Looney Alert: Defending RIGHTS from Comedy

The Task Force for Metal Detecting RIGHTS Foundation is getting all riled up about the depiction of a metal detectorist, a motorbike-riding brown bear and a man dragged by his racing dog through a board fence:

"In response to the Farmers commercial now being aired: The Task Force is in direct contact with the top executives at Farmers. If the Task Force does not get a satisfactory answer by the end of today (1/10/2014), they will be issuing a "Call to Action" campaign including the Farmers executives['] contact information".

Whoa.. time is running out, the clock is ticking, and all those insurance company executives are trembling in their shoes at the thought of the barely-literate knee-jerkers of American artefact collecting sending them their "demands".  One would have thought detecting associations might find something better to do with their time, but this has a deeper meaning. 

As I have noted on this blog, collectors seem to have some kind of a tendency to want to feel like a group and their collecting is one of the ways to achieve this. One gets the impression that their metal detecting (or coin collecting) are very often identity-forming strategies for social inadequates. This is why they are notorious for the way (and aggression with which) they attack others, they have a need to create the image of a hostile "Other" to act as a scapegoat, and focus the group's hatred, in order to strengthen the bonds between them. This is a fundamental process in forming group identity where no other means are available. So the band leaders look for somebody to attack,  "archaeologists", "the Gubn'mint" (Department of State), Barford, Heritage Action, the CBA and so on. 

Here we see the same primitive mechanism in operation again. An insurance company has for the last few months been producing short entertaining videos promoting their services. One of them features for five seconds (literally) a ridiculous image of a metal detectorist, and now Farmers Insurance are the metal detectorists' enemy de jour. Quite unaware that the fuss they are raising about a bit of Pythonesque humour is making a laughing stock of them, they will rant and posture until they are blue in the face, feeling they are "defending the honour of the hobby" when in fact strengthening the impression that they are a group of ranting loony inadequates. The insurance company will no doubt say "sorry" and then the tekkies will retire back to their bemused stupor and battles with old ladies and abusive comments about others who raise concerns. And the underlying concern, why some might see them as taking something that belongs not just to them remains unaddressed. Tied up in their own feeling of entitlement (see the name of the group), they simply do not get it.

Note there is no concomitant 'Task Force for Metal Detecting Responsibilities'  foundation. 

UPDATE 14.01.14

Well, although they've not yet shared it with the world, the Metal Detectorists Task Force for Comedy Overreaction Team must have got "a satisfactory answer" in some form or other  because they did not issue the threatened "call to action". Now it's the golfers' turn over the same insurance company's Dick  Fowler ads.