“I’m The One Who’s Riding, When You Hiding & Doom LOOMS” – Slang Hugh
The hottest trend on the social media, the GTA anyway, is the now infamous Loom!
Now while I see a lot of negativity going around about this thing, I’d like to focus on the positives I see. I will admit to not knowing all the ins and outs of it. And not really being interested in the facts. I am one of those who said “fuck it, it’s only $135” and threw my financial fedora in the ring. Did I hesitate? Of course!! I meant it is still $135!! Upon originally hearing about it, I thought “this sounds like a good thing. But let me sit back and see how it goes first.” What’s the good side that I saw? The possibility of regular people being able to help each other step up a notch financially. I mean we aren’t talking about millions here, I know but to some of us lowly middle and lower class folks a multiply by 10 come up is like winning the lottery! After all its only $135 right? And while that isn’t a lot of money to me it’s a good amount to some. And to those that look at a $135 like it’s a $1000, you know those people who say things like “Fam, I don’t care if its $5 fam!! I want my loot back now now, like right now bro!!” I will say this don’t risk what you can’t afford. A phrase of common sense no, but WhatsApp groups, FB posts and IG is littered with message of the opposite. Disgruntled investors who feel that their guaranteed gamble was a scam and a farce. So much so that it seems we need to hand out dictionaries with the word INVESTMENT highlighted for a better understanding.
I’m convinced many of us don’t’ understand what it means to “risk” your money. Here’s what I see as the bad side, and it doesn’t have much to do with the loom itself, but with the people running it. The Loom became too big too fast. It was the victim of trendy marketing. The honest Ed salesman pitches of “flipping” your money fast seem to pop up overnight. Not seem. DID! Everyone asking everyone to join THEIR loom. I myself was asked at least 10 times in the last 4 days. For those interested it was way too many options to actually choose one. Imagine you’re walking down the street and suddenly have a craving for a patty and coca bread, and out of nowhere 5 different patty shops pop up on the sidewalk, each advertising the best patty in the world. You would want to try them all but unfortunately there are no samples and you only have a $1.35 to work with. How do you choose? And for not interested in this was a HUGE turn off. Nothing worse than being offered something you don’t want 50 times in a row!! This also had another effect that I believe put the yet undetermined nail in the Loom coffin. It exhausted the market share within days! There was no time for the observers to turn into potential investors. Those of us who watched at first were quickly given reasons not to join up bad people whose looms had dried up. It began to look and smell like a get rich quick scheme, the ones we all fear becoming a victim of. The type that we all hang up the phone on when being told “you are a winner of a million dollars and all you have to do it give me a $1000 to get it. Any of these types of things where you have to bring another person in to get any real money has limit on the amount of people you can fool…I mean convince. Whether Amway, or Primerica, they all have a certain type of person that are attracted to them. Only difference is they are selling products and more importantly they are not trendy. So even though we view Primerica as not cool it’s still around, and is probably still doing well. The reason for that is because they sell you an idea of exclusivity, they make you believe that you are joining something that only special people are a part of. Only the brave ones are willing to risk it, and if you join you’re sure brave!! It’s not just a tug at your pocket book and the lack of colored paper inside. They pull at your very emotion and desire to be a better person. The loomers weren’t able to capitalize on that type of magic.
I don’t know if this is true but I saw one person post saying that the loom archetype has been in other communities for decades. And is used as a form of community financial loan, in which patrons put money in knowing that they will get back enough money to start their own business, and once said business is up in running they are expected to put back into the loom, in order to keep it going. If this is a true story, if even it is loosely based on one, I have to say we may have dropped the ball on this. We may have dropped the money ball!
– SLANG HUGH
SLANG HUGH can be found on instagram @slanghugh
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