The Gathering’s Baffling Titty-Viewing Prices

The above image is a still from “Dark Carnival of Souls,” a brief glimpse into the 2009 Gathering of the Juggalos. The festival has been ridiculed and defended enough this summer, so I wanted to discuss it from a different angle. A business-y angle.

The woman’s sign says: “$2 to see nice big ole titties. $1 if your a down ass ninja!” There’s an arrow pointing to another woman; under it, the text reads: “For $1 you can see her E sized titties.”

I’m fine with two Juggalettes making some scratch by showing their titties. But what sticks in my craw is this: Why would anyone pay $2 for “nice big ole titties” when the E-sized titties only cost a dollar? Are the $2 titties truly magnificent and the E cups malformed?

I’m no Ben Stein, but I know that an item’s price often depends on where it’s being sold (a small stick of Old Spice in a Brooklyn bodega can run you $3). But the titties on offer here are right next to each other. This isn’t a matter of real estate.

Compare the two women’s faces and overall vibe. (I’d like to think I wouldn’t do this under normal circumstances but I’ll suspend manners for the sake of economic analysis.) Who would you rather see topless, regardless of titty size? Most consumers would say E Cups, no? Nice Big Ole Titties isn’t, ahem, as ready for the retail floor. Or is overall appearance not a factor in this market?

Personally, if I were paying for titties, I’d opt for the E cups, if only for the story I’d get to tell later: “At the Gathering I paid a dollar to see the biggest, most misshapen titties I’ll probably ever see in real life, ever.”

As opposed to: “At the Gathering I paid two dollars to see decent-looking, average-sized titties. Oh, and the girl was wearing funny-looking pants and tried to sell me a pregnant cat afterwards.”

Moving on to the “down ass ninja” caveat. (If you’re not familiar, Juggalos also call themselves ninjas.) How do the titty-mongers prove who is and who isn’t a down ass ninja? His clothes/tattoos/face paint, or the way he behaves? That is to say, how politely or rudely he demands to see titties. I’d consider anyone who goes to the Gathering, which is in the middle of nowhere and a three-hour drive from the nearest airport, to be a down ass ninja. But then, I’m no down ass ninja.

Another theory: The two women aren’t working together at all. Rather, they’re in competition. E Cups pays Nice Big Ole Titties some points to hold the sign, which E Cups made or paid a contractor to make. Two separate signs for titties so near each other would be too noisy. While E Cups charges half as much, she stands to have more overall customers. But Nice Big Ole Titties will make double per customer. It’s a gamble. But isn’t any enterprise?

In the sign, Nice Big Ole Titties’ titties have top billing. The average man might see that low, low price and quickly hold out his two bucks before reading about the other, arguably better offer. How much ad copy do consumers read? Not much.

Maybe they have an arrangement: If a ninja offers to pay two bucks for Nice Bid Ole Titties’ titties, E Cups won’t interrupt the deal and explain that for a dollar less he could see her bigger, albeit not as shapely, titties. Kind of like how Best Buy employees don’t hang around Radio Shacks showing costumers charts that compare the two stores’ prices.

Worse case scenario: Something terrible is going down. The four gentlemen hanging around the shop are titty barons who are exploiting these lettes and many other lettes at the Gathering. At the very first Gathering in 2000, they thought of the idea to sell titty-peeks and have since built an empire on the backs of hard-working Juggalettes. The men pay for a Juggalette’s ticket, but then they own her for the weekend. Nice Old Big Titties and E Cups, desperate for cash, agreed to the terms. So they were stuck on that lawn chair and cooler all weekend, flashing their titties to ninjas. No bathroom breaks. Only Faygo breaks. And they got just, say, 15% of the net profit. The barons don’t know anything about retail, and it shows: they set the confusing prices; they allowed Nice Big Ole Titties to wear those pants; they misspelled “you’re” on the sign. All they know is power. And control. And how to dehumanize a human.

So rise up, titty-flashing lettes! Organize!

Fellas, here’s something to think about the next time you buy a titty-peak at the Gathering: Why are we so cruel to each other when, in the end, all of us—Juggalos, down ass ninjas, lettes and Juggababies—are all part of the same family, a family that started with Earth’s first two humans, Adam and Eve, millions and millions of years ago?