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Does she have \"Twilight\" as one of her favorite movies or books?
Does she have \"Twilight\" as one of her favorite movies or books?
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They have, what, 9 months left of marketing to that age group?
I hope they don't put any Twilight logos on the card, otherwise my wife will sign up for three. They could have a 50% APR and $200 annual fees and she would do it in a heartbeat. Anything for Edward Cullen!
(gotta hide this site from her for a few days!)
It's just marketing, the same way they'll issue you a card branded with your school or with your favorite football team (or photo of your cat). Kudos for Chloe for recognizing the pitch.
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The credit card won't use you, though. It will just stare at you lustily, and ask if you are afraid. The Twilight girls will love it, even with a 20 percent APR.
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Beyond the lousy terms I see one thing wrong with this card. It gets you points towards buying the latest book. The fourth book has been out for quite a while now (my wife reads them) - most of their target audience (Twilight nuts) most likely ALREADY HAVE THE BOOK! Twilight nuts will still buy into this I'm sure, but there is zero benefit to getting that lousy card.
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I just think it's cool that a teenage college freshman is reading the Consumerist. When I was that age, I was a freaking retard with money. Way to get a good start!
@Segador: Whoops, I used the currently non-PC \"R\" word. How about \"I had no idea how to responsibly save, spend, or invest money, and spent my way into $9k of credit card debt before learning the hard way and cutting my cards up\".
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Uh, how many of them don't already own the latest edition of Twilight? Stupidest reward ever.
^^^username
I'll have three, please.
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I though these were YA books. Wouldn't people in college be the wrong demographic?
@Rectilinear Propagation: I understand that these books can be for all ages but most people I know who read Twilight are 10-11 years old.
Oh dear. I am over 50, and I read all four books in a huge rush last fall. Candy for the brain.
@ElizabethD: I'm 31. They're my post-partum recovery brain candy. I figured I needed something where it wouldn't matter if I completely forgot the plot or had to stop in the middle of a sentence to go change a diaper. :)
I have some criticisms, but, dude, I bought them as brain candy, so that would be like bitching about romance novels being trashy. That's the point! (Although I feel free to criticize when people are presenting them as \"wholesome\" for teenagers. OH HELL NO. Creepiest. Relationship. Ever.)
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@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I just object when people try to classify them as literature. Brain candy is fine, but Chaucer it ain't. ^_^
@Rectilinear Propagation: How old/young are you referring to as YA (young adult)? I know some people refer to teens as \"young adults,\" but frankly, I don't consider anyone to be a \"young adult\" unless they are at least 18 (you know, legally an 'adult'), so a \"young adult\" would be anyone in the upper teens/low 20s, ergo college age people.
But otherwise, just like Harry Potter, I know a lot of people, including myself, who are much older than that who enjoy the books.
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@Jevia: In the book industry, young adult is categorized as content suitable for people around 13 to 17, though the content that is being produced for the YA category may be more suitable for those closer to 17 rather than 13. Twilight may be a little steep or may be a little too adult for some 13 year olds.
In real life, you stop being a young adult once you hit 18. Then you're legally, and in all senses of the word, an adult, even if you did start driving at 16 (the driving age is now 17 in many states). You might live with your parents, and you may go to school still, but you're an adult and as such, have real responsibilities in life and others expect much more of you at that time.
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@pecan 3.14159265: Actually our society tends to treat young people as \"adults\" as far as responsibilities far before it treats them as \"adults\" as far as rights. You can sign away your life on a credit or loan at 18, but you can't drink a beer. You can be charged as an adult if you commit a crime way before 18, but you can't smoke, drink, or consent to sleep with whomever you want. You don't have constitutional rights to privacy, against unlawful search and seizure, or to free speech in the schools, but you're treated as an adult and arrested if you break the rules. You can be drafted into the military before you can drink. And forget voting against any of these rules that affect you, because you're not responsible enough to vote.
I haven't been a teen for a while, but I still think it's stupid the way our society applies double standards to them. If you're going to slap responsibilities on them, give them full rights as well.
@Rectilinear Propagation: Clearly, you've been under a rock, or in a cave not equipped with high speed internet. No offense.
I spotted a 30something woman on the metro this morning reading Twilight. By no means is it only for the YA crowd.
It's like saying Harry Potter is YA so why is the world's adults getting all riled up?
@Outrun1986: But they aren't really the prime candidates for credit cards. The college demographic is where the YA book readers and new credit card signers overlap.
I just canceled my soon-to-be-Chase card (was WaMu), because they decided, out of the blue with no change in account status or payment behavior, to raise my interest rate by over 3 percentage points. I called their customer \"service\" line and spent several minutes requesting information about the cause of the increase, including being transferred to a supervisor at my request. The best that they could give me was that it was a \"business decision\". No specifics. Finally, I asked, \"So, is it true that Chase doesn't care that I'll be canceling this credit card account and closing all of my family's checking accounts because of this seemingly random interest rate increase?\" The answer from the supervisor was a calm, cool, \"Yes\".
I thanked him for his time, hung up the phone, and immediately wrote a letter to Chase refusing the interest rate increase, acknowledging that the account would be closed. The greed of Chase astounds me. As much as I read here about the issues that WaMu had, I really miss them.
@pecan 3.14159265: I know that it's not just young adults reading it but I thought that's who they were targeting. Generally it seems like anything that's considered to be for kids or teens doesn't get used to target adults even if adults are fans of it.
So it's more like I was saying, \"Harry Potter is YA so why is there a line of motorcycles that have the same names as the brooms in the books?\"
Except I wouldn't ask that because that would be awesome.
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@Rectilinear Propagation: They were indeed released as YA, which doesn't conventionally include college (in the publishing industry, that is). However, once a publisher realizes there's additional audience, they're perfectly happy to pander to it (as in packaging Harry Potter editions for adults).
@Rectilinear Propagation: I already said it to someone else, but this is a long thread, so:
The books' target audience aren't really the prime candidates for credit cards. The college demographic is where the YA book readers and new credit card signers overlap.
Chase is using books about vampires to promote their credit cards to young adults? How apropos!
Lol. I read the consumerist daily and its made me more aware of this stuff. I'm a 20 year old college student at a major national university and have avoided these types of offers. Thanks largely to Consumerist, I have a Chase Freedom from the good old days and a Citi Diamond with low apr. Hurray for practical, as opposed to impractical, education!
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Twilight is creepy (in a bad way) in and of itself, unless viewed from the blind spot that its fans inhabit. If you attempt to reach those people from any other nearby angle, they'll see the creepiness, too.
At first I read \"twilight demographic\" as \"the very elderly\" and thought, wow, that's extra unethical even for a credit card company.
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Because they know that Twihards will buy and/or use ANYTHING with those graphics on them. Smart marketing or sinister plot?
@ElizabethD:
Can't it be both?