A Plea for Better Manners

January 17, 2005 7:39 PM

A Plea for Better Manners or- How to be an Ugly American from the comfort of your own home. On the plus side, these two are now broadcasting from a New York station that is collecting for tsunami relief.
posted by IndigoJones (30 comments total)

Not to defend abusive behavior, but if call center staffers in India think they're getting obscene calls from Americans solely because of outsourcing, they're exhibiting truly American-level self-centeredness. Assholes like to play with telephones. It doesn't matter to them who's on the other end.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:55 PM on January 17, 2005

Assholes also like to make generalizations about the behaviors of the "average" American.
posted by j.p. Hung at 8:24 PM on January 17, 2005

And circular reasoning takes the square.
posted by basicchannel at 8:44 PM on January 17, 2005

Link to the FCC's electronic complaint form for "Profanity & Indecency" - interested parties can file a complaint against the radio program mentioned in the Asia Times article. I know I am.
posted by mlis at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2005

That Star & Buc Wild act is some majorly unfunny shit.

The message on their web site about "our brand name becoming a sure-shot bet", ass-kissing Clear Channel, and my favourite: "I feel I've been deified in a sense".
posted by cosmonik at 8:55 PM on January 17, 2005

Puke.

I've been doing some heavy-duty research on what qualifies as an obscenity. I personally find that radio shtick much more obscene that Janet's nipple, although I have my doubts about whether the FCC would agree.

FYI, here's the FCC's obscenity test:

To be obscene,

1) An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;

2) The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and

3) The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

What I'm worried about is that there's no description of a sexual act. The prank call meets the criteria of numbers 1 and 3, provided that -- fingers crossed -- overt racism offends "contemporary community standards."
posted by mudpuppie at 9:05 PM on January 17, 2005

I've delt with reps from India... I bet they cringe when I ask them what country they're from. In my shallow, short experience I find most of the time they are just as helpful as an American or Canadian rep. Sometimes, and I know it's scary, when I get off the phone with someone who plays into my steretypes, I walk away thinking horrible stuff. When this happens, I get shocked.


What is wrong with me? Am I really so low as to fall into the hands of hatred and bigotry? Has anyone ever in their lives felt this way: specifically to call centers from India? What would be the first thing you felt or thought if someone with an Indian accent was rude to you on the phone? A southern accent? A Canadian accent?
posted by Dean Keaton at 9:05 PM on January 17, 2005

If 100 people across the US would commit to spending 10 minutes a day, we could cripple them, and bring those jobs back.

Course, if those people would put the same effort into their work, they might still have jobs...
posted by Infinite Jest at 9:10 PM on January 17, 2005

What would be the first thing you felt or thought if someone with an Indian accent was rude to you on the phone? A southern accent? A Canadian accent?

My first thought: "What an asshole." Note that this is different from "What a Southern asshole" or "What an asshole this Indian guy is." Where someone's from ought to be irrelevant. Assholes are assholes.

Am I really so low as to fall into the hands of hatred and bigotry?

Although I don't mean this to be inflammatory, I think that in some sense, the answer is yes. Not that that's your intent.

From your name, I'm assuming you're a current or former Austinite, Keaton?
posted by mudpuppie at 9:11 PM on January 17, 2005

Hung: Assholes also like to make generalizations about the behaviors of the "average" American.

puppie: Here's the FCC's obscenity test...to be obscene...an average person...

Draw your own conclusions.
posted by cosmonik at 9:14 PM on January 17, 2005

Cosmonik, I'm not sure I get your point. I'm quoting from the test the FCC uses when it decides whether to initiate an investigation into an obscenity. An "and" joins the three, so all three must be true before the FCC acts.

Personally, I think the DJs should fry. But MLIS posted a link to the online complaint form for the FCC. I'm just saying that, considering research I've done lately, I don't think they'd consider this obscene.

Again, I personally find it disgusting. Just to clarify.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:19 PM on January 17, 2005

Mudpuppie - good point about the standards. Still, a number of complaints to the FCC might trigger scrutiny and set in motion the process to retroactively examine their record for broadcasts (Jeff Jarvis had a good post about 3 people writing something like 30 letters that caused enforcement action - Jarvis also discussed the issue on the Brian Lehrer show) that meet all 3.

I would like to do something - the exchange in that article is vile.
posted by mlis at 9:20 PM on January 17, 2005

Look, MLIS, I'm with you. (If you don't believe me, look at my profile and follow the website link.)

I'm just saying the FCC's not the way to go if you want to have an effect on these guys. The FCC probably won't fine them; it's not sexual.

A letter-writing campaign targeted at the show's advertisers and producers would be more effective.

We're on the same side.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:22 PM on January 17, 2005

mudpuppie, my point is: the FCC are assholes (using Hung's theorem that assholes like to generalise about average americans combined with the FCC's statements regarding the average person).

Nothing against you.
posted by cosmonik at 9:26 PM on January 17, 2005

All those blue-collar workers who laughed at me for majoring in English...job market not so hot, eh, boys? Realized we're all replaceable?
posted by NickDouglas at 9:27 PM on January 17, 2005

mudpuppie, my point is: the FCC are assholes

Well, then, we agree! Sorry I didn't get it the first time.

(On preview: I don't think they're really assholes. I think they've been given an impossibly vague set of guidelines, and those guidelines are being exploited by a radical fringe [whom I almost linked to, but then I decided not to give them the traffic]. The FCC is in a tough spot. It was one of the commissioners who originally called for the investigation into Armstrong Williams. Those of us who think they're assholes just need to speak up so that they know we're not all obscenity-crazed loonies.)
posted by mudpuppie at 9:31 PM on January 17, 2005

To clarify: the FCC has a valid role in watching for special interest content, etc. but it seems to have taken unto itself a mandate to interpret the First Amendment.
posted by cosmonik at 9:38 PM on January 17, 2005

To clarify: the FCC has a valid role in watching for special interest content, etc. but it seems to have taken unto itself a mandate to interpret the First Amendment.

Not to quibble with you, cosmonik, because I still think we're on the same side...

The FCC is required to investigate complaints it receives as citizens. It is not authorized to monitor the airwaves (although their commitment to that rule is debatable). When a mobilized right-wing group complains about X,Y, or Z, they're required by law to determine whether said complaint meets that three-pronged test.

From there, they're required to interpret whether some really vague standards have been met/violated. This is where they become political.

But, that said, by law they can't start an investigation until someone complains about something.

If you want to look at who's interpreting the First Amendment, take a look at the Parents Television Council. (I just made myself feel better by not linking to them.)
posted by mudpuppie at 9:44 PM on January 17, 2005

[receives from citizens]
posted by mudpuppie at 9:44 PM on January 17, 2005

mudpuppie, I think we are in agreement.

I'm aware of the FCC's limitations. In regards to saying they interpret the First Amendment, I mean in responding to those complaints. Any group - right or left - can complain, and the FCC must follow up. But considering the proliferation of single-issue and morality-based groups in America who actively campaign in such ways (FCC complaints), almost every slightly controversial release will receive a complaint against someone, so those 3 criteria are brought into play again and again, and as you say, it is then that it becomes political. It is also then that I have a problem with it.
posted by cosmonik at 9:52 PM on January 17, 2005

Yes, cosmo, I think we're saying the same thing....
posted by mudpuppie at 10:13 PM on January 17, 2005

Our very own ed has been all over this story for a while now. Unfortunately, the India Times ate his bandwidth.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:48 PM on January 17, 2005

I have a copy of the MP3 in question. If anyone is willing to host it, I can send it to you - it's a 2 MB file. (Email is in profile.)
(A copy of it is also supposedly available here.)

This topic has also been extensively covered on Indian blogs all over the Net. (Apparently, many of those sites have been hosed due to excessive traffic, so no point linking to them.)

Playing a prank is one thing, but "choke the eff out of you"? "Filthy rat-eater"? (We like our monkey brains, thank you.) That's disturbed.
posted by madman at 2:17 AM on January 18, 2005

from the Asia Times article:

quite a common occurrence now - of sober Americans, instead of the usual drunken ones that exist everywhere
...
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.

Inserting wisecracks like this (and false ones, at that) and then calling yourself a journalist stretches the definition of journalism into Fox News territory (we distort, etc.).
posted by oaf at 4:41 AM on January 18, 2005

...except that's the opinion a whole lot of americans have apparently left the asia times writer with, oaf. acting like drunken idiots seems to be something we as a culture are good at.

personally, the thing that really bothers me about this outsourcing phone-bank thing is the calling overseas part. if it's so much cheaper to set up a call center in india, why the hell does it cost so much for someone like me to make an international phone call? telling me the india call centers are a money saving mechanism and then telling me that international phone calls are charged at a premium rate doesn't add up. so, either the outsourcing companies are getting a massive break from the telcos, or the telcos are shafting the average citizen and will continue to do so just because they can. am i right, or am i missing something obvious?
posted by caution live frogs at 5:28 AM on January 18, 2005

CLF, you are missing something obvious, namely, that all the blame resides with certain foreign governments, not telecommunications companies.

Virtually all of the cost of international calls to the developing world is a pass-through of the taxes that those governments impose upon the calls. Developed world countries, which don't impose such taxes (like Canada and the UK) can be called from the US nearly as cheap as one can make a domestic long distance call.

Call center host countries like India and the Phillipines game their tax system -- where they can get more revenue from the taxes on wages and profits derived from call centers, they exempt the traffic to and from the call centers from the phone call taxes.
posted by MattD at 6:50 AM on January 18, 2005

that all the blame resides with certain foreign governments, not telecommunications companies.

Blame? They're to be blamed for setting up tax regimes that attract industry?
posted by biffa at 6:55 AM on January 18, 2005

The poster was wondering why his international calls were so expensive, and wanted to blame the telcos, which isn't correct.

I wouldn't blame the foreign countries for relaxing taxes to encourage industry. I'm inclined to believe that any tax cut is a good tax cut, after all.
posted by MattD at 7:14 AM on January 18, 2005

That Star & Buc Wild act is some majorly unfunny shit.

Phew, I'll second that. A more interesting discussion for me would be, why do these two people have a radio show? This is majorly unfunny, unwitty, unclever stuff.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:11 AM on January 18, 2005

My impession that these guys are basically a new incarnation of Howard Stern. Shocking, totally tasteless and unfunny to many people, but they have an audience. There's lots of assholes around. You've met people who get a kick out of this horrible crap. If you don't find it funny, you probably choose not to associate with the people who do. That doesn't mean they don't exist, much as it might offend your sensisbility (and mine. and I wish a lot more people's).
posted by raedyn at 9:27 AM on January 18, 2005