"Mad at the Internet" - a/k/a My Psychotherapy Sessions

Watching MATI saw your mention of Invader Zim, have you ever seen the author’s earlier comic, Johnny The Homicidal Manic?

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Daily reminder that you don't hate ISPs enough

Column: Renew your service or we'll trash your credit score, Spectrum tells ex-custome​


Steve Schklair wonders why he's being muscled by cable giant Spectrum.
"It's been years since I've even been a subscriber," he told me.
Nevertheless, the Altadena resident received a strange letter from Spectrum saying that, "as a one-time courtesy," the company will cancel debt it claims he owes and stop reporting him as a deadbeat to credit agencies — if he agrees to resume cable service.
"A well-established credit history will more likely allow you to qualify for lower mortgage rates, better chances for obtaining credit cards and approvals for home rentals," the letter says, suggesting that Schklair's finances could be in serious trouble unless he returns to the Spectrum fold.
"You have worked hard to build a great future for yourself and your family," it says. "We look forward to welcoming you back."
Maybe it's just me, but that has a Sopranos-like ring of "You've made a nice life for yourself. Be a shame if something happened to it."
A Spectrum spokesperson confirmed the letter's authenticity and called it "an opportunity to reconnect" with the cable company. Spectrum partners with the Los Angeles Times on a nightly TV show.
All subscription-based businesses work hard to retain and renew customer relationships. It's common for such businesses to entice former subscribers to return with discounts and sweetheart deals.
I've never before seen a pitch that so blatantly threatens harm unless you come around.
The Spectrum letter tells Schklair that, despite his alleged fiscal irresponsibility, resuming cable service will allow him "to come back in good standing as a new customer."
"And when you become a customer," it says, "we will both remove your debt and cease reporting it to any credit bureau."
Like me, Schklair took that as a not-so-veiled warning that the company will make things rough for him unless he plays ball.
"It seems like corporate blackmail," he said. "The letter is filled with real and implied threats."
I asked if he owes Spectrum any money.
"No," Schklair replied. "It's been years since I was their customer, and they've never said anything about my not paying any bills."
No notices of missed payments?
"No."
No warnings about adverse reports to credit agencies?
"No, nothing like that."
Yet Spectrum's letter explicitly says that if he resumes cable service, the company will "cease reporting" Schklair's "prior debt" to credit agencies. That wording implies Spectrum has already submitted such reports.
Any negative report on your credit file can lower your credit score, making it harder to borrow money at reasonable interest rates or perform financial activities such as refinancing a mortgage.
"To take advantage of this special debt removal offer," Spectrum's letter says, "all you have to do is purchase a Spectrum TV, internet and/or voice product."
It specifically encourages him to sign up for internet service at an introductory rate of $49.99 a month for the first 12 months. After that, the price jumps to $74.99 monthly — a 50% increase.
At my request, Schklair checked his credit file. He said the only financial misstep shown was a tardy credit card payment in January 2020, when he was out of the country.
"There is no negative hit from Spectrum," he said.
This suggests the company hasn't actually reported his purportedly unpaid bills. And if that's the case, it would make Spectrum's letter not just threatening but also misleading. Maybe "dishonest" is a better word.
Schklair said he made two calls to Spectrum to see what was happening. Both service reps, he said, found no outstanding obligations.
I shared all this with Spectrum and requested some clarification. Dennis Johnson, a spokesperson for the company, declined to discuss details of Schklair's situation.
He said letters like the one Schklair received are sent to numerous former customers who may have billing issues. The letters are intended to help indebted people find their way back into the financial light, he said.
"The offer eliminates their past-due balance and stops reporting of that debt to any credit bureau — both good things for the consumer — and, yes, invites them to reconnect with Spectrum internet at a promotional price," Johnson said.
Giving the company the benefit of the doubt, it's laudable for Spectrum to be willing to forgo outstanding debt and to help people maintain good credit.
But I've read the letter to Schklair multiple times, and I'm still wondering why Spectrum's supposedly good intentions are expressed in such an aggressively tough-love fashion.
Here's the key line again: "And when you become a customer, we will both remove your debt and cease reporting it to any credit bureau."
Which is to say, if you don't return as a Spectrum customer, the company will go after, or keep going after, your credit score.
That's not a promotional offer. It's a shakedown.
Even if Schklair does owe Spectrum some cash, there have to be more palatable ways of dealing with it than threatening fiscal harm unless he commits to giving the company money on a regular basis.
The average cable bill is $116 a month.
I asked Schklair how he felt about Spectrum's response to my inquiries.
"They threatened to destroy my credit," he replied. "That's sleazy."
Maybe Spectrum just figured it was an offer he couldn't refuse.
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OutlineCuck said:
Turkey tom claiming it's perfectly normal to cheat, that he cheated and that everyone cheats.
Getting railed in the chat for it.

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No it's not. How the hell are people these days unable to put their foot down and just say "no" in a relationship? That stat throw out feels weak, like cheating counting as some weird thing like "emotionally cheating" or "flirting is cheating" or "watching porn" whatever nonsense people feel like counts as cheating. He covers it up as "it's just being an adult" but man, have a spine. As for him cheating, just don't throw it around casually, you betrayed your partner's trust. Shouldn't be so flippant about such a thing because what's your current partner thinking when she sees that?
 
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reptile baht spaniard rid said:
The fuck are Blue Jews? Is this like the rare deepwater mountain jew?
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If I am not mistaken, it is in reference to a meme that went around on telegram a few years ago, I don't know if it was ever an imageboard meme, but it was obscure at the time and was never hugely popular, at least what I was aware of anyways. Blue and jew rhyme, so they would post images of groups of people and also individuals, where all the jews in the image would be tinted blue, "blueish", and shabbos goys would have something similar. There might be some deeper racist meaning some sage of racism could pull out of it, but that's it as far as I know.

Example that I made because I couldn't find a real example:
blueish.jpg

Shabbos goy, jew cocksucker (left), Jew (right).

I'm surprised card is managing to dig up such obscure and esoteric treasures of culture. He might have some kind of ex-based reformed accomplice of some kind who is helping him.

I love israel and the jews please don't detonate the plastic explosives embedded into my electronics.
 
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Concentrate Juice said:
If I am not mistaken, it is in reference to a meme that went around on telegram a few years ago, I don't know if it was ever an imageboard meme, but it was obscure at the time and was never hugely popular, at least what I was aware of anyways. Blue and jew rhyme, so they would post images of groups of people and also individuals, where all the jews in the image would be tinted blue, "blueish", and shabbos goys would have something similar. There might be some deeper racist meaning some sage of racism could pull out of it, but that's it as far as I know.

Example that I made because I couldn't find a real example:
View attachment 6441027
Shabbos goy, jew cocksucker (left), Jew (right).

I'm surprised card is managing to dig up such obscure and esoteric treasures of culture. He might have some kind of ex-based reformed accomplice of some kind who is helping him.

I love israel and the jews please don't detonate the plastic explosives embedded into my electronics.
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The octopus is usually blue:
blue.octi.pngocti.album.jpgocti.kawaii.globe.jpgseppla.octi.jpgocti.banker.jpgocti.ascii.jpgocti.grimace.jpgocti.kawaii.jpgai.jew.pets.jpgimage_2024-09-21_191620266.png
 
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HYPERSKITZO said:
Nublybros... it was gay tools all along... [A]

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tools.png
The "Lesbian tools" episode is one that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. A week after it was posted back in 2024, I wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and die.
  Lesbians, as some Jolly Biscuit readers know, are a favourite subject of mine. I've always found them to be the quintessentially absurd individual for situations even more absurd. Even the name "lesbian", to me, is intrinsically funny.
  And so one day I started thinking back on an gender studies course I had in college and how we learned that man used to be defined as "the only gender that made and shaped sex toys". Unfortunately, researchers discovered that certain females and even some trans individuals did the same thing—so the definition had to be extended somewhat to avoid awkward situations such as someone hiring a crew of software developers to make dildos based on mythological creatures.
  Inevitably, I began thinking about lesbians, and what if they, too, were discovered as sex-toy makers. What would they make? Improvised sex tools are always, well, improvised-looking—appearing as everyday household items to the lay person. So, it seemed to me, whatever a lesbian would make would have to be even a couple notches further down the "purpose-o-meter".
  I imagined, and subsequently drew, a recently outed lesbian standing next to his magically transformed partner (now another lesbian) proudly talking about her improvised workmanship (workwomanship?). The "rubber bands" were supposed to be just funny/improbable items to use as a sex toy—only the lesbian or a lesbianthropologist is supposed to know how they are used, leaving the rest up to the reader's imagination.
  The first mistake I made was in thinking this was funny. The second was choosing a magical spell that turned people into lesbians over TV airwaves as a plot point—which made already confused people decide that their only hope of understanding the cartoon meant deciphering how the mechanics of the Chinese lesbian curse worked as well. Of course, they didn't have a chance in hell.
  But, for the first time, "Lesbian tools" awakened me to the fact that my hobby was not just an isolated exercise in the corner of my Facebook page. The day after it's release, my X began to tweet with inquiries from shitposters and podcast enjoyers from regions of the Internet where Jolly biscuit was being shat upon. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to know what in the world this cartoon meant! My Tumblr was equally bombarded, and I was ultimately asked to reply to a tweet explaining "Lesbian tools". Someone sent me a link to a podcast which, down in one corner had a tie-wearing hamster asking Grok AI "Lesbian Tools: What is grandma doing with the rubber bands?". I was mortified.
  In the first eleven or twelve years of drawing Jolly Biscuit, I always believed my online career perpetually hung by a thread. And this time I was convinced it had been finally severed. Ironically, when the dust had finally settled and a result of all the "noise" it made, "Lesbian tools" became more of a boost to Jolly Biscuit than anything else.
  So, in summary, I drew a really weird, disgusting cartoon that no one understood and wasn't funny and therefore I went on to even greater failure and indifference.
  Yeah - I like this country (Canada).
    — Jolly biscuit (@MrNubly)
 
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