Best Omnishambles of 2012 - Year-end Doom

This heartwarming little nugget of sociopathy dates from a few months ago, but deserves to be remembered, lest the unwary tread these treacherous shores again in days to come.

Imagine you have a very hip and popular gathering, such as SXSW, and you need to both promote your wireless services as well as provide them - but paying real estate owners to rent antenna space costs too much money, and even innovative ideas like paying temps to carry portable hotspots around seems a bit too spendy... wait, what about all those grubby folks lying around in alleys and bus shelters, they don’t seem to be doing anything important!

As explained by Clarence in this short Youtube video below, the thoughtful pinheads at BBH Labs came up with their idea of a win-win proposition - giving homeless people t-shirts and cellphones so they could advertise, and provide a service to others at the same time!

Yes, his t-shirt reads "I'm Clarence, a 4G hotspot" - which accomplishes in 5 words a feat once thought nigh-impossible: draining yet more dignity from a homeless person's bedraggled soul.

Strangely enough, when the story got out not everyone's heart was suitably warmed by BBH's selfless gesture. Although 100% of the donations garnered by Mr. or Ms. Hotspot are theirs to keep (plus they were offered a daily stipend), the company was taken to task in the media - some called them even worse names than what I’m saying about these supreme bastards.

In a reply posted on their blog, BBH wrote:

"Obviously, there’s an insane amount of chatter about this, which although certainly villianizes us, in many ways is very good for the homeless people we're trying to help: homelessness is actually a subject being discussed at SXSW and these people are no longer invisible."

Yes, they're now visibly carrying your URL. And like all topics being discussed at SXSW, it will be forgotten again when the participants in the conversation sober up.

This isn't a mistake by one person - this would have gone through an approval process, many people were involved. Evidently not one of them pointed out what should have been some neon-obvious flaws in this pathetic scheme… not even people at the homeless shelter BBH worked through.

Tip for next time - try putting "I'm Clarence, and I'm carrying a 4G hotspot" on the t-shirts. Then wrap yourself in the t-shirts, drench them in kerosene, and drown yourself.