It may be time to rethink magazines (a glossy, photo intensive journalistic attempt at celebrity and news distribution before long before google was a glint in the internet’s eye) as a school fundraiser being that it is, um, no one is buying magazines except the podiatrist, and other select medical specialists, and even judging from their waiting room, it seems they’re just recycling Reader’s Digests from the back of their grandparents toilets.
Magazines: I’m talking old school, with paper pages bound with glue and filled with smelly perfumed blow-in cards. The old stuff, not present day podcasts or apps or videos or snapchats. When people flipped pages for gossip, and had to wait at the mailbox to find out what we thought about um, well, thinking.
You remember, right? Where old timers way back when used to get celebrity gossip, recipes, what-not-to-wear, how-to tips, advice, and investigative reports way back before Google and Facebook?
Such relics have been spotted at walk-in clinic, dog-eared, ragged, and covered with snot germs to be sure. But other than docs, garages, and hair salons, magazines, you’ve got to admit, are pretty much dinosaurs.
Our school magazine drive starts with a propaganda filled pep-rally during school hours that would make North Korea jealous.
This frenzy-filled auditorium sets the tone for kids to sell-sell-sell, or at least snag the parents Christmas card list to provide an authentic database of real, live consuming people so the publishing conglomerate, desperate for a viable chance of surviving new media, has real people to market to, and real names to sell. Kids become addicted to the remote possibility at the BIG BIG BIG PRIZE, or at least the crappy Oriental Trading Company promo offered to the loser that sells nothing, because their parents too wise to be sucked into the scam.
So let’s get this straight: we fund educational trips by exploiting kids to steal names for dwindling publishing giants to re-sell to others who then market unsolicited crappola to active households. Nice. (Don’t believe me? Sign up a fictitious name and watch the mail roll in. Honey Bear gets more junk mail at our house than everybody else – combined.)
What’s next? Fat kids selling buckets of cookie dough to fat relatives with diabetes and heart conditions?
How ’bout all that talk about exercise, diet, and healthy living? Well, I guess those buckets are heavy, and where I live, the driveways long. That counts for some physical activity, right? Before we eat it raw right out of the freezer.
So does this mean I’ll be getting hit up for magazine purchases?
Bite your tongue! I hate them too but I’m not gonna lie I love a good magazine!
This post made my side hurt, I’m laughing so hard. I too dislike the magazine drives and the pep rally like atmosphere that they push on our children during school hours to get them to hawk this crap…but the cookie dough comments really got me as this is our biggest school fundraiser and people LOVE that stuff. Keep em coming, Kate!
I was almost literally rolling on the floor laughing so hard my sides split open…..I’m only grateful that my kids are old enough to be beyond the magazine sales and wrapping paper pushing that I lived for so many years…..Having 4 kids in school, I am also well aware that the schools DO NOT take into account just how many of the household’s little darlings are going to be bringing home the same crap, and vying for the same crappy prize….the real hell is on the parents- who feel an inane obligation to cooperate….especially when card-carrying members of the PTSA!!! Great one Kate….keep it up~~
We’d had enough of it and put an end to the crazy selling. No more. Done. Raised our money with a walkathon this year. Kids loved it, they were active, they had a blast. Parents loved it – no calling in favors, dragging forms to work or hitting up the neighbors. Try it – what a relief! Raised plenty of money with very little effort.
Do the schools really make any decent money from these fundraisers anyway? I would rather give the PTO a $30 donation check and not have to pimp friends and relatives to purchase useless crap.
I hear ya. It’s guilt by association. Neighbors, friends, families squeezed to show their love. Eww.
My youngest found another upside to divorce. He sent the magazine promo’s to his brothers at both houses! Not to shabby. This venture of lemonaide out of lemons net Michael one “Fancy Light Glass” That has remained in the same spot on the counter collecting dust since the day he brought it home. Now I don’t have to buy anything for the gag grab bag this year. On a more serious note, why don’t the voices of reason prevail????