction.
That’s so ass.
Tomorrow we’re launching The Consumerist to make American companies come correct. It’s okay today for you to take a look around.
Why, if we can help even one person get a better deal on a pair of sneakers or — I told myself I wasn’t going to cry — be treated like a human being by their phone company, then our work will not have been in vain. That’s how they lured me back to my doom: Gawker is going to pay me to be cranky about the same things I would already be kvetching about.
We’ll terrorize unsuspecting customer service agents just to see if they’ve got what it takes to deal with nutbag customers: http://consumerist.com/consumer/stress-test/consumerists-csr-stress-test-aol-dialup-service-139578.php
We’ll help point out the kvetching of shoppers across the web: http://consumerist.com/consumer/complaints/nyquil-minus-pseudoephedrine-now-pseudoeffective-140247.php
We’ll point out the failings of special interest groups who want you to modify your buying habits: http://consumerist.com/consumer/suck/the-suck-site-review-milksuckscom-136152.php
And we’ll point out the best deals every day, including tricks to make your shopping more effective: http://consumerist.com/consumer/deals/morning-deals-round-up-141220.php
It will be fruitless and capitalism won’t even notice we exist, but hey! Hot deals.
So tell us your problems, internet. Been screwed over by an online retailer? Been insulted by the intelligence of your phone company’s ‘technical support?’ Accidentally gotten cancer? The Consumerist is here to help. We will, you know, help you complain about it. The Consumerist wants to hear your stories of woe so that we can make sure that others hear them, as well. Try tips@consumerist.com or, if you’re an IMy sort, ‘ConsumeristPrime’ on AIM.
And some of you might ask, have I read this Consumerist fellow before? (Thanks, Ma.)
Working for the Gawker machine is a horror one should escape as soon as humanly possible, before its gaping, insatiable snark-spraying carburetor has rendered all decency and hope from a writer’s coughed-up walnut of a soul. Which is to say, I’m back. I hope you can give me some space to cherish these last, sweet hours with my liver and lungs.
Joel Johnson
Editor, The Consumerist
