"No Future Graduation Cap" Collection for Angry Grads

[05-16-2018 UPDATE: After seeing customizable paper plates "trending" on the Zazzle homepage, I decided to add an additional product to my line of "'No Future' Graduation Cap" products: Disposable paper plates for disposable college graduates!

A complete product description and image preview are available after the prefatory* blurb explaining the concept. Your post-modernist pals can forgive graduate under-employment; but they won't let your straight-laced graduation party proceed un-mocked. #GetThesePlates

(*Indeed, the apropos adjective is "prefatory," not "predatory." And "apropos" might be Greek to you, but it's English to me. Alright, moving forward... together! #HowIImproved the #WisconsinMotto? #AddedTogether) -JPO]

[NOTE: The following blog post is unofficially sponsored by The Replacements; more specifically, by their 1984 melody "Unsatisfied." Look it up! [/NOTE]

Grads of all ages, including grads-to-be, may make a public statement about their desire to bring a better future for all, not merely the most capable (who are actually a sliver of the huge grade-inflated, impractically knowledgeable, Honors College crowd facetiously referred to by educators as the "best and brightest").

The "No Future Graduation Cap" ensemble is a perfect gift for the following:

1) Nihilistic high school graduates.

2) College graduates who wish to express discontent with the economy; the apparent value of their hard-earned degree(s); and/or the poor career placement services of their alma mater.

3) Family and friends of the above.

Designed by a disgruntled grad -- one who palletizes stuff for a living because he has been denied an office job, the past half-decade or so, since he graduated with a master's degree in public administration from UW-Milwaukee.

NEW for 2018: "'No Future' Graduation Cap" Dinner Plates

These daring dinner plates are equally apropos for high-school graduation parties. Even if you're heading to Applebees' Bar and Grill for your post-graduation celebration, their suggestible staff will accommodate your whimsical demand to use these paper plates. #GoAhead, #YOLO!

The "No Future Graduation Cap" Tee Shirts

Each style and every size is available to ensure your shirt fits your body type. Looks great on men, women, and children!

Unisex styles (including baseball sleeves):

Men's sizes:

Women's sizes:

Kid's editions:

Basic / Economy / Value / Standard Tees

"Good enough" for the grad without a seemingly promising future, as many who do appear "promising" often end up moving back in with relatives or otherwise "slumming" while working jobs for which they are immensely overqualified (from an academic standpoint, to say nothing of the ill prejudice human resources staff tend to hold).

The "No Future Graduation Cap" Trucker Hat

What's an ensemble without headgear? Let others know what's going in your headspace by donning these dashing "No Future Graduation Cap" trucker hats!

An illustration of a hat on a hat. About as artsy-fartsy as your "commuter college" fine arts grad!

Also available in baseball styles, which -- logically and statistically speaking -- would go well with the baseball tee above. (No thesis necessary!)

P.S. -- Contrary to the name of the style in which the trucker's hat is fashioned, an actual trucker / big-rig driver / owner-operator has a better future than the putatively "gifted and talented" but future-deprived grad.

The "No Future Graduation Cap" Coffee Mug

"No Future Graduation Cap" Mortar Board Topper

The "No Future Graduation Cap" Mortar Board Topper is a large sticker (wall decal) that can be trimmed to fit a standard graduation cap.

Suggestion: If you're too poor to order this item, then paint "No Future" on your graduation cap or mortar board to communicate the same idea.

The message we spread is more important than how much I earn from sales of these things, but of course I'm not going to buy any of these for anyone else unless someone bequeaths me a bunch of cash.

Legal disclaimers, also known as "fine print:"

- Check with your high school principal to see whether you can wear this item (or paint a similar message) on your graduation cap without being denied your diploma. Although colleges and universities are more permissive overall, school districts often have draconian rules about "proper conduct" at graduation ceremonies, including what you cannot wear. -

- Not affiliated with the collegiate organization Mortar Board. I know most people would never confuse the common noun "mortar board" with the proper noun denoting the organization, but here is an obvious disclaimer for those who would argue otherwise. -

Interesting fact (repeated for emphasis): This item was designed by a disgruntled grad -- one who palletizes stuff for a living because he has been denied an office job, the past half-decade or so, since he graduated with a master's degree in public administration from UW-Milwaukee.

"High School Graduate with No Future" Bumper Sticker

The "High School Graduate With No Future" Bumper Sticker is a perfect gift for your pessimistic high school graduate! Communicates distrust and disdain, with style.

"College Graduate with No Future" Bumper Sticker

The "College Graduate With No Future" Bumper Sticker was designed, appropriately enough, by a disgruntled grad. And not the stereotypical "talentless, unmotivated bum," either...

This particularly marginalized grad palletizes stuff for a living because he has been denied an office job, the past half-decade or so, since he graduated with a master's degree in public administration from UW-Milwaukee!

This motivates the passion by which he utilizes time-tested talent and highly honed skill to both design for Zazzle and write his own ad copy to promote such output. May the buyer believe!

Perfect Propaganda for Boycotting Graduation Parties

Are you sick of being told to celebrate the beginning of the next metaphorical stage of drudgery, now that you've walked the literal stage of gladhanding school officials?

Then, use your "No Future Graduation Cap" swag to disabuse the celebrants of their blissful ignorance!

Deposit your hard-earned (or allowance-bought) apparel and merchandise at the entrance of the gymnasium, auditorium, or community center where the official, school-sanctioned graduation party is to transpire.

In many situations, dropping off your own valuable goods in a public place is not a crime: Either someone will take the stuff for themselves; or police will add it to their "lost and found" file (and perhaps sell it when no one "claims" or picks it up).

However, intent matters in some crimes. So in this case, the intent might be seen as "littering," the same as a person who places handbills everywhere might be charged with littering.

(If you're nervous about getting caught, then arrive a few hours early and sneak your stuff around to the back door. You might want to wear gloves when handling the merchandise, as well as to shield your face with a broad-rimmed hat and doo rag, to ensure secrecy. And don't tell anyone! No bragging, or you're busted.)

"Okay, the social outcast has dumped a bunch of 'No Future' items at a place where 'bright (obedient), optimistic (naive)' peers are partying. How is that better than alternatives?"

1) It gives the personal satisfaction of communicating an unpleasant, yet lawful, message. There's no need to gun down anyone and get law enforcement all over you, when you can instead lawfully distribute products bearing protected, non-inciteful speech to your intended audience.

2) You've something thrilling to think about when stewing alone on graduation weekend: The dismayed expressions, cognitive dissonance, and (hopefully!) potential re-evaluation of their lives' goals by the celebrant-graduates.

3) The act itself, of distributing emblems countervailing the predominant peer narrative, is highly artistic! Call this the "bonus points for irony" factor.

3.1) A future focus contrasts with the momentary celebrations into which wearied graduates shelter for but a day, while conceding that if we've really no "promising future" at all, then the moment is all you justify focusing upon!

Nonetheless, many mingling grads must arise the next morning to work a dead-end retail or food service job. A few might have the foresight to focus on getting into light-industrial work through a staffing agency, as opposed to their "college-bound" peers -after- they've spent 4 to 8 years in college and found no one wants to hire them anymore!

For those who've "bound" themselves to college (by unthinking social expectation and by lack of personal courage to refuse this track), either their summer job or a self-directed void awaits their next weeks. (If such job has not been procured by mid-May, then chances are it won't be until perhaps the end of summer -- and it won't be a "summer job" by that point!)

3.2) The purchase of enough items to make a noticeable pile on the premises shows you planned the product placement. This shows an initiative and ability for "executive function" comparable with those of your peers, but you reached a differing conclusion as to where the best return on investment should be (raising awareness of the dim prospects for most graduates vs. presuming you'll benefit sufficiently from the status quo).

3.3) It is an apparel product usage that doesn't involve wearing wearables! Not quite a paradox, but an oxymoron that shows a descriptor can conflict with that so described.

I know the last section dragged on like an academic essay, but that's what too much education will do to you!

The historical Spartans recognized this and therefore frowned upon advanced wordsmithing. Strangely, "college prep" schools continue to bear the "Spartans" as a mascot and thereby contradict this historicity by promoting college as the presumed "career preparation" means!

"Vo-tech or bust," shall be on the lips of many disillusioned-of-the-future high schoolers, a veritable beating-back against the university-for-all mantra of the higher education hucksters.

Council of 13 Merchandise Boasts Elite Affiliation to the Masses

Perhaps you've heard of the secretive baker's dozen blamed -- or credited, such as in the pages of Forbes, but mostly blamed by commoners -- for most anti-populist social-political phenomena of the past 100 or so years.

Due to overlap in long-term goals and commonality of the word "council" in their names, many consider the Council of 13 and the Council on Foreign Relations (FCR) to have common roots. This reflects a globalist bent that has devastated big and small communities alike by diverting jobs and job seekers to the big cities that lack the tax base necessary to support such continual expansion:

Developing rural real estate; draining the power grid; and congesting local roads, to name but a few tragedies of the commons. Speaking of stopped-up streets, here's a bumper sticker you 'd not suspect would be blatantly paraded on highways, byways, and freeways, given the Proletarian penchant for road rage over perceived injustices:

You may have one, too, as an elitist embellishment of your Palooka Mobile! Or if you don't want to remove the adhesive-held backing from such an unusual item, then use that glossy graphic as a bookmark to hold your place between reading sessions.

You read a lot of nonfiction, correct? That's what the elites do -- they need to keep tabs on not only current events (online news from around the world) but also retrospectives of history and science that reveal the trajectory of global development. And how damning the change can be!

Globalism as a Destructive Force That Trickles Up

As Charles Kelly explains in the seminal book The Great Limbaugh Con, the urban contradiction between jobs creation and reduced per capita tax receipts is because economic developers -- such as the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) -- persuade mayors, council members, and other civic leaders to waive taxes on the biggest businesses.

Ironically, these multinational firms can most afford to pay a larger share of community services -- but are kowtowed to, because they threaten to "site shop" until the municipalities race to the bottom in terms of demands for non-job investment through property, value-added, and local income taxes.

The worker rush means people outstrip jobs and housing, which in turn results in conclaves of people unable to afford housing or stay off welfare. However, foreign migrants or "guest workers" cheat because foreign labor brokers pay their transport and lodging!

When occurring with the aforementioned reduction in corporate taxes, the result of domestic "move for work" migration (of U.S. citizens) is greater strain on infrastructure and greater demand for publicly subsidized social services, but without adequate forthcoming revenue to sustain actual influx of workers and their families.

A lack of affordable housing results in ghettos and crime: Rundown apartments and former tract houses, where the biggest aspiration a youngster can have is to tack a Council of 13 poster to his bedroom wall and hope he's chosen at random to be an honorary member of the elite.

These problem areas of unsubstantiated hopes for a mediocre modicum of the American dream tend to discourage business development; because no one wants to hire the segment of unemployed people who mostly live in relative poverty without reliable transportation! (Not counting the bus line, of course, but that also spreads crime.)

The converse of this situation is that better-off workers generally won't commute to dangerous parts of the city. This means knowledge-intensive businesses won't set up shop in economically depressed areas, just the same as labor-intensive industries are loathe to site new space in the so-called "economic development zones" (i.e. where mostly poor people live) unless they get a bunch of tax obligations forgiven (and sometimes a locked parking garage for the fearful executives, i.e. plant manager, accountants, and HR staff).

Although small communities are hurt less because their inability to match the tax concessions of the larger cities, they also suffer because capital-intensive facilities are then under-utilized. What used to be seen as a wise allocation of resources becomes a misappropriation when market forces cleave the population, thereby disrupting the tax base and potential for patronage.

The most prevalent indicator of negative market externalities is when shuttered shops line what used to be a bustling downtown district. Although some businesses sank into mediocrity when their proprietors passed away or sold the business -- see Candy Man on Main as a textbook example from West Bend, WI -- others were very service-oriented and offered the best margins they could for their limited economy of scale.

They were abandoned by customers due to the generation gap in patronage: Younger consumers felt less loyal to locally owned businesses than they did to their own wallets bottom line, irrespective of the broader social consequences (rampant business closure) that can only be imagined until they happen to someone they know.

You Can Take Any Opportunity You Want, But None of Mine!

Worker migration hurts people everywhere because each migrant loses social capital. Although universities claim graduates need to relocate to get high-paying jobs, no directions are given as to where to relocate; how to finance such relocation; or how to befriend those within the new community who are already settled in their lives and not looking for new friends.

"Not looking for new friends?!? That sounds antisocial!"

Correct; the elite already possess every inroad towards connecting with the right people, and you ain't one of them! However, you can get the last laugh by mocking the very people who claim to own you.

"Just how might I do that?!? They already control the product supply, right?"

By purchasing exclusive Council of 13 merchandise; that's how! Use these Council of 13 business cards to leave a potent first impression. Fully personalize each hundred-card package to include your business name and contact information. Choose classic matte, shimmering gloss, or supple felt!

Customizable Council of 13 First-Class "Forever" U.S. Postage Stamp

Remember to buy a Council of 13 postage stamp: The stationery doesn't mean much unless you've the total package! A true elitist would never "skimp," as they put it.

Available in three sizes of paper and various batch quantities (sheets, books, rolls, etc.) -- each at the ever-evolving "forever" rate, of whichever value is equivalent to first-class postage on any future date -- these specially designed membership certificate stamps are approved by the U.S. Postal Service and include space for your full name!

Even elites need postage. Order your U.S. mail stamps, emblazoned with a special seal, by clicking the postage stamp image below:

New products are rolled out upon commission by the Ten-and-Three Council, so check back on occasion to find the latest. Forget keeping up with the Joneses; you're keeping up with the Rothschilds!

BuyMyStats Bling Features 3D Logo and Vibrant Colors

Do you process data for a living? Or how about for school projects? If so, then you can relate to the work performed at the late startup BuyMyStats. Now part of history, the firm paved the way for bespoke statistical processing firms worldwide.

Such innovation was before its time; the public could not believe the value proposition. You may nonetheless acquire these rare BuyMyStats-branded items. Believe that!

BuyMyStats 3D-Logo Thermoplastic Thermos (BPA Free)

BuyMyStats 3D-Logo Polypropylene Mouse Pad

Where's BuyMyStats Now?

Gone, but not forgotten. Dead. Dormant.

The BuyMyStats business model was, in fact, profitable. I made $400 from word-of-mouth alone and spent only $100: $90 in my own billable time to code business logic into the website, as well as to test it for unexpected behaviors; and $10 for the domain registration.

The problem was that its market was not scalable, which meant I hit maximum profit right away. There weren't any additional willing customers! And I'm too busy with manual labor and other projects to live comfortably enough to just donate my time; won't happen!

The Woes of Market Limits

Although demand for statistical processing contractors sky-rocketed unsustainably in early 2013, slowed growth reveals that opportunity has peaked.

Why are statisticians resorting to non-institutional, work-at-home gigs if their skills are allegedly in such demand? Shouldn't they have a salaried job somewhere? Something's wrong.

By that measure, I'm no longer surprised BuyMyStats never took off. A post-mortem reveals the doomed startup's inability to penetrate the statistical processing control (SPC) market was mostly because that market was very slim at the outset.

Without a substantive corporate market, the remaining opportunities were as illusory and fleeting as the purported college wage premium. The unfruitful SPC penetration plan yielded to a strategy of guerrilla marketing towards (predominantly poor) graduate students.

When your primary consumers live on student loans, your business is in for a rough ride! A marked lack of social capital troubled the proprietor because there were far too few interpersonal network nodes willing to vouch for the veracity of BuyMyStats' quality.

How many doctoral candidates and undergraduates would trust a total stranger to work on their most critical homework assignments, even for a relative steal at several hundred dollars per set of related analyses?

Even if more than a handful, there was no way for BuyMyStats to profitably outreach to such consumers, beyond playing a solid SEO strategy and hoping they happened to Google "help for statistical analysis" or similar search phrase. That was the chronic hindrance to success.

A Merciful End for a Stillborn Startup

The decision to exit as BuyMyStats manager was made much more easily when its domain host discontinued service! "Excessive mail" was the official reason the domain host gave when claiming BuyMyStats violated the shared server farm's terms of service.

I chose to not re-launch the statistical service because it’s no longer a directly monetizable service. (Neither are my anti-university propaganda websites, but their continued existence helps people save time and money by persuading them to forgo the university experience.)

The namesake website is maintained by someone else as a no-frills blog that simply lists definitions of statistical terms and brief explanations of which tests to use when and how. In other words, the current BuyMyStats website -- of which I'm not affiliated -- mimics content you can find on practically hundreds of other websites.

By contrast, the BuyMyStats service was one-of-a-kind. That was for a reason! Two, actually: Not enough of a market; and difficulty in developing new markets.

Why the Service Remains Offline

To perpetuate BuyMyStats would send a mixed message because most potential clients -- people who need statistical processing services -- are "highly" educated in the sense of sacrificing years of practical work experience to instead devote themselves to spending months at a time on studying something of no interest to most of the population.

Those who stand to benefit from statistical processing are therefore in the minority and difficult to source as referred customers or "leads" unless you've an ongoing institutional affiliation.

With that said, there are many more under-employed college graduates who are unable to enter the field of data analytics than are actual data analysts or so-called "data scientists." They have also been turned away from related jobs, such as associate professor opportunities.

That's why most aspiring data analysts are frustrated in their (predominantly futile) attempts to enter the industry and be on the organizational payroll. Citizen journalism often exploits open data sources, but chances are slim to none they'll have any insight that could reasonably be monetized.

This goes full circle to the mission of the University Accountability Movement: To hold state-funded and other public universities accountable not merely for graduation and retention rates (which tend to cause grade inflation) but also for occupational outcomes of alumni job seekers within 1 year of degree conferral.

For insightful details about how BuyMyStats in particular went under, you can read about the BuyMyStats legacy…

…Which Is Indirectly Monetizable

The good news is that although the website might be long gone, you can grab these BuyMyStats nostalgia items! Make your hipster friends jealous by wearing apparel emblazoned with obscure ecommerce site BuyMyStats.

They will ask, with a sense of awe, how you snagged some merch not found among even the most voracious collector of Silicon Valley paraphernalia! Your cool reply is that they may get their fix at the BuyMyStats online catalog.

Zazzle Fabric Tutorial for Custom Polyester, Linen, and Cotton

Designing for fabric can be daunting if you're not accustomed to the constraints of optimizing for at least seven different fabric textures and for literally dozens of customer-scalable sizes, as opposed to the several textures and few sizes of most print-on-demand products.

Images must be proportioned to be equally versatile on 9"X9" swatches to dimensions of up to 5' X 30'! Tiling is essential to filling large spaces while not truncating when smaller areas are desired.

Today, I take you on a pictorial tour of how to perfectly place your design and how to otherwise navigate the manifold options of the Zazzle fabric design interface.

1) Find the fabric section.

2) Select a fabric type.

3) Appearances may be deceptive! The yardage threads run top to bottom, NOT left to right!

4) Click "add image" to open your Zazzle design library or to upload a new image.

5) You may either: A) Mark the checkbox of an already-uploaded image and click "OK;" or B) Upload a new image.

6) You won't know how your image looks in context until you click "make it now." This will only place the image onto the product, not post the product for sale.

7) "Detail view" and "swatch view" might not display the image until you move it off-center from "yard view!" Click the various views beneath the product image to see the default image placement on various sizes of fabric.

8) You may click and drag the grey squares around an image to re-size it. Beware that when you re-dimension a design, it might be centered in one view but not in others.

9) "Seam view" does not allow design modification; it is only for show.

10) Scroll down a screen to see options for tiling your design! Click one to select it.

11) Selecting a tile design puts your design into "tile view," so check the other views are satisfactory. If you need to re-center or re-size, then un-tile to make changes.

12) To maximize side-by-side smoothness between adjacent yards of fabric, "seam view" should show each edge of your design component images either terminating completely at the border or wrapping evenly between opposite ends of the fabric.

13) Well-proportioned designs should produce self-contained images along all borders of the "insitu view," which means the design will appear complete at the scale of 4 fat quarters joined at a central point.

14) Your design may look even better when mirrored. You might publish both the original design and a mirrored version of that design.

15) The "mirrored" tiling make the "fat quarter" dimensions of this design tidier along the edges. However, results will vary based on constituent image proportions!

16) To sell your design to others, click "post for sale," which is a relatively small link beneath the blue "add to cart" button. Just adding to your shopping cart would make the design available only for you to exclusively purchase.

17) Enter your title and a description. I find it helpful to include a default fabric in the title to attract page views, because the customer can change this.

18) Choose a default product view that displays the potential of your design.

19) Make sure the default options are the fabric type and size that represent your most marketable pitch. Balance inspirational scale with price point!

20) Remember that your fabric will be a fixed width when you order multiple yards.

21) You may compare and contrast how much additional area you get for each yard among the fabric widths offered, but the prices of by fabric type tend to balance this.

22) Zazzle's official swatch size is 9 inches wide by 9 inches long, which approximates the swatch size I derived from counting the swatches in a fat quarter and the fat quarters in a rectangle consisting of one "square" yard.

23) If your theme is best summarized by a holiday, then skip the "category" menu and browse the "events & occasions" menu.

24) Unlike in "quick create," the single-product creation workflow spontaneously calculates your marginal earnings from whichever royalty rate you choose.

25) On the product publication confirmation screen, remember to select, copy, and paste into a text file your product URL for later placement into your communications channels.

26) Check your store to ensure the product is visible. Because you created the product individually, rather than via "quick create," your design will immediately become available for sale.

27) With design(s) in tow, the promotion begins. Manually append "?rf=[your_Zazzle_user_number]" onto your product URLs to earn commissions from your visitors' purchases at other Zazzle stores.

My finished products are as follows:
Mirrored tile design: http://zazzle.com/valentines_day_polyester_fabric-256553022645161996?rf=238896117913982403
Half-dropped tile design: http://www.zazzle.com/valentines_day_polyester_fabric_alternate_design-256066759615154468?rf=238896117913982403

Explore the Zazzle fabric collection for yourself. While you're there, use the limited-time offer code INTRO2FABRIC to save 15 percent off your fabric subtotal!

Inaugural Post of a Millennial Misfit Zazzle Designer

After much anticipation, the long-awaited Zazzle blog from SenatorJPO has launched!

The official name of this blog is: SenatorJPO's Zazzle Designs and Observations. That is to attract search hits for SenatorJPO generally and for Zazzle specifically, all within one blog title.

The short names are SenatorJPO at BlogSpot (named after the URL), Zazzle Designs and Observations (after the expanded title of this blog), SenatorJPO's ZDO, or just plain ZDO. This facilitates publicity of this site within all types of communication, whether in trade publications or in vernacular forum speech.

The emphasis of ZDO is satirical kitsch informed by life as a meta-cognitively analytical Millennial misfit who makes the best of what seems to be no future. There will be also be designs inspired by stuff that just plain comes up, without prior inspiration.

Designs will be showcased with exclusive information, such as the stories that inspired the theme and some screen captures of how I worked around obstacles to practical publication within constraints of the Zazzle interface.

Other substantial material is an elaboration of my experience as a Zazzle designer or "Zazzler," including marketing experiments; sales ideation underlying my price points; and factors influencing my product release schedule.

ZDO is published approximately monthly. Schedule adjustments may arise -- because life happens.

Such time allowance balances my schedule and makes me relate-able to all those who work hourly jobs, the ones that don't afford the luxury of taking off. As an under-employed Millennial, I understand the working person's perspective and aspire to much more. This blog is but the next step!

For now, peruse the Zazzle Trade Union thread via the link in the bottom-right corner of this browser tab. It is an archive of the discussion that got me banned from the Zazzle forum -- but somehow not banned from contributing designs, selling products, or guest blogging!

My journey to ProSeller status has begun. Buckle your seat belts; for the acceleration from zero to $100 in monthly sales shall be intense!