Fred’s University is proud to announce its latest industry collaboration: The Institute for Planned Obsolescence. In this venture, Fred’s U will farm out talent from the departments of Engineering, Computer Science and Marketing to find ways to make everyday products less durable, less user-friendly and more likely to be replaced. Projects underway include tiny inexpensive car parts which are so hard to reach that it takes several hours to disassemble the car in order to replace them and fragile printer trays which cannot be reordered. Other collaborations in the works are refrigerator drawers with flimsy gliders that break under the weight of lettuce and new wonder materials for the soles of sneakers that last as little as two months. As international outrage rises over our throwaway culture and the trend toward products that cannot be reused, Fred’s University is particularly excited about its venture into seemingly-resealable food packaging which cannot in fact be opened without destroying the resealing feature.
There will be four branches of the Institute, one focusing on each of the fundamental tenets of Planned Obsolescence:
- Intentionally Junky Stuff
- Items With Constant Enraging Unnecessary Software Updates
- Accelerated Fashion Trends Which Make Things Look Dated Soon So Your Kid Wants A New One And Make You Hate Yourself In Recent Photos
- Impossible or Difficult To Repair Items You Might As Well Toss Into The Planet-Destroying Garbage Heap Inhabited by The Poorest of The Poor and Children Who Are Being Poisoned By Our Toxic Unregulated Waste
The University will receive all compensation and retain all patents earned in this industry collaboration by relying on the labor of low-ranking faculty at the bottom of the tenure ladder who will soon be replaced with fresh recruits.
** Starred Comment**
Jenny Femmy
You have Christine Frederick to thank for popularizing planned obsolescence in her 1929 book Selling Mrs. Consumer. Women often escape both credit and blame in history. As it happens, Christine Frederick was slated for the planned obsolescence all women are slated for in male-dominated capitalism.
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