What if one’s attendance at a protest or rally could earn him “bonus points” —prescribed discounts to participating vendors, not unlike frequent flyer miles offered by credit card companies. The idea is that the consumer / participant would pay the organizer of a political protest or rally to attend. As a reward for repeated attendance, the organizer would distribute bonus points to the consumer / participant, redeemable at businesses sponsoring or affiliated with the organizer, thus incentivizing the consumer / participant to attend more protests or rallies to accrue more bonus points. The points in turn could be sent via email — the same email the consumer / participant used to register and pay for [attendance to] the protest or rally — and spent using a QR code.
In such a system, one wonders how much mere attendance to a political protest or rally signifies real political conviction, and how much it signifies an affinity for a deal in the consumeristic sense. Is the purpose of the protest or rally lost? Or instead is the consumer / participant deliberately cajoled into participating in a cause despite, perhaps, a low level of ideological commitment? Is he not a captive, or captivated, audience?
March 14, 2022