Chase's idiotic poverty-shaming "inspirational" tweet, and Twitter users' magnificent responses thereto

Every Monday, some poor "brand ambassador" at Chase has to post a "Monday motivation" tweet aimed at convincing people that one of America's largest, most rapacious banks is actually a cuddly, responsible business whose $12 billion bailout from Uncle Sam was perfectly justifiable and sure to be put to excellent use.

These are uniformly terrible, but they hit a new low yesterday with a since-deleted tweet that took the form of a dialog between "You" and "Bank account" in which "You" failed to grasp that your buying coffee in coffee shops, eating out, and taking taxis are why your balance is so low, to the enormous frustration of poor old "Bank account."

But of course, this doesn't explain how Chase's balance reached $12,000,000,000 in the red (perhaps they ate a lot of takeout?), nor does it take account of factors like wage stagnation, increasing inequality, skyrocketing rents, unsustainable student debt, and other structural factors that have put most Americans just one missed paycheck or unexpected hospitalization away from real financial hardship.

Luckily, Twitter's users were there to point this out to Chase in a series of brutal comebacks, from adding an additional party to the dialogue ("Bank: Charges ridiculous overdraft fees if you transfer one minute late. -$35.00"), to intensely personal responses ("When I was a high school student student you charged me a total of 700$ in fees in one year") to the political ("This is definitely motivating me...To seize the means of production").

My favorite came from Anand Giridharadas (previously): "This is the ideology of our age captured in a single tweet. Systemic problems recast as individual problems. Corporate greed recast as personal failure. A bank claiming to 'motivate' its customers by mocking them for structural economic problems the bank is complicit in causing."

Chase bank tried to be relatable on Twitter and got absolutely dunked on [Sage Anderson/Mashable]

(via Naked Capitalism)