slaves

Back to fravia's Reality Cracking section
"Let's crack the slave-masters!" by +ORC - 13 March 1997
(With Michel's addition - 15 January 1998)
(With The Dark One's addition - 12 December 1998)

Well, the subject of this page has, as far as I know, not yet being treated on the Web... I hope to receive MANY contributions in order to develop this in a full-fledged SECTOR of my page.
I too believe, like +ORC, that publicity has taken an insopportable place in our lifes, and that we are MADE to consum and nothing more.
I'll therefore begin this page with a very interesting example, written (nothing less! :-) by +ORC himself (after some exithation):
supermarket enslavement secrets

Here it is, courtesy of fravia+...

Supermarket enslavement techniques, by +ORC, March 1997

Ok, Fravia convinced me to publish separate without interpolating all this in my tut, coz it would have been too heavy, even if in my opinion it is part of cracking and he may be wrong, coz nobody will read my crap if I don't mix it with software cracking info, coz people do not want to learn to be free, and to free them we have sadly to "circumvent" them with more or less the same techniques that our enemies use to enslave them :=)

Let's crack the very temples of the enemies of the humanity and poetry, the prisons where we are forced to buy and consume... let's show all idiots the WHIPS that are used to enslave them... as always light comes through knowledge
Remeber that NOTHING is casual in this awful society where people are CULTIVATED to consume and nothing else than that. Around you almost everything has a "secret" meaning, that you are not supposed to see, understand or crack (see the codebar example in my C1 lesson, which is my best contribution so far to this cause :=) Knowledge is real power... it's not just a phrase! And Internet gives us (at least until now) the possibility to spread knowledge. They spread shit ads, useless information and publicity, we spread "real" knowledge... we'll win

Let's begin with some simple basic counter-intelligence work... You'll never watch again your mall or supermarkt with the same eyes after having read this

The entrance is on the right, yet you walk leftwards, duh In all modern supermarket the slave MUST follow a counterclockwise direction: 95% of the population of the world has a slight imperfected equilibrium, they tend to the left... if you leave somebody alone lost in the desert (don't do it :=) he'll begin tu turn round counterclockwise. That's the reason most modern supermarket have a "counterclockwise" layout... which btw has other consequences and hidden commercial meanings, as you will see in the following

Why do they start with fresh fruit?
Reason Number 1: People coming inside a supermarket tend to conserve the velocity and the inertia of the streets... they would "jump" the first 10 meters of merchandises if you did not stop them with the explosion of colours and smells that only fresh fruit can offer. Notice, moreover, that merchandises in the first ten meters are almost wortless just in case: potatoes, onions... the expensive fruits-sorts are more distant, so that people will be able to pick them once having 'calmed down'.
Reason number 2: The supermarket are subjected to the strong concurrence of the "discount" malls ("poor people" supermarkts, the ones with ugly boxes and cheaper prices), which (mostly) do not have fresh fruit, but only conserves... first thing when he comes in: the slave must be assured, palping a red nice apple, that he is in an "exquisite" special frish shop (little does and should the slave know about the products used to 'polish' and shine that apple, btw).

Note that the disposition of the fruit and vegetables is NOT casual (far from it). The whole point in supermarket enslavement is that the very few thing that are really useful and 'must' be bought (say toilet paper, sugar, salt or wodka) are overwhelmed and interpolated with completely useless products and/or with much more expensive varieties and qualities of the same kind, because of the huge profits on those articles and of the smaller profits on basic products.

Light dances in your eyes, sounds enter your hears
Orange and apples with a lot of mirrors, Bananes and pears with a green surrounding, salads and potatos with clear light... red for meat (coz white light would make it look greysh) and so on... have a look at the illumination tricks in your mall next time you are compelled to go in.
Note also that the quiet music is necessary: the supermarkt would seem "dead" without it, but at the same time music must not be so heavy that it may disturb any consumeristic concentration... and it changes too... they know exactly at which time of the day "seniores" and at which time "youngsters" slaves are ususally consuming inside the malltrap, therefore you'll have music which is "calibrated" on the time of the day.

Expensive is easy, cheap is difficult
Producte are so positionated that the expensive ones are ALWAYS positioned "towards" the march direction of the slave: at the best height to be picked up. The cheaper varities of the same articles are always "behind" the march direction of the slave, and/or a little too low or a little to high.
Now stop and have a look at the varieties of a given product, say whisky, or honey (not wodka, it's not necessary, you should always and only drink Moskowskaja :=)
Humans (euroamericans) stroll with the eyes from left to right (like you are doing now, reading my lines), therefore notice how the CHEAPEST varities of a given product are on the left, the more expensive on the right, in the hope that slave's hands will be quicker as slave's brain (as it's often the case nowadays).

Funny, the fridges open all in a weird sense
Yeah, the doors are made in order to enforce the slave to see immediately other products, inside ANOTHER fridge as soon as he closes one where he has already 'consumed'. Would the doors close normally, his nose would be back against products he has already bought: no good. Note the disposition of the products inside the ice-boxes on the floor, too... it's far from casual as you can see... notice how far away are those products and how easy to pick up are these? Goddy! I believe we should drive school classes through the malls explaining all these tricks to the little future slaves!

May I NOT help you?
You'll NEVER hear a supermarket employee asking you "may I help you" in normal cases (unless you really and badly need it and you chase him), because that would limit the possibility of you buying a lotta other useless products instead of what you need, it would break the "magic", and in that dreaded case the slave could even come to the nasty idea to lower the blick on the trolley, instead of filling it -overwhelmed by soo muuuch choice- with everything he sees.
Besides the employees are really busy "filling" the spaces... it's very important that the products are positionated at a predetermined in-between distance and density... too many people on to narrow space and some slaves would "put back" the product they have in their hands, instead of deposing it in the trolley... an empty gap in an alley would break the magic

What are stoppers?
Stoppers are the "dynamic" part of a supermarket... most of the slaves come here twice in a week (at least) and do not want to see always the same things in the same places (they could come to the -right- conclusion that they are being 'drilled to buy') even if they at the same time want to be reassured... "I know where's the wine". Everything must stay where it was, but a part must move... hence the stoppers, little mountains of "offers", toilet paper to-day, shampoos to-morrow.

Capturing the audience
Supermarkets have also a 'local' hinterland as well. People that live in the vicinities and/or that have to 'pass' near it on the way back home from the office will tend after a while to use the same one more and more, for 'simplicity' reasons.
These people have been 'caught' by the supermarket: they are its 'captives'. Now, once your captives' base is great enough there is no reason no more to give them real choices, is it? Wouldn't be better - and more rentable - if all this people would buy grossomodo the same few products types? And would not it be even better if those same products would be not only sold but also produced by you? And that is exactly what regularly happens with all big chains: the 'own brand' products are being pushed more and more, through mere phisical presence and/or through advertisement or three for two schemes, while at the same time the choice of alternatives decreases more and more. It begins with potatoes, eggs and 'white products' of all kinds, it ends with "everything" offered as 'own brand'.
Thus the supermarkets, born inter alia with the implicit promise of a broader choice for consumers, try instead to reduce it more and more every time there is a possibility to do so.

Cry baby cry There are queues at the cashier. Note that there are almost ALWAYS queues: the turns are so calculated as to spare personal whenever possible, that means that there is always a 'queue lenght' that is considered 'acceptable' (the slave will not burst off leaving the charriot and jelling "never again!") and that they try to avoid, for obvious profit reasons, to have cashiers waiting for clients instead that the other way round. Bresides: there is money to be made through queues! In fact that's the right moment to bite the slave's kids, which are terribly annojed and exige the products that have been purposely put on the two sides of the cashier queue. Watch them, look at their prices... very very interesting this is really the "lower instinct" part: All these articles are chosen and calculated to give maximum profit, all products you would NEVER in your life come to buy but here, coz this is the only real (compelled) "canyon" that the slave must cross... "Dad, may I have this and that?". "Why shouldn't I buy those nice mints?"
Notice how these products are MUCH more expensive than the "three for one" confections of the same product that are sold inside the shop somewhere... but where? You will not know, coz that's exactly the sort of products you normally don't buy! How many time do I have to prove it to you
Teach your kid to use the waiting time to completely upset the order of these products, or do it yourself. These shelfs can also be very useful to dump all useless products that you did buy without noticing ever after having read this... best of all is to dump there a couple of frozen icecreams boxes upside down, they will slowly leak everything on so artfully positioned peppermints :=)

D'you want our "superadvantage" nice plastic card?
No! No! No! It's only a cheap, dirty trick to gather all possible data on your comportament whithout ever having to raise a finger. They'll know how much and when and where you drink/shit/eat/ love/cry/wash/sleep/etc and stuff their databases for free (notice how the "discounts" are lilliputian in comparison with what they steal you through the abovementioned tricks... did you know that 35% of the fridge products you buy will go directly from fridge to dustbin? That's the real average, duh)

So let's battle against them! Codebar! Understand! Explain others! Free the stupid slaves... watch the world around you free from petty convention and understand in what for an awful mess you are condemned to live!

+ORC, the old red cracker... (I'm not finished yet, there's more to come!)

An addition, by Michel (slightly edited by fravia+):


- Why do they start with fresh fruit? (addendum)
Fresh fruits are fragile.  If you put them in the bottom of your
caddy and then lay heavy conserves on it, it will be a mess...  
So you have to begin with the conserves (near the exit), then 
have to go back to the fruits, then return once more towards the exit.  
Result : you cross shelves three times instead of one !

- The entrance is left
The "counterclockwise" turning is due to the fact that the right leg
is usually stronger... the 90% of the population is right-handed (or
"right-legged" in this case ?).  So it is normal to turn slightly to 
the left.  

Funny, but some shops seem to experiment the opposite: a big european 
furniture shop (IKEA) has choosen for some of its shops (in France for 
instance, yet not elsewhere) a "clockwise direction" layout.  
The idea is probably that in this way you will browse through these 
shops more slowly, instead of choosing the "optimum" -quicker- trajectory.

- "Hypermarket"
I don't know if this concept exists in english.  In french (my native 
language, as you probably have already guessed), it means a big supermarket 
which sells not only food: also clothing, tools, and so on.
In these "hypermarkets", things are in part different from the supermarkets: 
they have plenty of room, so they can mix the food and the non-food (one
shelf of food, and one shelf of non-food).  So when you have taken -say- 
your usual vodka and you want to get your peanuts, you *will* pass through
the shelf where they sell those magnificents-and-yet-not-so- expensive beer 
glasses...
Moreover at the beginning of the shop there is always a "starter", with all 
the current "discounts", and usually also clothes, wine and other completely 
useless gadgets...

- Men and women (non P.C. section ;-)
Usually, women are going to the supermarket.  That's why in the
"hypermarkets" (see above), the clothing is always between the entry
and the food.
But in the last 15 years, with women working more and more, men have 
begun to go shopping, instead of their wives.  Result: in the commercials, 
on your TV you are now brainwashed about "men taking care of themselves", 
and instead of the good old "AQUA VELVA" and "Eau de Cologne 4711", which 
were more or less the only things you would have bought (if ever) in the 
pre-enslavement old good times you now have an icredible plethora of 
'parfums pour homme' (note the form of parfums' bottles, btw, which 
as usual has a pavlovian meaning); and not only parfums: have a look: shampoo
"formule homme",  Gilette Sensor-Excel-Plus-Double-..., and so on!
They realized they have a lot of new potential gullible slaves, and they 
found an easy way to get'em... it's easy to foresee: parfums for kids (already 
started with totthpaste) and for dogs and cats...

- Generalization: slave's surroundings
These concepts are true for the supermarkets.  These last 10 years
in Europa, it has generalized (an idea coming from US, as it is older
there) to what we call "commercial center": a supermarket is never
alone, you always have other shops around: jewelry, hi-fi shop,
CD/Video shop, deluxe clothing, fashion clothing, low-price clothing,
even cinemas (in english "theaters" ?), *and* the obligatory Quick or
McDonald...

Ok, that's all.  Thanks for reading ;-)  Complete informations on the
subject must exist somewhere, at least in marketing courses, or
perhaps in psychology, I don't know.  Anyway, it's always good 
stuff to know.

Bye,
Michel

An addition, by The Dark One (slightly edited by fravia+):

As for small additions i'd like to make to two essays...

1. There is +ORC's essay about supermarkets and how they enslave you, which mentions the counterclockwise effect. I for myself have a small side job in a pathetic attempt to get more money to cover my ever growing expenses, and can add to this.

One time in this sports store, I was told to adjust all the lamps on the floor i was working on. Naturally, when i was told to give them a little tilt to the left while still illuminating the products (make everything look nice and shiny and all that), I had to ask why that would have any effect. The story behind it was the same counterclockwise effect, but added to that the fact that when the lamps are tilted that way, it will invite the customer to keep a certain direction. walking in normally and taking the counterclockwise route, the customer will see light shining on the clothing, walking clockwise, he will have light shining somewhat in his eyes... at least in his view of vision. Therefore, what will happen is that 'the herd' will take the signals in his visual range and most likely amble through the store counterclockwise, and end up in front of the cash register, or at least not disturb other customers as they browse by moving in an opposing direction. To mention another aspect of 'herd behaviour', people like to 'follow the leader', and when they see people in front of them moving through the whole store, instinctively they will follow, thinking 'there must be a reason people look through it'.

Another thing perhaps is the way you are supposed to approach customers. Unlike what's reported by +ORC in his supermarket essay, in a store like mine you are naturally deeply instructed to 'press' the customer on whether you can help him or her. But you don't ask 'can I help you'.
Why not? This immediately implies that you are granting favours, that you are in a 'master' position vis-a-vis the customer. You are supposed to ask the customer 'can I be of service?', or similar questions along the same 'Aladdin's lamp' line, obviously giving the customer a false sense of having the upper hand in the conversation, as well as the customer/seller relationship.
Then the whole verbal selling technique starts, but I guess that is beyond the interest of this topic. There are a lot more things to say about standing in the kind of store I am in, but I am not sure whether this is relevant to the discussion at hand, let alone whether it is of major interest.

I'll quickly mention a few short things I know from other stores, such as the fact that the music you hear in stores is naturally always programmed. In one of the stores where a colleague of mine once worked they even had a rythm added to it, in the sense of numbers being played. There would be four 15 minute parts of music, especially set to be sort of a subliminal inducer for customers entering at the right time. The first part would be sort of a welcoming theme, followed by restful lingering, after which you would get a bit jazzed up by faster music until the last 15 minutes 'invited' you more or less franticly to leave the store again. Most stores work with customer counts in order to program store success, where the more customers that have visited without buying something, the lower the per customer buying amount will be. Another interesting point which clarifies obviously why stores usually try to herd you out after a certain time; every customer around you that doesn't buy anything affects other customers (if they don't buy anything, then why should I? this is obviously crap, and so on). Lastly, I've heard also from another colleague (it's amazing what you can learn if you are willing to infiltrate and search, that's what real social engineering for real reversers should be about, btw) that in the place she worked in before this one, they worked on 'sniffing posts'!
What they had done was place on several locations a couple of hidden 'deodorisers' (for lack of a better word), which would dispense fragrances that would complement the feeling you should have with certain products. From what I've gathered, back then it wasn't so successful, but they are most probably still working on it; if you smell funny stuff in a huge store, you know where it comes from. So, if you do, don't just sit there and say 'Ah ja': Investigate, find the truth, report it.

Thinking about that, I do remember seeing all kinds of spray cans lately in that line of product enhancement. There are cans that I have held in my hand that have the 'fresh bakery smell', which can make you think you're in a bakery from heaven, and everyone knows by now the 'new car' spraycan that is supposed to add that new smell to your car, the smell that you only get when you first buy it. Needless to say, fooling people means fooling the mind, and fooling the mind is done for a large part by fooling the senses. Basically it is so that consumers are treated like an heard of stupid cows, that must be lured into buying things they don't need in the least for the sake of filling some wallets.

2. An observation on the cigarette ads. In our country (The Netherlands), if I remember correctly, the European Union's directives sort of restrict cigarette companies to blatantly advertise their product. Since I do not either buy cigarettes or search for these ads, I do not know for sure how those restrictions lie, or how much they are enforced. What I do see right now in advertisements shown in cinema's and on billboards is the rather funny shift of 'advertising'.

Suddenly, the art of sponsering is discovered, and all these 'events' pop up with sigarette brands attached to them. This ranges from the 'marlboro flashbacks' (bands covering a favorite group) to 'barclay's fashion awards', and not to forget the 'drum rythm festival' (drum being the stuff that you roll before you smoke). Now that they are not allowed to advertise openly neither with 'cowboy scenes' (see Martine Joly's splendid essay: Rhetoric of advertisement, a "Marlboro Classic" Advertisement analyzed) nor stuff like that, they get name recognition by sponsoring these events, and naturally make connections with the show involved. Of course, the same is being done with beers to some extent, but cigarettes right now are the leading players in this game.

With kindest regards,

The Dark One

And yes, by all means: let's hope that this dutch cute reverser will indeed "spend some quality time behind his computer once he'll be free from his sleep deprivation and current stress levels", to cite him :-)

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supermarket enslavement secrets

__Supermarket enslavement techniques, by +ORC, March 1997__

Supermarket enslavement techniques, by +ORC, March 1997