The Market

In my high school it was common to refer to someone else's popularity as "stock." The social stock market was all-knowing and extremely volatile. Depreciation-worthy offenses included (but were certainly not limited to) joining after-school clubs that weren't sports, leaving the country for an extended period of time, or simply getting on the wrong side of the alpha male. Once he said your stock was down, the market reacted and it was hard to sway public opinion of the stability of your stock. Conversely, getting a perfect score on your SAT's, having good parties, or knowing someone over 21 to acquire alcohol beverages were examples of reasons why one's stock could suddenly shoot up in value. If you didn't catch my tone already--I didn't like this system. It was normally used in jest, but still, it's very Mean Girls-esque (not that I don't LOVE Mean Girls).

I decided it would be interesting to apply the social market principles and norms to global events/trends. Read on for my thoughts on the value of certain social stocks today:


OWS -Devalued. Way devalued. The "movement" not only lacks a clear, agreed-upon mission, but the Occupiers also terrorize free Starbucks bathrooms everywhere. If they haven't been already, OWS camps will be bull-dozed soon enough. No one should invest anymore time/attention to these people.

Swine Flu - Bankrupt. No one gets swine flu anymore.

Blackberries for personal use - Plummeting, absolutely plummeting. Sell immediately, cut your losses. The Blackberry was, at one point, the cream of the smart phone crop. Blackberries joined breathing, food, water, and homeostasis as one of the primary necessities listed at the base of the Hierarchy of Human Needs pyramid. The features were divine. We all knew that BBMing was just way better than normal texting. Actually, I stopped texting people if they didn't have BBM. Actually, I stopped being friends with people who didn't have BBM. Brick Breaker was cutting edge, but now we have Angry Birds. The sole reason why the Blackberry stock has any value anymore is because companies usually issue them for remote email access, and that's a huge turn-off for me.

Caring about Uganda - SELL! SELL! SELL! Good for you for having the foresight to care about Uganda, you obviously bought low and now you get to sell high. You could even donate your profits to non-profits by texting "Haiti" to 080808. Or not--that's also an option. If you don't have shares of this stock, you need to buy immediately. If you don't, you are not only going to be excluded from the flash mob on your local college campus, but you will also be labeled heartless, ignorant, and probably a Republican. Can you imagine?

Actually taking the time to read about Africa beyond Kony2012 - Penny stock. The eventual payouts could  be worthwhile, but that is dependent upon a lot more people developing a lasting interest in the welfare of Africa. The sad thing is that I'm not very optimistic about that at all. 

Update: lol @ Kony2012 now. Masturbating in public? I couldn't have wished for a better way for the demagoguery to be tarnished.

Threatening to leave the country if a GOP candidate wins the White House - Way up. The best thing you can do is sell and use the money to actually leave the country. It's more than likely that nobody would miss you, but it is very probable that you'd miss us. 

Napster - Bankrupt :( God I loved Napster, RIP.

Mario Kart - If you're a guy, you've probably moved beyond Kart. If you're a girl, however, it's absolutely mandatory that you swear to all of your guy friends that you are awesome at Mario Kart. Sell or buy accordingly.  

I hope I've been able to properly inform people about what is tweet/facebook status worthy. You're welcome.