House Full of Shit

An end of week roundup of shit including Zuru and Arise Church.

Hi,

Today’s Webworm jumps all over the place — but I wanted to update you on some stories, then turn to some of your feedback. It’s been a busy old time here at Webworm. So let’s get into it.

First up — as is the case each week, there’s a new Flightless Bird episode out. This week, I travel to Seattle to understand American football — and discover I am very bad at it.

Meeting Seattle Seahawks Hall-of-Famer Walter Jones (photo: Rob Holysz)

You can find where to listen to the episode here, on my Linktree.

Secondly — no, there is no sign of the independent review into Arise Church. I nag them weekly, believe me.

As previously reported on Webworm (although the church is yet to mention this) it’s now an employment issue, tied up with the Employment Relations Authority. Basically, since John Cameron resigned and is no longer Big Boss, he’s using this new status as “pleb” to gag his old employers… AKA the megachurch he founded.

It’s all fucking fucked up.

I’m keeping at it.

---

Now, Zuru. After I broke the story earlier this week about the billion dollar company’s successful legal action against Glassdoor, the story spread around the globe:

Look — I’m allowed to toot my own horn from time to time. I’m a tiny newsletter. Toot toot. The story would have eventually found its way into the world independant of me, and I’m glad it’s out there.

The good? Over 150,000 new people read that Webworm piece. The bad? Only two of them chose to take out a paying subscription (dear God thank you for those that support me). Onwards.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about Zuru and what the company represents. The way they went after those bad reviewers stuck with me. I guess if you boil Webworm down, a big theme is bullies, and those gaming the system to bully people. Disclaimer to Zuru’s lawyers: I’m not necessarily talking about Zuru.

I thought about Zuru some more when I saw this tweet:

Under it, a list of tips to manage the heat:

“END FOSSIL FUELS Stop fracking and drilling.”
“STOP EXCESSIVE FLYING NO MORE PRIVATE JETS STOP MAKING PEOPLE FLY FOR WORK TRAINS TRAINS TRAINS.”
“Save the rainforests.”

It’s a bleak post in that it’s very clear humans are incapable of coming together to achieve any of this.

The tweeter made two final points:
“Quit manufacturing stupid plastic shit” and “most of all: NO BILLIONAIRES, STOP SIMPING FOR THE RICH, The ultra wealthy are ravaging the planet.”

I thought of Zuru, the empire of plastic which has made Nick Mowbray and his family billionaires. The New Zealand “success” story has China to thank, where Zuru makes its millions of plastic products that literally shoot more plastic out onto planet earth:

A photographer sent me that photo this week — he took the shot in Zuru’s Chinese factory back in 2012:

“That guy was the end of the production line, his job was to fire a bullet into the rubbish bin to test that it worked,” they told me.

Of course, this is all a thing to celebrate. A New Zealand company making billions of dollars — it’s what we should all aspire to. Don’t have a billion dollars? Better end your life now, before the planet does it for you. Get out the confetti.

The billionaire’s aren’t just praised, they’re given column inches to weigh into giant issues they don’t fully understand.

During Covid, Nick Mowbray was given a column in New Zealand’s biggest paper, The Herald, to weigh in on the Government’s response to the pandemic. ‘Lack of priorities reveals worrying signs from the Government’ he shouted. As Webworm reader KiltedKiwi pointed out, “Being super successful at one/two/three things doesn’t mean you know how to run a Country in a global pandemic.”

It reminded me how much billionaires love wading into issues they have no great knowledge in. They can’t help themselves. They’re richer than us, so they’re smarter than us.

As for Zuru, the praise goes on and on:

In that last article, Nick Mowbray’s sister Anna Mowbray beams from within a halo of plastic shit:

Anna Mowbray, beaming out from this excellent Stuff article

I googled “Anna Mowbray”. Her partner is former All Black Ali Williams. Thanks to Newsroom I discover the couple are doing some really cool stuff:

“Endangered dotterels have been discovered on Auckland suburban mudflats directly below where former All Black Ali Williams and his partner, part of the Rich List Mowbray family, want to build a helipad.

Williams and his partner, Anna Mowbray, have applied to be able to bring a helicopter on to a patch of lawn close to the edge of their property directly above the shoreline. They are asking for two flights a day, seven days a week.”

Members of the Quiet Sky Waitematā say they were amazed to find two kinds of dotterels and five other threatened or at risk species foraging or roosting within 50 metres of the shoreline below the proposed helicopter landing site.

I’m not sure how much you know about dotterels, but they’re one of the sweetest, most fragile birds you’ll find. They lay their eggs on the beach — where they’re promptly eaten by rodents, or crushed by stray feet and roaming dogs. They’re utterly incapable of defending them. There are only 2500 dotterels left.

They’re timid as fuck. Dotterel v Helicopter. Who do you think is going to win?

One of the 2500 remaining New Zealand dotterels, no doubt looking forward to two helicopter flights a day, seven days a week

I think of the dotterels. I think the helicopters. I think of Zuru’s love of luxury boats, and the people they attract. This was Nick’s boat last year:

A New Zealand Davis Cup tennis player has apologised after being filmed mocking Māori culture.

Taranaki’s Ajeet Rai, 22, is to be sanctioned by Tennis New Zealand after videos of him performing pūkana were posted on social media.

The videos appeared […] with Rai, New Zealand’s third ranked tennis player, and other party goers laughing as they did pūkana and used a stick as a taiaha.

The party, on a $21 million boat owned by Zuru founder Nick Mowbray, included music by Belgian DJ Netsky, who posted the initial video of several people performing pūkana.

A sea of money and whiteness.

A Zuru party from last year (source: Nick’s Instagram)

I felt annoyed, also remembering a report from Craccum last year by Eda Tang — ‘Free Labour to be in to win a Helicopter Ride’ — a story which saw a thinly veiled legal threat from Mowbray to the student magazine.

I went back to check my Instagram DMs. I’d sent a string of questions to billionaire Nick earlier in the week. I wanted to know if Zuru was actually planning on suing those who’d written bad reviews, now that a judge had ordered Glassdoor to cough up their details.

Turns out Nick had replied.

The quote marks around his own DM were strange. I’m not sure if he was quoting Zuru or himself. I’d say it was company PR, but it had multiple spelling mistakes. Maybe he has gotten to that insufferable state of billionaire where you speak in the third person.

But what’s even more interesting is that he doesn’t answer my question. He doesn’t say if they actually plan to take defamation action. There’s just this: “It was not until we took legal action that Glassdoor took action and removed those fake reviews.”

Zuru’s actions also mean Glassdoor has to carry this scary warning — no doubt putting off anyone who wants to leave a negative review:

So going on what Nick Mowbray said to me, it seems like all Zuru wanted was those bad reviews gone. I’m not convinced they’re actually planning to take legal action against the reviewers.

But I guess they needed to say they were going to, to have a reason to initiate the legal action against Glassdoor — legal action which meant the bad reviews were dropped.

Zuru doesn’t need to win in a New Zealand court. They’ve already won.

It’s so fucking odd. Time will tell, I guess. I leave a pithy reply.

Those messages sit on “seen”.

If only companies like Zuru were like Webworm reader Em:

“I employ people. Sometimes people who leave are unhappy and sometimes they post negative comments on social media anonymously. Sucks when they do and it always makes me reflect on what we could have done differently as an employer.

Also makes me work harder with my team to ensure they have a positive experience — happy employees are the best recruiters. Would it ever occur to me to track disgruntled former employees down and sue them? The fuck it would.

How could that help you improve your rep in the market?”

---

Hi, friend — just some quick admin: I have a little Webworm legal defense fund set up so I can run material past lawyers and stay safe. If you want to contribute, becoming a paying member is the best way. Assuming you are not a paying member already - it’s $6.99 a month (US). Cancel anytime.

Thanks,
David.

---

None of this should come as a surprise for a company that gets rich by making a shitload of plastic while the world is on fire.

It makes me think of New Zealand band Night Lunch, and their excellent video ‘House Full of Shit’. A new theme song for Zuru, perhaps.

I guess the surreal footnote to all this is that one of the “fake” (Zuru’s words, unproven) reviews that made Zuru so angry has leaked. It now has a massive number of upvotes on Reddit. That means if you Google it, the review will appear. It’s much more public than it ever was before.

And it’s not just Glassdoor that was home to negative reviews about Zuru-land.

A Facebook post made by Zuru about one of their plastic products is riddled with comments. They remind me of my first Webworm post two years ago, The Case of the Missing Puzzle Pieces.

Zuru had posted about one of their latest nightmare products: “Did you know that Mini Brands are now available in Germany, France, Australia and New Zealand? Where should Mini Brands go next?”

Zuru’s “Mini Brands” toys (source: Zuru’s Facebook page)

Underneath, there are a lot of complaints. I’ve blurred the names in case Zuru goes on a suing spree:

Missing pieces of plastic, probably sitting in a rubbish tip, or in the belly of a fucking whale.

---

Your Feedback, Because I Love It.

Sometimes I feel like I’m losing the battle against the shitheads of the world. I mean, of course I am. We all are.

David Farrier @davidfarrier

too many pieces of shit i can’t keep up

But in saying that, your feedback reminds me that there is good left in the world.

I loved reading the frantic discussion under 6 Months of Madness to Prove NFTs are Hell — especially this comment from Robyn, who commented from Australia:

“When I see an email come through from you I always smile, much like when I was a kid picking up my favourite weekly girls’ magazine.  

When I read about NFTs for the first time today, thanks to you, it seems too much info for my nearly 70 year-old-brain.  But as I am open to learning more your informative emails certainly do that, so BIG THANKS David.

As to your last email on face blindness, I can only imagine how very difficult it must be.  I am truly sorry for you. I have a similar but different problem. I will remember the face of someone, but often forget the name if someone comes up to me in the mall and says “Hi Robyn” and that too can be annoying. Still, we manage.

Keep up the good work David.”

This countered some text feedback I got from my friend Ami after she’d read my article on my face-blindness:

“I’ve seen you do weird things.” Thanks, Ami. I pointed out to her, and a few others, that I find it easier to recognise a cat than a human. Cats are so distinct in their colours, markings, and gait. Humans are all the same: Two eyes, a nose, some ears and a mouth. It’s all a blur. How am I meant to tell the difference?

I also loved these comments.

“Stompface”:

“Not once, but twice have I mistaken myself in a mirror as another person. I was in a shop and there was a mirror behind the counter and I waved thinking it was a shop person coming to serve me, but no it was me. Super embarrassing.”

Lauren:

“David, I just experienced a real lightbulb moment. I think my partner may have this. In our many years together I have watched him struggle to remember faces and names so many times.

I have seen the complete flash of blankness and then concentration on his face as someone greets him who he does know, and he knows he knows (if that makes sense). People have said he’s arrogant and rude because of his struggles in this regard, and claim that he “just couldn’t be bothered” or “doesn’t care about people”.

That isn’t the case at all. I’m off to do some reading about this condition. Thanks for talking about it.”

Sarah-Jane:

“I discovered a few months ago that I’m the lone outlier in a household of face blind people. It was a real, ‘Wait, what?’ moment.

Imagine this around the family dining table: My oldest was in her first term at high school and had just taken part in an outdoor-pursuits type day which was intended to be a form-class bonding thing. We were looking at some photos of the day which had been posted online and I pointed to the only adult in an image and said, ‘So that’s your form teacher, then?’

Daughter, squinting: ‘Uhh, I guess? Maybe?’

Me: ‘So you think that isn’t her? Who else attended?’

Daughter: ‘I dunno. I mean, it COULD be her...’

Me: ‘Well, what does she look like?’

Daughter: ...

Nothing. Literally nothing. And I was trying to take in how it was possible to not be able to recall even BASIC stuff about somebody you saw every day, and I said; ‘Can you not just visualise her?’

Husband: ‘Hey, what are you talking about? You mean, like, SEE somebody’s face in your mind?’

Me: ‘Yes. Bingo.’

Husband: ‘I can’t do that.’

Son: ‘I can’t do that.’

I kinda didn’t believe them. I said to the kids, ‘But you know what Granddad looks like, right?’

‘Sure,’ they say.

‘Okay, describe him.’

‘Umm... he’s tall.’ ‘And he wears glasses.’

And that was them done — for a person they’ve seen a couple of times a week for their whole lives.

Whereas, me? ‘He’s tall, and thin, and starting to be a little bit stooped, and yes he wears glasses, and he has white hair which falls over his forehead and quite a small nose for a guy and mad thick eyebrows and gray eyes and in-turned lips and one of those smiles that curves down rather than up and big teeth which are a bit jumbled and deep grooves down each side of his nose and...’

Husband: ‘You really do have, like, a photo in your head you're working off, don’t you?’

Me: ‘Yep. What do you have?’

Husband: ‘Um. A list, I guess. Just... facts I have to remember. And associate with a person. Along with their damn name and whose Dad they are...’

And the weirdest thing of all? The other three members of my household DON’T need to rotate maps or Lego instruction booklets so that they’re oriented according to current reality — if they have an object or a road in front of them they can rotate stuff, even complex three-dimensional half-made models, in-their-heads.

And I can’t...”

Lacey:

“My husband and 11-year-old son have prosopagnosia. We diagnosed my kid when he was 5 yrs old; he left the skate rink following another man and his son, thinking they were Dad and Brother, and cried as he watched them drive away from him. His real dad and brother found him in the parking lot, sobbing.

After his diagnosis we reverse-diagnosed most of my husband’s family: my husband’s mom, her mom, and at least two cousins.

Anecdotally, it seems that people born with this condition do not develop coping skills until after puberty. It can be a very lonely childhood when one does not recognize their friend on the playground at school.”

Kerri:

“I just about cried reading your piece on prosopagnosia, it rang so true.

I turn 50 this year, and it’s only in the last ten years or so that I’ve started realising that I'm not stupid or deficient in some way — it’s just that my brain works differently to most people's. I now self-identify as neurodivergent (on the autism spectrum), with a lot of characteristics that match.

But prosopagnosia is something I'd only heard of in the last couple of years and wondered if I had it, and slowly came to realize that yeah, I definitely have it.”

All I can say is I’m really glad that piece resonated — and some readers discovered something new about themselves, that perhaps explained why things had been odd for the last 50 years or so.

---

That’s it from me this week. I’m still thinking about Zuru. What do we do with the billionaires and all the plastic? I’d say throw them in the sea, but there’s already enough plastic in there. If there’s one takeaway from all this, it’s that if you write a review on a site like Glassdoor — use a fake email, name and VPN.

Thanks for reading along. I know I say this a lot, but it means a lot.

David.

PS: After a few years of silence, my friend Fazerdaze is back with new music. Maybe take this angry but hopeful song into your weekend. I certainly am.