Published Aug 26, 2003
In yet further evidence that our civilization is in collapse and that we shall all soon be reduced to finding our dinner by hunting small prey with stone axes (that is, we will have the stone axes, not the small prey), Save Karyn has gotten a freaking movie deal.
Not familiar with Save Karyn, are you? Well, the lovely Ms. Karyn Bosnak was dutifully applying herself to her employment in sunny New York when she was blindsided by totally unexpected Consumer Debt. Poor Karyn! Suddenly she had thousands and thousands — specifically, twenty thousands — of dollars in debt for things like shoes and handbags and all of the things that Carrie buys on Sex In The City. And our fair Karyn barely did anything to deserve all this debt, except for maybe buying the items in question.
So, beset by the minions of Visa and Mastercard and probably even Discover, greedily demanding principal and interest and late fees, Karyn hatched a clever plan:
She would ask 20,000 people for just $1 each, via the internet.
And so Save Karyn was born. And lo and behold, our heroine’s evil debt disappeared in less than a year — all without doing any work (or even, may I say, learning how to properly code a Web site). Wasn’t Karyn clever?
At least that’s how she spins it (and you do have to respect her skill with the spin). See, to me it looks different. I know tons of people who made the big bucks in the dot-com era, and then had their incomes collapse when the economy went south (me, for one). And every one of these people made the right choice: they tightened their belts, they looked new places for income, they invested in their education, they did all the little things. And you know what? They built character, they learned about their priorities, they learned how to make tough decisions, they became better people. That’s what happens when you’re independent and have to sink or swim on your own.
Not Karyn! She begged. She found a virtual street corner and told her sad story to everyone who dropped by. She got $20,000 and she didn’t even work for it!
Am I bitter? Did Karyn earn it by thinking up a new idea and marketing it effectively? To some extent, yes, and she should get the credit for that. But there’s lots of ways to make money by doing things that are wrong. And, fundamentally, Karyn did not learn the life lessons that come from getting yourself out of a hole you’ve dug. If you look at her “Daily Buck” you see a list of false savings — false because every one involves an unnecessary expenditure. Did Karyn ever learn how to say “No” to things she doesn’t need? Doesn’t look like it; she doesn’t even have to fill the gas tank on her car.
So, what did Karyn get from all this? Well, $20,000, which is a pretty good haul. Not just $20,000, though, no, she’s got a book out which I hope will help a lot of people to cure their shopping addiction because something good had better come of this somewhere. Oh, and she sold her book’s movie rights, so there’s probably tens of thousands of dollars more. Yep, Karyn’s making bank, all from having begged for money. Gosh, thanks modern civilization!
hmm, a lesson the the shopaholics: Mex Server and T-dog??? yep, that’s right, continue racking up that debt girlies, then just beg for money on the interrnet! yay!
Yeah I heard about this…I was sooo going to do it too!!