Mark Rober's Prank And The Truth About Scammers And Capitalism

You've probably seen Mark Rober's wildly popular video where he pranks scam call centers. As satisfying as it is to see these awful places get a small taste of their own medicine, there's something deeper we need to talk about. Scam call centers are just one cancerous offshoot of bureaucracy under capitalism, and while pranking these places may be cathartic, it's not enough to tackle the root cause.

Mark Rober's Prank And The Truth About Scammers And Capitalism – Second Thought

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Citations and Further Reading:
Mark Rober’s original video

Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

Milton Friedman clip and article

Jacobin article

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[redgreen]

I had a friend once who worked at a call center and she once described her job as “being the middle man so that corporate doesn’t have to help customers and customers have someone to yell at that they’re not getting helped” that really opened my eyes to how exhausting it must be to work that kind of job

[CheeseWithMold]

I will never forget the first time I got scammed. Dude promised me he would double my money. I'll never see that full rune armor ever again...

[Noah_AWICB]

Anyone who's ever worked in a call centre can tell you how obsessed with statistics they are. TLs regurgitating numbers at you, the judging eyes on each second of personal time.

[lexa_power]

I used to do telemarketing during one sad summer in college. I can promise you that everyone there is desperate - my co workers were all either straight out of prison or sex work or didn’t have papers (undocumented) and needed a cash under the table job that didn’t ask questions.

There’s a supervisor that hovers around your desks all day and listens to your end of the calls.

Whenever you start saying something like, “I’m sorry” or “I’m just reading off a script, ” they make you hang up the phone and give you a lecture about staying on the script. If you do this more than a few times, you’re fired. If you don’t make enough sales, you’re fired. And when you’re making minimum wage (and disabled and unable to drive in an area with low access to public transit that isn’t near many jobs before work from home was a thing) that $25 bonus for talking an elderly person into buying whatever you’re selling can literally be the difference between eating one day and going without food the next.

Most people on the other end of the phone are genuinely down on their luck, can’t find another job, aren’t trying to scam you, and REALLY need the money. I didn’t meet anyone doing it that had any other option, and I put in my notice literally the day I found a better job. I don’t have a criminal record though and have citizenship papers - before cursing out a telemarketer, try to imagine what job hunting would be like with a felony or without a social security number and put yourself in their shoes. It’s okay to just hang up, but if you can listen to the little speech & wish them a good day, trust me - it really does make the work a tiny bit less awful. But please don’t be cruel to these people - our boss will already criticize us when we hang up with you for not making the sale and it costs nothing to be kind.

[Jimi_Lee]

Corporations are perfectly bureaucratic by themselves, with or without government participation. It's part of any big scam, because rationalizing a system that favors some over others as fair takes a pretty elaborate setup.

[thecountalucard]

I’m reminded of the David Graeber book where he shares a frankly infuriating tale about trying to jump through hoops to help his disabled mother, only to be strung along until she literally died.

[X_TheHuntsman_X]

I think it's important to also know that you can't escape some bureaucracy. Some of it makes our world a safer place. For example, quality and safety engineering roles. Those literally developed out of multiple deaths and maimings of humans to make workplaces and products safer. They add extra bureaucracy to the engineering process, but they've also saved countless lives. It gets a bad reputation because if you are doing it right, nothing happens, so it leads to people asking why we need it. Other forms of bureaucracy exist soley to make things more difficult for people seeking benefits or assistance, but we should be careful to distinguish the two forms.

[cyberingcatgirls]

I have witnessed this obsession with measuring firsthand. In all my previous jobs we had projects and deadlines and as long as we got them done on time everything was alright. My last two jobs, however, both used "time tracking" software and required us to log everything we did and what we worked on down to the minute. It's one of the reasons worker productivity has continued to increase even though pay has not. It's ridiculous.

[JorgeHernandez-ohxv]

I don't like Milton Friedman because he said "immigration is only good when is illegal, that way you don't have to give them rights to those workers''. and people love him in his time and accept it like if it was ok.

[judgekonnan]

What they called bureaucracy, is regulation. Credit, banking, stock, bonds, private education, borders. They are all plagued with bureaucracy whether private or public. Those in position to exploit anything, just don't want regulations.

[jacobedward]

"Human lightning rods" is the perfect way to describe call center workers

[chromso]

feels like the video production quality got wayyy better in the past couple months especially, great vids

[gireeshgprasad]

I wish JT had talked about the 'chilling effect' of capitalist bureaucracy, which I'd argue is worse than government bureaucracy due to the underlying profit motive of capitalist bureaucracy. Certain medical procedures in the US, for instance require pre-authorization from the insurer, and the doctor has to thread the needle through a specific set of tests and procedures in a specific order before asking for pre-authorization for a costlier procedure (such as an MRI). This takes time - a few weeks or months sometimes, and its not uncommon for the patient's condition to have deteriorated further despite the doctor having known exactly what the patient needed weeks ago. And yes, some patients pass away before the procedure, which -pardon the morbidity - is more profitable for the insurer.

[Lincoln_Bio]

Under neoliberal capitalism the line between legitimate business and scam is exceedingly blurry

[justaname]

I work for a credit card disputes dept and I have definitely been thinking this same thing for a while. Shit's fucked up

[ericbray]

The paperwork hurdle for getting into public housing is just staggering; I just gave up on it and scrounge around for the lowest rent I can find or shared housing. At one point Milton Friedman proposed abolishing all welfare systems and instituting a basic income of around 10, 000 per year, given out as direct cash payments, mostly as a way to avoid the bureaucracy in the social services sectors, this was in the 1070's. Today that idea would be considered a far left pipe dream.

[losernemesis]

There are only a handful of lines more meta, clever, and genius than “This guy hated bureaucracy like I hate coming up with an analogy.”

[Mogswamp]

Heads up, this video was a bit quiet for me! Love the work man, keep it up.

[shenzhong]

your deadpan style of humor is so great and makes the video engaging and fun. keep up the fantastic work!