How to Make Money: An Absurd Look at Capitalism

Look, we all got to make money and capitalism is perfect for that. If you have a certain skill or ability it can surely be exploited to make a profit and if that doesn’t float your boat you can always get any, old random job. But not everyone is dedicated to the “honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay” or believe that a conventional career is necessary to provide for themselves. What happens when people reject the norms and decide to make money the good ol’ fashioned sleazy way?

1) Virtual Farming

Virtual farming is a fancy way of saying “I play videogames for a living” which, for the record, is not a bad thing. If making money slaying virtual monsters was an option for me I’d be all over it. My girlfriend would lose her mind, but I’d find the time in between pauses to help her find it if it meant playing games for a living.

But then again, virtual farming isn’t just simply video games, which is why I chose college instead. It’s the mind numbing practice of gathering in-game resources to sell to other players who are too lazy or find it too inconvenient to do it themselves. So basically, it’s like a sweatshop for gamers. Seriously, these people are at it for 16 hours a day to keep up with demand.





Why It’s Bad:

Every heard of micro-transactions? What about pay-to-win games? Well both of these awful gaming trends are due to the success of the virtual farmers. These folks showed video game developers just how much gamers were willing to invest in their product. Every phone app, console game, etc gives players the option of buying advantages in-game, drastically increasing the amount of revenue gaming companies make, as well as the amount gamers spend on games themselves.

2) Professional Mourner

Yep, it is exactly what it sounds like. People who are paid to look sad. So, no worries for your grumpy, jerk of an uncle, Jim Bob, being alone when he kicks the bucket. You can just pay a someone to replace you at the funeral, who would do a much better job of looking depressed than you ever would. Unless of course you really are sad, then in that case I’d suggest you save your money.





Why It’s Bad:

Honestly, I’m not really sure that it is. More than likely these people are hired with the good intentions of making your recently deceased family member seem greater, or more missed, than they really are. I would assume, though, that it takes a special kind of person to pull this off and I would not want to be present if one of these “mourners” were busted. In fact, if you get a chance, google some stories about professional mourning. Some of the tales are downright hilarious and some others well...probably more tragic than funny.

3) 9/11/2001

Nothing in my life has been posterized to the point of nausea like the tragedies on September 11th. Now, I say this knowing that the day itself should be remembered forever, akin to Pearl Harbor, but the absolutely disgusting ways people tried to generate profit from this is well...disgusting. Let’s see, first we got the 9/11 wine, then of course let’s not forget the 9/11 quilt. After that we should head to the local Gamestop and pick up the 9/11 simulator (note to reader, Gamestop never sold such a game, BUT such a game existed). Once we get our thrills simulating human tragedy we should invest in some silver commemorative coins! Because what’s thousand of dead loved ones if we can’t mint special coins!!!





Why It’s Bad:

Because you shouldn’t make money off people’s suffering? Because you shouldn’t make people feel un-American because they won’t buy your stupid crap. Because people that do crap like this are awful. Most importantly, it makes people more nationalistic than what is necessary. Love America, by all means, it is a great place to live. But the outcome of shoving so many American products down our throats results in us coming up with such innovative ideas as building a wall on our borders, or restricting immigration of Muslims.

4) YouTube

I am a self admitted YouTube addict. I typically watch at least one hour of videos a day ranging from political commentaries, to video game “let’s play” videos just to pass the time. The fact that it is free is even better. The fact that it is home to some of the most hilarious content you can find makes it even, MORE, better. YouTube, however, is changing for the worst. Now offering a paid for ad-free version as well as housing thousands of hours of pirated content, YouTube finds itself in the precarious position of losing it’s identity.




Why It’s Bad:

Well for starters everyone has access to watch, as well as to upload videos on the site. This was fine when the videos were limited to funny cat videos, or street fights caught on tape. Now, YouTube is home to thousands of wanna-be experts who have an open forum to spill their ignorance all over your living room. Everyone on the Tube now has an opinion that the sky is falling, or the government caused 9/11, or that blood sacrifices of celebrities happen on a daily basis. This leads to people thinking they are a master of a subject because they listened to some other ignorant person on the Tube. Not to mention that there is nothing in the YouTube code of conduct that prohibits uploaders with giving their videos misleading, or outright lies, for titles. Which of course leads to more clicks, more ads, and more money generated for the uploader. On top of that the more views something has the more likely someone will take it as objective fact, as opposed to subjective opinion, which leads to more people with idiotic ideas running around vomiting nonsense all over everyone.