Current Affairs

No Harvey Norman No!

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In case you’re just arriving – grab a chair, sit down – this all kicked off after we reported on a union demonstration outside the Harvey Norman store in Hobart last Friday.

We tweeted a link to the story, and were subsequently blocked by the official @HarveyNormanAU account on Twitter. Guess what: some of our dear followers, and friends, and more, thought it was pretty poor form to be blocking independent media for just doing their job.

Our tweet has since been seen 140,000 times. As Gizmodo reported, it turned into a weird weekend of bad publicity for the fridge flogger, as they proceeded to block just about everyone in sight.

In the meantime we decided to thank our new friends by putting up a $100 prize for the best satirical Harvey Norman or Gerry Harvey memes.

So here we go!

This was sent in by Pete. Pete says he didn’t actually create it, just wanted to share it, but that’s still lovely. It goes to the heart of why Gerry Harvey is very unpopular; some people think that businesses who pocketed oodles of JobKeeper, yet still increased their profits the bonus paid out to executives, should pay it back.

Next we had a contribution from Sir Render Monkey. He’s taken a classic Gerry Harvey quote and fixed it. We’re Australians, we love fixing things.

But he wasn’t finished there. Sir Render Monkey, we mean. Oh no!

Luis Neto sent in the next one. It looks like it might have been published on Crikey. Look, Crikey do great work and you should totally support independent journalism so please think about subscribing. The more the merrier!

Seems like Harry Potter was even harder to avoid than stupid Gerry Harvey over the past few decades so their coming together in this meme is just simply delightful. Many thanks to Tu Erfbeeass for this image.

Apparently it’s not only poor people who need to be wary around the Evil One, according to Laurel. Yikes!

Movies were quite a thang so if you’re of a certain age you’ll probably remember the nervous abandonment of Dr Strangelove. But look who’s playing fast and loose with our money now. Courtesy Drew McKinnie.

Suicidal is no trivial matter, so when an angry former employee wrote in to the @HarveyNormanAU account, we all might have expected that they would have been treated in a certain way. Instead, there was this:

That’s breathtakingly atrocious, so the only thing to do – credit to Oliver Pocock for this – was to, well, acknowledge that the ultimate Grand Vizier of Asshattery responsible for cultivating this kind of corporate culture is…

Maree Jager – who’s apparently some kind of PM for dark chocolate, which frankly is sooo our PM – couldn’t help reminding us of the links between the big business Gerry Harveys of the world and the pro-big-business Liberal Prime Ministers of the world. Small world indeed.

It’s all a bit cosy isn’t it? David Genford found another member of the cosy club to feature. Oh yeah, Alan Jones, fresh from turning up in another 4 Corners expose of the wheeling-dealing that plonked the improbable Barangaroo hotel-casino development down on public land in inner Sydney.

Is there no shortage or maaates to go around in Australia? Apparently not. 88888 Capital reminded us of coal baron Nathan Tinkler, who despite being named by BRW in 2012 as ‘Australia’s youngest billionaire’ was the kind of social welfare Gerry Harvey believes in.

Whilst we’re not exactly Jeff Bezos is a great role model, there is at least a point to be made about how customers are treated. Exhibit 1, courtesy Technoking Capital.

The winners

So now, to the winners. Frankly it’s all of us, as early today this happened.

As plenty have suggested, that’s not the end of the story. You can boycott the store, if you wish, or contact them in other ways and let your views be known. Try to be nice to the employees, as they don’t deserve to cop from both the top – a boss who argues against wage increases – and from the front, the public.

Our favourite image is this one from our old mate, Sir Render Monkey. Bravo sir! It uses a classic Harvey Norman ad layout, surely familiar to anyone who’s ever cleared their letterbox of junk mail or read a mainstream print publication in Australia. For therein lies the rub: the grandiose print media simply cannot afford to put Harvey Norman’s feet to the fire over bad corporate behaviour, as it will cost them too much. The workmanship is near perfect and the political edge is spot. Bonus: we don’t have to see Gerry Harvey’s ugly mug yet another time!

When we said we were giving out a $100 prize, that turned out to be not quite true. Heckdammit we got so much positive free publicity (yay!) and new followers (love youse all!) that we decided to give out two $100 prizes.

Billionaire pricks might be stingy as <<insert bad word>> but we here on the oily rag indie scene like to keep things lean. Cycle the money around. Share. Support. If we want a media that supports equitable and accessible social and cultural life in this country, we have to be it.

So go ahead and enjoy this Downfaller brilliantly done in two parts by Kenneth Dredd, our other winner.

And just in case you’re eager for more harvey Norman love, there’s The Chaser.

Oh, and Dan Ilic too!

So that’s all from us at Tasmanian Times. Don’t forget we’ve just launched our crowdfunding campaign to develop independent media in Tasmania. If you can give us a hand, that would be fantastic.

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