Blockbuster Endorses Human Stupidity

I have a degree in business. To which you deservedly ask, "But Jason, in today's new world order where the United States is no longer the major world power, and cannot even keep their hegemony in their own sphere of influence anymore due to the boldness of defiant, unchecked dictatorships and the current economic downturn spewing forth numbers not seen since the depression, why on earth would you major in business?" To which I reply, "Because it allows me to awesomely analyze the current state of Blockbuster."

There is a little known myth in business that has been wrongly believed by higher-ups and strongly adopted by customers since retail sprung forth from the primordial soup of the manufacturing age: "The customer is always right." This is not true for an abundance of reasons. Customers are in fact stupid, and they have a nasty habit of making their demands unreasonable. They are also very quick to both speech and anger. The reality is that the customer needs to be told what to buy, and they don't need to have any type of decision in the matter. Henry Ford, the Father of Mass Production, in reference to the Model T was famously quoted as saying, "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

So where does this put Blockbuster, and their numerous contributions to fueling myths and, subsequently, consumer stupidity? At the forefront of course!

First, Blockbuster loves cheap labor. They want to get by with paying some high school or college kid hopped-up on celebrity sized cans of filth minimum wage. There are now countless, mindless drones behind the counter recommending Spider-Man 3, Transformers, and Heaven forbid, Indiana Jones and the Curse of George Lucas Saga Additions to the masses.

Second, many of the Blockbuster franchises are coddling their customers. With the new "You Asked For It, We Got It" feature in many stores, customers can now share all their bad tastes with others on a designated wall designed just for them. In many Blockbusters, these walls double in size every time I see them!

And Lastly, Blockbuster promotes from within. Now, while this is not necessarily a bad thing in the business world, it is an awful strategy for a business whose model is already very flawed. College kids grow up, gain access to more useless celeb knowledge, watch even more crappy straight-to-dvd releases and then become assistant mangers and managers of Blockbuster stores around the country.

The bottom line is this: Blockbuster stores are full of people, both behind the counter and not, who know nothing about movies. All those people then talk about their lack of knowledge to others, and we now have millions of people, who shouldn't even be allowed to reproduce, talking about the great art of film making. Sure, you can make the argument that it is ultimately Hollywood's fault for their recent stream of unending diarrhea they produce (20th Century Fox), but the war has to start somewhere. And the first battles need to start at the front lines inside our local video rental stores.