Well, I mean, obviously it's a scam...

Uh-huh, I'm making it about this. 
Everything is about this right now.

If the events of the past week have taught us anything, it's that we need to stand up to those who use violence and threats of violence to get what they want. It's time for all of us to say in one clear voice that we will not be bullied. We will not go quietly. We will not-huh? No, I'm talking about the PlayStation 5's that company was painting black and selling at a hundred dollars over retail, what were you-oh, right the coup attempt. Well, I can see where we may have got crossed wires. 

Yes, everything. And hey, do they know
convicted felons lose the right to posses guns?

Unlike the rabid-foam, red-faced shrieking of right-wing extremists who think that their love of guns and misogyny constitutes a superior patriotism and entitles them to overturn election results because they don't like the outcome, the bullies in this drama are Youtubers. And instead of baseless accusations designed to undermine the legitimacy of American democracy so they can keep a deranged gameshow host who's now lost the popular vote twice in power, these YouTubers might actually have a point.

But what even am I talking about? I'm glad you asked...or rather, I assume your indifferent shrug at my rhetorical questions implies that you want to know. Anyway, a company unpronounceably called SUP3R5 announced preorders for their custom painted PS5's. The console, as you may or not be aware, is, in its natural state, a garbage fire of poor design:

"Ugh, really? I mean, was this on purpose? Did someone actually
approve this design? Anyway, here's my $500, can I have one?"

-everyone

See? Marginally better,
right? That'll be $750.

Sup-three-arr-five somehow-well, I say somehow, but bots. They somehow got their hands on about three hundred PS5's, and have repainted them a slimming black to reduce the sheer eye-punching, squashed sandwich down to something slightly less hideous to keep in one's entertainment cabinet. That is if you have a shelf that can accommodate the console's absurd size and support its incredible weight. Oh, and you also would have needed $650 to $750, which is a $150 over the retail price.

Pictured: SUP3R5's garage.

Unsurprisingly to us, but somehow a totally surprise to SUP3R5, their servers exploded or something with customers getting charged and not receiving confirmations and then being unable to delete their credit card info. SUP3R5 says that their marked up, re-painted, overpriced consoles were just so popular that the website was overwhelmed. Which is weird, right? That the company that helped create the artificial scarcity upon which their entire business model relies on would be surprised by it? 

But here we are. It sucks, but I mean what are you going to do? What's that? Threaten their lives? No...God, no, why do you immediately jump to...?

America: 
We literally don't know the meaning
of the phrase "measured response."

"Depends on how much money you have."

-some judge

The company says they're the victims of "scam panic;" a phenomenon they just coined a term for. It's when a business--usually a start-up that operates entirely online--comes out of no where offering something shady, and then the internet piles on, making videos explaining why said company is a scam, and then come the Tweets and the bad press and then, according to SUP3R5, the threats. And obviously, no one should be threatening anyone. In fact, there should be a law against that--wait is there? I'm honestly asking at this point.

So like I was saying, no one should be allowed to threaten anyone (or say, democracy as an institution--see? Everything), but this is a scam, right? Like, the very act of using bots to scoop up something that everyone else would have been happy to pay for, and inserting themselves into the supply chain like some kind of economic version of a tape worm, is itself a scam. Not saying it makes it ok to threaten them, just, call a scam a scam. 

Instead of threatening them, maybe just don't buy one?