Tinder, and the Agricultural Industry's Illustration of Capitalism's Flaws

I went on a jam sesh with a guy I met from the open mic at Solbar. It felt so good. He drummed, and granted he wasn’t very good, but it was more about the vibes of playing in a garage and being loud and young. It really is the best feeling, chopping out a riff and then wailing at the top of your lungs.

I peed in a McDonalds bottle while driving. First time for a mobile “go and flow”.

I was on my way to the induction to use the FREE RECORDING STUDIO at the Brisbane library. What a neato thing to have in a city. I met an autistic guy with a Gengar shirt. He was cool and has a Pokémon podcast.

I jammed with another band, self-described “Stoner Rock”, formed by a Canadian, obviously. I killed it naturally and they loved me, but I’m going through a reworking of my voice and I came out of rehearsal with some discomfort in my throat and that just never happens, so I told them I was gonna pass. I got open mic guy and my own musical aspirations, don’t need no Canadian.

I started using tinder, and I used to look down on people who used tinder, and I still do, because when you’re in college you can just look around and see an attractive person. You spend like all day with people your age just go talk to one. But I live where the median age is 50 and there’s more handicapped parking spaces than non. So I’m still better than everyone else.

But I started using tinder cuz I’m lonely and it’s a decent way to meet people and not just hook up and it’s really a fun little game! I haven’t gotten any matches yet, probably because, let’s face it, I’m overwhelmingly attractive, you don’t want to meet me when you’re 22 cuz you’ll never meet anyone better. I’m retaining my 95% rejection rate. I’ve got a six sigma standard of quality and I have specifications.

You can’t say “I like good conversations, start a good conversation with me!” because that’s like saying you like ice cream, which is obvious, and then saying “serve me ice cream”. It also comes across like you’re demanding a service in return for sex, and you’re not a medal to convince.

This is a team project here people. If you only have close up pictures of your face I’ll assume you don’t like your body and you’re hiding something like a crab arm. If you have a picture of you in your underwear then that stresses me out cuz I feel like I have to be in my underwear, and I have a crab arm. Gotta have a good face to body ratio.

Being “addicted to coffee” isn’t a selling point and neither is “loves Netflix”. You just have no self-control.

Sometimes there’s multiple people in the pictures and I can’t tell who the real person is and  that’s dangerous cuz you don’t want to go meet up with a shape shifter and then you’re on a date with Nancy Rosevelt, and she can’t smile normal, and then you lose Nancy at the bar and end up talking to Claudette who you think is Nancy, but turns out Nancy actually fell down in the bathroom and can’t get up cuz her walker is on the other side of the stall. Next thing you know you’re an accomplice to manslaughter.

You can’t misspell anything and you can’t have kids.

So with all these qualifications what do I put in my tinder bio?

Just moved to sunny coast from US. I work as a strawberry consultant. That's actually a job yup. I make music about dogs and sing like an 80s rock star. I run and hike and swim and fight crime.
 Looking for interesting people while I travel, not so much for one time hook ups. Am I doing this right? I have no idea how this works.

All true, except for the lies.

I visit a bunch of farms for work so I see a lot of the agricultural industry, you know, the one that puts food in your face. That stuff that keeps you alive long enough to do your own stuff.

There’s a really weird power dynamic between the farm owners and managers and the general labor that weeds and picks the fruit. Farmers tend to lord over them and the language we use when discussing them is generally negative. Like they’re lesser beings. “The workers are just shit this year”, they’re an easy scapegoat.

Most of the workers are foreigners and an obvious leap would be say “hey that’s racism/jingoism!” That’s where my mind went first too. Probably cuz we’re American. But I think there’s a more nuanced answer here. Often workers are Asian, but also from Europe since you can extend your visa here if you work a farm for 88 days. A clever way to allow people who want to stay here longer, and offer jobs that Aussies generally don’t want to do. Seems fair to me. They also tend to pay a steady wage, or by how much you pick. It is hard work and I’m glad I weaseled my way into something better, but it’s pretty easy to get a job if you want one here. And a good way to earn a bunch of money and send it home if you’re say, Vietnamese and the Aussie dollar is worth a ton at home.

International workers however, are also pretty bad at their job. Why would you be good? It’s unskilled labor, and you’re probably only going to be there for three months. You don’t really reap the benefits of doing a good job of keeping the strawberries healthy. You wouldn’t take the time to keep the plastic clean, trim runners, and pull sick plants out if you’re being paid by how much you pick.

If you’re paid by the hour, you probably care even less. It doesn’t matter what you do, you just have to be out in the field. There’s no accountability. And no matter how righteous you think you are, you’re never going to as good a job as a farmer who owns the crop and has years of vested experience.

So farmers treat their workers like sub humans and workers do bad work.

It’s like an amalgam of the Stanford Prison experiment and the classic economic problem of paying people what they’re worth.

I don’t have answer, something about the collapse of financial capitalism with the growth of technology and expansion of social capital. Markets. Murmur, mumble, murmur.