The Organ Grinder’s Monkey

If you haven’t heard of Bumvertising ™, take a moment to click over and check it out. Go on, I’ll wait.

Bumvertising ™ was developed by PokerFaceBook as a way to get their name in front of as much traffic as possible. From their site:

Benjamin Rogovy, president and chief economist of Front Door Enterprises, developed this system after realizing the enormous potential in wasted homeless labor. Bums use a business model that takes advantage of high volume traffic, with the expectation that, on average, a certain number of people will donate to them in the form of cash, clothing, or food. Some people, by principle, will never give a homeless man money. Some will give food to them whenever they can. But what is the use of holding up a bum sign to 99% of car traffic that will only read but never donate to these vagrants? With such great exposure, Mr. Rogovy imagined that there had to be some value that was not being utilized.

According to their site, the advertiser pays the homeless sign-holders both in money and food, screens the applicants to make sure they are up to the job and otherwise deals with their contractors in an forthright, businesslike manner.

So, here’s the question: Is this exploitation of a vulnerable population, or a legitimate way for homeless people to earn money and food by doing real, valuable work?

Exploitation or Legitimate Work?

Of course, the term exploitation has two distinct definitions:

1. The act of utilizing something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use.
2. The act of utilizing something in an unjust, cruel or selfish manner for one’s own advantage.

So, in the first sense, anyone who does anything for any reason is being exploited. But we’ll be talking about the second definition.

At first glimpse, it feels exploitative or at least unsavory to many people. But look a little deeper and most will find that that reaction has more to do with their own sensibilities than from any real presence of exploitation.

If I Willingly Choose It, It’s Not Exploitation

From my own past experience, I know the pitfalls of elite lookers-on patronizingly declaring something exploitative simply because it’s not a job they would want, or because they’re trying to “save” what they perceive to be someone helpless to save themselves, which is very often more about the ego of the saver than the supposedly saved, when the participants don’t feel that way at all (as illustrated in the case in this story about Steve Vento, a dwarf who wears a sombrero filled with tortillas and salsa at a restaurant).

In my past, I’ve been both an exotic dancer and homeless (although not at the same time). In my tenure as a dancer, I got sick and tired of everyone telling me how exploited I was - yeah, I was exploited alright, because there’s nothing more cruel or abusive than choosing your own work schedule, sleeping in until the wee hours of the afternoon, partying all night and making gobs of money doing, it all the while wielding a near-absolute power over your clients that can get them kicked out of a club and possibly even arrested at the merest flick of a wrist should they misbehave. Heh…the only people getting exploited where I worked were the guys who convinced themselves that if they kept shelling out cash, they might actually convince Bambi to go out with them.

In fact, the reason I was self-employed (as most dancers are) was because I felt it was exploitative to be expected to stand on a factory floor for 10 hours a day making the same useless widget over and over for far less than a living wage, in a job that made me schedule pee breaks, lunch and rest times to align with arbitrarily-assigned break times rather than my own physical needs and that provided no protection from either random reassignment to untenably physically demanding positions or unannounced unemployment. Or to sit all day in a soul-sucking office doing mindless, pointless work at the whim of some pointy-haired boss who can pinch your butt at will because you can’t risk losing your health benefits to complain.

And when I was homeless, I know that I would have jumped at a chance to make money and food sitting on a highway median rather than facing the prospect of begging another $10.00 off of already mooched-up friends and family. I would have considered it the same as any other job. I mean, how often do you see minimum wage pizza place workers, tattoo parlor employees and others standing outside holding signs? Are they being exploited? IMHO, being paid to hold a sign is being paid to hold a sign, regardless of whether you sleep in a bedroll or a house when you go home from work.

For Some, There Are Few Other Options

The whole point of most social services aimed at the homeless is to get them working in legitimate jobs where they can provide for themselves, which is very difficult considering that many homeless have physical, mental or other limitations that make them unsuitable for or incapable of taking on most positions (which is often why they’re homeless to begin with). This option lets them earn food and money doing something they’ve already self-assigned as acceptable.

The only reason some could legitimately call this exploitation is that it targets a group of people who don’t have many other options and therefore might feel pressured to do it, even if they felt it was demeaning. But most homeless people I’ve known are far less amenable to doing demeaning work than you might think, some (quite possibly including myself) to the point that their attitude about what they perceive as demeaning work is a contributor to their current position. Being homeless doesn’t make you less human. Like you or I, many homeless will simply tell you to f*** off if they aren’t interested. So I doubt any of PokerFaceBook’s contractors feel demeaned by their work, and I’d venture to guess that if they feel anything at all they’re either just happy to be making some money without having to do crap work or they feel like they’re taking advantage of some sucker whose pockets are bigger than his brain and are riding it for all its worth.

So, I’m going to say that while this is probably not going to be a marketing venture of choice for many businesses, it’s not exploitation.To my mind, it’s even conceivable that local community action groups, non-profits, social service orgs and the like might find this to be a fair trade option for getting their name out to the general public in a way that is directly benefiting their constituents. Far from being exploitative, in this instance it could even be considered a legitimate part of their ministry or social action.

And if you’re a local business who feels that the homeless in your community are doing more harm to your business than good by panhandling out front, why not preempt all that entrepreneurial energy by paying them a reasonable sum to stand out front and advertise specials and whatnot instead of pestering your customers for change? If you follow PokerFaceBook’s example and are careful in your choice of sign-holders to weed out the socially untenable, work resistant or chemically/mentally unstable, it could prove to be a win-win solution to what was previously a long-term battle that neither side was likely to come out of looking good.

So what’s your take? Would you considering hiring the homeless (at a fair wage, natch) to promote your business? Why or why not?

advertising, bum, bumvertising, homeless, marketing

Tags: Business, Ethics and Business, Society and Culture //