{"id":1400,"date":"2008-11-03T07:23:55","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T14:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2008-11-03T07:23:55","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T14:23:55","slug":"grok-the-vote-voting-with-your-dollarseyeballsass-cheeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1400","title":{"rendered":"Grok The Vote: Voting With Your Dollars\/Eyeballs\/Ass Cheeks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That&#8217;s always the popular nerd refrain, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Vote with your dollars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/vote.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/vote.gif\" alt=\"\" title=\"vote\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1402\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Can&#8217;t stand the direction of the modern-day DCU? Vote with your dollars. Sick of mediocre genre TV shows on the major networks? Vote with your eyeballs. Hate George Lucas? Vote with your ass cheeks.<\/p>\n<p>(And by that, yes, I actually DO mean take a steaming dump on his front doorstep.)<\/p>\n<p>Naw, y&#8217;all, but seriously. The idea of &#8220;voting with my dollars&#8221; has always mildly fascinated me, because it makes perfect sense, and yet it ALMOST NEVER WORKS.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously. Can you think of one single occasion where not purchasing something, or watching something, or buying a ticket to sit in a movie theater seat for something, has had any impact on that said something whatsoever?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a few brief examples of me voting with MY dollars.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/bloodwynd3-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/bloodwynd3-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"bloodwynd3-1\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1404\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>1992<\/strong>. The brilliant Giffen\/DeMatteis team on Justice League retires after the &#8220;Breakdowns&#8221; storyline. On deck to replace them is Dan Jurgens. Although I inexplicably did enjoy some of the Jurgens run (see my article in <a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/grok_summer08.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Grok issue 2<\/a>, &#8220;I Was a Teenage Letterhack&#8221;), eventually I come to my senses and stop buying the title.<br \/>\n<strong>The Result:<\/strong> This incarnation of the League&#8217;s adventures limps along until issue 113, well past Jurgens&#8217; departure. Bloodwynd is Martian Manhunter. (oh shit SPOILER y&#8217;all)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/stv_drone2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/stv_drone2.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"stv_drone2\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1405\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>1995.<\/strong> Curious about a third Star Trek series hitting the airwaves, I check out the premiere episode of Voyager. It slightly piques my interest. I stay with the show for maybe a couple episodes before walking away in disappointment.<br \/>\n<strong>The Result:<\/strong> The rotting corpse of the Star Trek zombie is bled dry by Rick Berman and finally gives up the ghost with the end of Enterprise, TEN FUCKING YEARS LATER. J.J. Abrams is brought in to resuscitate the dead with a &#8220;reboot.&#8221; I think it has something to do with Swan Station.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/ep2plokoon.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/ep2plokoon.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"ep2plokoon\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1406\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>2002.<\/strong> I am disgusted by Episode I. I remain hopeful. Episode II does not wow me, but I enter a delusional state of Star Wars fandom in which I find it appropriate to spend hundreds of dollars on Star Wars toys when I have no full-time job or regular income to speak of. I go broke.<br \/>\n<strong>The Result:<\/strong> Star Wars films, television series, video games, toys, and sexual aids continue to be produced. George Lucas makes enough money off me to put his daughter Tygar through kickboxing school. At age 32, I&#8217;m <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1342\" target=\"_blank\">still watching this shit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So am I using separate but unequal dollars with which to vote? I don&#8217;t think so, although there was that period in the late nineties when I experimented with counterfeiting using my dot matrix printer.<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s just that &#8220;voting with your dollars&#8221; has nothing to do with making your opinions known to anyone but yourself and the tiny sect of fellow weirdos you run with online and IRL (LOL). It&#8217;s not so much that you&#8217;re voting as that you&#8217;re&#8230;um&#8230;deciding. Yeah. That&#8217;s it. You&#8217;re the DECIDER.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/sikoryak_decider.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/sikoryak_decider.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"sikoryak_decider\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1401\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You keep on DECIDIN&#8217; there, nerds, and I will too! Let&#8217;s just not pretend it means much of anything&#8230;you know, like a ballot cast in Florida in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That&#8217;s always the popular nerd refrain, isn&#8217;t it? &#8220;Vote with your dollars.&#8221; Can&#8217;t stand the direction of the modern-day DCU? Vote with your dollars. Sick of mediocre genre TV shows on the major networks? Vote with your eyeballs. Hate George Lucas? Vote with your ass cheeks. (And by that, yes, I actually DO mean take [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}