Contact info for this officers' department can be found here.

"I understand youâve received a bootleg copy of 'Hard Boiled: The Criterion Collectionâ; I also noticed that the same seller has two other copies listed on our site. If possible, Iâd like to send you a pre-paid shipping label so you can send the DVD you received to us. We will review it, and remove that seller from our site once weâve confirmed that it is a bootleg. lease reply back and let me know if you have a printer, and Iâll email you that shipping label so you can send that bootleg to us without incurring a shipping charge.

I appreciate your help with this â we do not condone selling/producing bootlegs, but we have to confirm the charge before closing a sellerâs account.

Doug

CSR"

Now this is completely reasonable, I don't expect them to take my word for it and they're acting on it fast. Already I'm happy. Here's my response:


"Hi Doug,

Not a problem. Send along that shipping label and I'll be happy to send it back. I've attached three images to this email, which may help with your review. The ones labeled 'Disc Front' and 'Disc Back' are scans I made of the disc I received, and the last one labeled 'Genuine HBCC Disc' is a scan of an authentic copy a friend owns. The differences are very small, but they are quite obvious once you see the two discs next to one another. What immediately caught my attention are the scratches on the back of the disc I got that are clearly attempts to cover the branding of the media used to make the fraudulent disc. While I'm disappointed that I didn't get the movie I paid for, I have always had great service dealing with DVD Empire direct and I will continue to recommend your site to friends looking for good prices on movies. Thanks for all your help with this order.

Joe"

See, it pays to be nice to people when they're trying to help. I included the images just so that when they got the disc, they could see what I saw clearly. Here's what came within a few hours of that email:

"Hi Joe,

Thanks for your reply.  The images youâve sent are quite enough â we appreciate you passing those along.  Weâll deactivate that seller today.  Let me know if you ever have any problems or questions in the future, and Iâll be happy to help you.

Doug

My second example comes from Amazon, a site I'm sure a lot of you already know about. I ordered a PS2 Capcom Classics Collection, which was supposed to arrive within the usual 3-5 days. The email confirming shipping that came had an invalid tracking number, but I chalked that up to a mistake in sending, which I'd had happen before and could always find the right number in my account info. I tend to like to see where my things are, so I generally check on their progress once a day. I went into my account to get the correct tracking number, but found that the number there was also invalid. Amazon has this cool support feature where they call you, instead of you hanging on the phone waiting, so I had them call me. This was where the service initially was extremely bad. The person I spoke to not only didn't bother to research the bad tracking number, but also assured me the package would be to me by the end of the week. Now the lack of any effort to get a valid tracking number bothered me, but it wasn't a critical item so I figured I'd just wait it out. By the end of the week, still no package. Amazon had sent a along a follow up service email, which I responded to with my irritation about the lackluster interest in helping me and the unfulfilled promise of the item arriving. Nothing nasty, just the facts and my opinion on the shoddy support work. Within a day of sending out that follow up, I received this message:

"Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I'm sorry to hear about this situation and to know that you had an
unsatisfactory experience when you called us previously.

Allow me to explain that in checking the tracking information it
appears that this package has been lost in shipping.

Usually, I'd be able to create a replacement order that would be
shipped to you as soon as possible at no additional charge.
Unfortunately, I can't do that in this case because the lost item is
now unavailable from our supplier at Amazon.com.

Instead, I've requested a refund to cover the cost of the
item and associated shipping costs. We'll send you an e-mail to
confirm the refund once it has been processed.

As a token of appreciation for your business and for the trouble
this matter has caused you, I have placed a promotional certificate
claim code for $5.00 on your account. This claim code will appear
automatically when you check out, and amount should automatically be
deducted from your next purchase on Amazon.com.

Further, I see that this item is also available for purchase from
one of our third-party sellers. If you are in urgent need of this
item, you may also consider purchasing this item from them. Please
note that if you buy an item at Amazon Marketplace, the individual
seller will process and ship your order.

You may wish to check this page and place a new order:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0009UUQGE/

If the original package should eventually arrive, please let us know
by visiting us here:

http://www.amazon.com/contact-us

We are aware that our choice of delivery services reflects on our
business as a whole, and we appreciate your feedback. I have passed
your message along to our shipping department, as I know they will
want to read about your experience.

We appreciate your understanding and thanks again for your interest
at Amazon.com."

Again, this is what brings customers back. I never asked for any compensation beyond the item price, but it was offered anyway and much appreciated.

In summary, these kinds of rare examples of being good to your customers is what makes people like myself come back. I don't expect these companies to move the Earth for one person, but simply being responsive and even offering a little something for my trouble makes all the difference.

Loyalty, baby, it means everything.

      I take on the precarious task then of explaining what Postmodernism is. It's not an easy task by any means, because Postmodernism is itself a term in constant flux. At the root, Postmodernism eliminates the final say of the critic and empowers the individuals opinion.  This means the reader is correct dependent on his or her perception.  Progressing out from literature to nearly every walk of life, Postmodernism has been referred to as a hydra which straight forward philosophical thought will never be able to cut down. As soon as you define it in one genre or art form, it evolves into something else, somewhere else. There are themes however which become prevalent in Postmodernism which I will try to explain.

      One of the first themes that comes to mind is that of how the importance of "high art" is broken down. By "high art" I mean the classics: the paintings of Michelangelo; the music of Bach; the writing of Hawthorne, etc. In the past, the critics had a strong control of what was and what was not considered "high art", critics could distinguish and attribute worth, deciding what deserved hanging in a museum. With Postmodernism, the critic has been neutered. The state of art is determined by the individual, and everything has a subjective value whether it is a painting of the Virgin Mother done in menstrual blood or the works of Norman Rockwell. "High art" and popular culture have collided violently into each other, shading and sometimes eliminating the boundary.

      The next theme I'd like to discuss has to do with something called a Simulacra. Jean Baudrillard is a phenomenoligist philosopher who proposed the theory of the Simulacra. A simulacra is a simulation of the ideal apple; a thing that is more real than the thing it represents. For example, when one thinks of an apple, they think of a shiny red apple with waxy skin that you can almost see your face in. When given a real apple right off the branch, it is often not so shiny or well presented. In fact, it can look kind of ugly and unappetizing. In this, the idea of the apple is the simulacra; we feel it is more real than the reality that has been provided to us. Another example would be when we go out for Mexican food. What passes for Mexican food in the United States is really just an idea of what Mexican food should be like; it's a simulacra of Mexican food. For those of us who have actually traveled to Mexico, we know that the reality is very different than what you most often end up with in the US. That said, in the realm of the Postmodern, we are presented with the Third Order of the Simulacra.

      In the Third Order of the Simulacra, there is no reality. The public is presented with a hyperreality that is completely fictional. A good example of this is in the way movies are being made now with actors walking across massive green screen sets, where in the scenery is added later. The hyperreality would be the scenery which technology looks so real and yet is completely made up by the special effects artists. The places depicted don't exist anymore or, in other instances, never have. This phenomenon evolves further by the creation of digital, who act alongside live actors as if they were actual beings. Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars are perfect examples of this in film. These characters do not exist, they are constructed from programming, and yet we act as if they are living, breathing actors. The Japanese have their own version of this in their Idorus. An Idoru is a made-up pop star, usually animated, that is presented as if it were a real pop star, selling music and movies. The closest thing we have in the United States to that is the pop band, The Gorillaz. The Gorillaz are a band which is made up of constantly changing roster of musicians who are fronted by an animated cartoon band that always remains the same.

      Another theme in Postmodernism is the way style takes precedence over substance. A novel is written which has no plot and no arch, but the manner in which it is written is so unique that it is trumped as genius and put on a pedestal. In the age of Postmodernism, style is the draw. Style makes things sell, style make actors bankable, style is what people want to buy in order to become stylish and "in." In the age of postmodernism, the cover of the book can matter more than what is behind it.

      In Postmodernism there is a great deal of recycling of old ideas. Whereas in Modernism a great emphasis was made on new ideas and stories, Postmodernism is conforming to the mold; the basic structure us coupled with a formulaic idea to repeat the original genius:  How many times has Frankenstein been rewritten and refilmed in some slightly different way? Mary Shelly, Dean Koontz, Robert Deniro. Shakespeare has been reconceived in the modern day, the future and across a multitude of cultures. Why is it there are no new Shakespearian-level works? As we see in the movie world, there are more remakes than new ideas. Characters such as Superman and Batman are made into countless movies while also heading up comic book series.  The series are without new ideas; the writers are afraid what may happen if they kill their characters off and then have nothing to follow with. Heroes used to die, now they just keep going till we get bored with them.

      The last theme I would like to explore is that of Postmodernism's lack of metanarrative. The French philosopher and literary theorist, Jean-FranÃÂois Lyotard, has said of Postmodernsim in a popular quote, "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives."  (1984) A metanarrative can be explained as a story with a point or lesson; it's a story that tells a vast vision of human history. Sometimes a record of human events, other times the tale of one man's progression toward knowledge, the metanarative has a very important place in human social and literary history, a place that Postmodernism ignores or outright attacks. The postmodernists are skeptical of the lessons a metanarrative wants to teach and therefore they disregard it, then attempt to discredit it, and finally they ignore it. In this, no new metanarratives are being written; writers aren't concerning themselves with those types of tales. And when they do, it is only to display them as parody.