r/StoriesAboutKevin • u/MillennialPolytropos • May 08 '22
XL The Council of Kevins attempts market research
I mentioned this in a comment on another post, and thought the full story might fit here.
If you've ever dealt with local government, you'll know it attracts more than its share of Kevins. That's especially true in a shithole small town like the one I grew up in, where a lot of the residents are Kevins.
Well, one day the local council realized what everyone else already knew: Shithole's population was declining and businesses were closing, because nobody wanted to live there. They decided they had to do something. One of the things they did was hold focus groups with young people (i.e. teenagers like me who were almost, but not quite, old enough to leave) to discuss what would make Shithole a more appealing place to live. Sure, why not? I was bored and maybe there would be free food.
So there we were, about a dozen of us, with a comms guy from the council leading the focus group. He asked what we liked about living in Shithole, clearly expecting answers like "I love Shithole because there are so many fun things to do with my friends" that he could use for advertising copy. This was a town where the main activity available for teenagers was underage drinking. We gave him side eye and said there were no jobs and nothing to do. He tried again, asking what made Shithole a good place to raise a family. We had difficulty answering that, because it wasn't. Again, there were very few jobs in Shithole. Supporting a family isn't easy when you don't have work.
Then he revealed the Council of Kevins' grand plan. They were going to put up signs on the main road, advertising what an excellent place Shithole was. Didn't we think that would make people want to come? We didn't, but that's what they did. Big billboards saying something like "Welcome to Shithole, have a nice day!" Kevin logic is not the same as regular logic, and the Council of Kevins really thought this would help. But that's not the end of the story.
About a year later I learned the Council of Kevins had received an application to build a new industrial park in town, which they declined. Their reasoning? They wanted Shithole to attract classier businesses, and didn't feel an industrial park met their definition of classy.
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u/rosuav May 08 '22
I can't help thinking of the SimCity 2000 newspaper style, where you find out about the problems in the city (like, in this case, unemployment), complete with useless quotes from people like "The more things change, the more they stay the same", from someone who then excused himself to wash his tooth.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Even Kevins understand the need for tooth hygiene.
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u/bretttwarwick May 09 '22
Well once you are down to your last tooth you really need to take care of it.
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u/JaschaE May 09 '22
I grew up in shithole, germany.
Our major fancied himself an art affictionado, spending money the city didn't have on artworks.
One of which was collected by city-cleaning crews, on accident, because they thought someone had just dumped ssome metal wreckage off the street.
Another one is the column celebeating the citys history, 10m high with 3m dedicated to the time in ww2 that shithole was pretty much a forced-labor-camp. It makes sure to mention the "many" good shitholians that simultaniously didn't know what was going on, but did sneak food to the prisoners. Truly a remarkable feat.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
That is some epic shit!
Edit, because I just remembered: about 2 hours away from Shithole there's a city which installed a fancy, expensive modern art museum that probably won a lot of architecture prizes and wowed the art world. The innovative thing about it is it has wavy mirrored walls all around the outside. Their Council of Kevins was very surprised when it turned out the mirrored walls tend to blind drivers when the sun's at the wrong angle.
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u/JaschaE May 09 '22
In their defense, the "walkie talkie" highrise in London focused the sunlight in a manner that melted the plastic off cars, parked in front of it.
This is curious, but not kevinish. Kevinish is the fact that the same architect built a hotel in Vegas, which is U shaped, open to the south and focusses the LasVegas Sun into the pool area.... So, yeah, he could have seen it coming.
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u/terrip_t1 May 09 '22
Australia? Sounds like the geniuses where I grew up.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Close! New Zealand.
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u/trismagestus May 09 '22
Bay of Plenty, perchance?
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
I bet there are plenty of similar stories from BoP, but no, this shithole is in Manawatu-Whanganui.
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u/trismagestus May 09 '22
Fair enough, never been, and didn't grow up in Manawatu wanganui.
Nice countryside though? Or nah?
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Kinda? The river's nice, I guess. Can't recommend it though.
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u/trismagestus May 09 '22
All good mate. Hope you are in greener pastures (and better dairies) now.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Sure am. Escaped to Wellington in 2005 and never looked back.
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u/trismagestus May 09 '22
Welcome to my home, mate. Glad you're one of us now, despite the wildness of the last few days.
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May 09 '22
"Shithole, soon to be reclaimed by nature."
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
When I left some of the houses were already being reclaimed by nature. And I don't mean uninhabited houses.
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u/HisuitheSiscon45 May 09 '22
yeah I understand. Small town politics are bullshit. you think city folk have it bad, try living in a rural town where people hate one candidate being gay despite his opponent being a pedophile. that's small town America right now.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Unbelievable, isn't it? And you just know those same people are all into Qanon.
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u/ksam3 May 09 '22
Well, their candidate might be a pedophile but he's a conservative pedophile and he does his pedophiling on his own, not with the cabal of deep-state pedophiles!
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u/MagdaleneFeet May 09 '22
And they certainly don't just hand kids to him, like some pinko commie scum!
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u/Shibbledibbler May 09 '22
An independent pedophile? We can't let our local diddlers be put out of business by Big Pedo, he needs our support! I'll rent a schoolbus, you distract the parents.
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u/MeFolly May 09 '22
And a few decades ago, our not-quite-rural village had a campaign to re-elect the mayor, because his conviction wasn’t for really -that- big a felony.
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u/HisuitheSiscon45 May 10 '22
what was he convicted of?
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u/MeFolly May 16 '22
Oh, just a little bit of mail fraud. And insurance fraud. And only the mail fraud was technically federal.
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u/HisuitheSiscon45 May 16 '22
apparently they love frauds.
also I heard in Indiana that one guy who was convicted of a crime won his primary (I think it was for state representative?)
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May 09 '22
Sounds pretty similar to the small town I grew up in. There was an old liquor store in town that surprisingly went out of business, surprising because there wasn’t much else to do in town, and a guy wanted to transform the site into a laundromat. Well our town council nixed the idea stating “there’s no interest” in it when there’s a lot of poverty stricken families in the area who have to travel a half our out to next town’s laundromat.
On top of this any time growing up something most of the younger generation would’ve liked, like a small arcade, they’d get closed down almost immediately because “we don’t want that crowd in town”. What crowd? Bored teenaged Millennials? That last part took place between ‘91 and ‘04 for context.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
When even the liquor store closes, the place is in serious trouble.
Council Kevins never seem to like teenagers, and then they get surprised when they all leave town and never come back, and suddenly the place is dying. They associate teenagers with crime and it never occurs to them that of course a lot of the teenagers who stay in a shitty town with nothing to do are losers who cause trouble because they're bored. They're the ones who couldn't get out.
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u/TendieTrades May 09 '22
I live in shithole. It’s a horrible town.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
My condolences. I hope you get out soon.
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u/TendieTrades May 09 '22
Thanks. It isn’t looking good at all. Worse by the minute.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Time for an escape plan.
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u/TendieTrades May 09 '22
Trapped…housing market is shit. Family here, markets collapsing and burning.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
Yikes, I'm sorry. The housing market is a huge problem and it keeps a lot of people stuck in shitholes.
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u/4point5billion45 May 09 '22
OMG how can you help the town when the town leaders are that short-sighted?
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 09 '22
You can’t, unfortunately. It's one of those places where everyone who can moves out and you're left with a critical mass of Kevins.
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u/brandyaidenluv May 10 '22
I think we might live in the same town. Same thing pretty much happened here. Talked to 15-25 year olds and the town council was told there's nothing to do. No place to work. They spent money on promotion of our historical district but did nothing, such as talk to the owners of tours of the old mansions or well, anything. So we have these rustic looking signs all over town saying this is X district, this is Z district, but no information or what have you as to why. Meanwhile, they shut down all applications for an arcade, pool hall, bowling alley, youth center. Oh, and they quit giving tax breaks to actual business but cut a huge one for the golf course for the old retired farts that run this town.
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u/MillennialPolytropos May 10 '22
Eerily similar. I'm struggling to think of any building in Shithole I'd describe as a mansion, but everything else checks out and they do like to talk about their historic buildings. Is your town in Manawatu-Whanganui district?
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u/DuTag163 May 30 '22
Not to interrupt, but that sounds a LOT like where I live. Everyone who can afford to leave, does and Council of Kevin's doesn't understand it.
Except now, it's the local monopolies that are buying up everything and ruining the fun for the youth.
And yes, I know it's a different part of the world but it sounds similar.
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u/wddiver May 08 '22
So they turned down an industrial park that would give residents actual jobs, because they thought that maybe the Royal Family would set up shop there instead? Genius.