Training Up Good Little Drones

At Alabama, where the football is only boring when the home team goes up by six touchdowns, students are being penalized if they leave a game early.

A report Thursday by the New York Times found that the college football juggernaut uses location-tracking technology to support its student loyalty rewards program. The basics are simple and a bit eerie: Students download the Tide Loyalty Points app, earn 100 points for attending a home game and then get an additional 250 if they’re still in attendance by the fourth quarter.

The Persuaders at work, I’d say: working on the malleability of young adults to shape them into the corporate drones that so many companies desire. It’s a simple carrot approach – rather than follow your own judgment, stick around ’til the bitter end and learn that adherence to the cult is more valuable than using your judgment.

At least the ‘bama head football coach isn’t part of this fairly despicable scheme:

The idea is that the incentive of more points will prevent students from leaving games early, something Tide Coach Nick Saban has spoken out against before and returned to this past weekend after Alabama’s 62-10 win over New Mexico State, the second week of the app.

“If I asked that whole student section, do you want to be No. 1?” Saban wondered, “Nobody would hold their hand up and say I want to be No. 4. They would all say No. 1. But are they willing to do everything to be No. 1? That’s another question. You can ask them that. I don’t know the answer.”

Well, at least I don’t think so. That was a trifle incoherent.