”Morning Shot” The Folly of Surviving Inflation with Senryu: The Modern 'Poverty Business' of Daily Necessity Contests; The Pitiful End of Miserable Consumers Betting Their Lives on Washlets and Face Wash

The Folly of Surviving Inflation with Senryu: The Modern 'Poverty Business' of Daily Necessity Contests

The Pitiful End of Miserable Consumers Betting Their Lives on Washlets and Face Wash

“[Savings Tips] Challenge Yourself with Senryu or Short Essays! 10 Recommended Contests Where You Can Win Daily Necessities”

……Hey, are you serious?

“With prices skyrocketing these days, why not write a senryu, get some daily necessities, and save a little on your household budget♪”?

You there in front of the screen, surely you aren't being lured by this sweet talk, frantically pounding away at your keyboard, are you? Calm down for a second and unclench those fists.

Every time I read these kinds of 'special features on contests where you can win daily necessities,' I can't help but let out a bitter laugh that borders on nausea. What's drifting there isn't anything as noble as a savings technique. It is the 'raw misery' of pathetic consumers being made to wag their tails for near-free daily necessities, all while sitting in the palm of a massive corporate marketing machine.

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First, there is the 'TOTO Toilet Senryu' contest.

If you win the grand prize, you get a washlet-integrated toilet.

I see, so you put your home toilet memories into a 5-7-5 format. But think about it. To get a toilet for free, you are flaunting your home's toilet habits and excretion-related episodes to total strangers. In exchange for a toilet worth 200,000 yen, we are selling off our own privacy and dignity. The company analyzes the massive amount of 'raw consumer voices' collected and uses them as data for their next product development. A 200,000 yen toilet is nothing more than a cheap customer data collection cost for them.

Next are the 'Biore 3-piece full-size product giveaway' and 'Nivea review posting campaigns'.

If you answer a survey or post a review on social media, you might win face wash or body soap.

"Buying the actual product costs a fair amount of money!" the article incites, but what is the true goal of campaigns that make you write reviews? It is to make consumers act as "shills" and scatter positive evaluations of their products across the internet. You offer your own social media account as a corporate advertising medium for a single bottle of face wash. Don't you realize that instead of saving money, you are being made to work for free?

In the case of the "Curves Sayonara Fat Senryu," the grand prize is an Airweave mattress.

It sounds nice to say, "Turn your worries about excess fat into laughter with 17 syllables," but in essence, it is telling you to offer up your "ugly body shape" for self-deprecation. The 280,000 fat-themed senryu gathered from across the country are a collection of consumer inferiority complexes, and for Curves, they are the perfect content for stoking anxiety. I doubt one can get a good night's sleep on a luxury mattress obtained by offering up one's own complexes.

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The Kewpie quiz campaign in the second half is also truly nasty.

"You can participate in the quiz once a day, so if you apply every day, your chances of winning increase!"

They make you access the site every day, earn page views, and imprint the brand logo. Calculate the time you spend opening your smartphone every morning to answer a quiz for a mere two melamine cups. What exactly is your hourly wage? You would save money much more reliably if you did some side work in that time.

Ultimately, the essence of these "public contests" and "campaigns" is "ultra-low-cost content procurement" for corporate promotional activities.

They collect poster designs to promote themselves as an eco-friendly company, collect memories of staplers to boost their brand image, and collect messages of support for the Inter-High School Championships to earn traffic.

We rejoice that we "got daily necessities at a bargain," but in reality, we are merely exchanging our time, brains, emotions, and even personal information for novelties worth anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand yen. This is the epitome of modern "digital free labor" and a poverty business disguised as being smart.

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I understand that life is difficult due to high prices. I am one of those people who frown every time I see the price of eggs at the supermarket.

However, what is needed to defend your livelihood is not to rack your brain for senryu to win Bioré face wash. If you are going to consume your time and brain memory on such things, it is far more constructive to cancel useless subscriptions, stop hopping between supermarkets, and improve your skills in your main job to earn even one yen more.

Before you search for public contests and check the box for "daily life goods," I want you to wash your face with cold water once.

Because the passion and time you put into those five-seven-five syllables should be usable for something much more valuable than a few hundred yen worth of body soap.

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