I Fought the Law

Vulgar Marketing

I like obscene hand gestures as much as the next guy. I actually probably like them more than most people. Perhaps to an unhealthy extent, in fact. So when Meli received this in the mail among the usual pile of student loan consolidation scams, I wasn't so much offended, as surprised:

Needless to say, my confusion stemmed from the little hand logo. That's a hand gesture that I have only seen in the movie Summer School, when Dave uses it to indicate sexual intercourse between Shoop and Ms. Bishop (granted, Dave used his middle finger, which is more readily associated with the wang, but I don't think the gesture loses much from the substitution of Mr. Index). The envelope seemed to suggest that Congress was violating us in a sexual manner.

But perhaps, I thought, this wasn't actually an obscene gesture. Perhaps the mystery of the intercourse hands would be solved when I opened the envelope. Here's the full context of the image:

So either the hand-sex image is a really obscure and altogether indiscernible representation of loan consolidation, or it was just there to get pique the recipient's curiosity enough to open the envelope rather than immediately throw it away, and someone along the supply chain probably intended (or at least desired) it to be vulgar. In my case, it worked, though I obviously didn't go so far as to consolidate my loans with the Grad Team.

In any case, kudos to the Grad Team for pushing the envelope (hurr!) with their marketing strategy, but all the same I'm getting a little tired of the junk mail.

And, of course, Congress is indeed screwing us in the student loan department. I'm glad I locked in that low rate when I did.

EDIT: My apologies to IE users for breaking the table with the envelope image.

Posted by hb at May 22, 2006 08:37 PM