It has been several months since I’ve started my investigations into PureBloom Innovations. As a brief recap, last week we talked to Jack Duncan, former member of the Product Preservation Alliance (PPA), who revealed political ties between PureBloom and the Nostalgia Renewal Front in the weeks leading up to the scandal.
This week, we’ve secured an exclusive interview with Angela Jameson, a former employee of PureBloom and the current leader of the Earthwise activist group. She asked me to meet her at an abandoned Mallcart, one of the biggest branches in ultra consumerist production before the implementation of the product ballot. You can read the interview below or step into the conversation via EchoPresence.
“Why are we meeting here at Mallcart?”
There are actually two reasons I needed the interview to be here. First, this location has some special meaning to me. I remember coming here regularly as a child and being so excited about the vast array of stuff they had on sale. Looking at it now, it is shocking to me that at such a young age I was already enticed by the company as a slave to consumption. It might be hard to imagine for the younger audience that such a place used to exist, but really it was an example of many. As you know, I’m typically very much opposed to preservation, so in a way it pains me that it is still here. But on the other hand, since it’s still here I figured it could serve as a great location for our first Earthwise protest.
“Some people are skeptical about your old position at PureBloom. As a former product campaigner, it seems hard to believe that you would have had no knowledge of the companies’ phantom products. Did you truly not know what was going on?”
“Of course not! You must understand that the production and campaigning department are two separate things. I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for the environment and it is very painful to learn that the products you have been campaigning for turn out to be mere fronts for products that are against everything you’ve ever believed in. So, in fact, I feel equally deceived if not more deceived than others by the actions of PureBloom. And instead of rallying in this deceit, I decided to move on and set up Earthwise to prevent this from ever happening again.
“Earthwise stands for the right of the consumer in choosing a sustainable product, yet you come from an industry position where the whole point was to campaign people into buying PureBloom products. Don’t you think this is contradictory?”
Again, I was doing good work. I wanted people to vote for these products because they were good products. I campaigned for products that are sustainable, things we need to create a better world. Just like many voters, I thought the Eco Cloud Air Purifier would be a step in the right direction. I see no contradiction because I am still a campaigner at heart. The difference is that I am no longer tied to a company that makes fake promises. I’ve always had great ambition and I was in the terrible position where PureBloom took advantage of that.
“If you were unaware of the products you were campaigning for, does that not make for a case of negligence? Can you not be held accountable to some degree for campaigning products like the recycled air guitar strings. Did it at no point occur to you that this might have been a phantom product?”
Negligence implies deliberate oversight, which is certainly not the case here. When campaigning for these products, I relied on information from company experts and advisors. In the case of the air guitar strings, we believed in their eco-friendly promise, as did the voters. Now that we know about fraudulent practices it’s easy to say it’s whimsical and judge me for not knowing. This is exactly why I started Earthwise because consumers need to know what they are voting for.
“The recent report by Campaign Sentinel shows that their software detected you in possession of various ghost goods from the Nostalgia Renewal Front. How do you explain being seen with unelected products from their catalogue during your time at PureBloom?”
As you well know, it is not unlawful to be in possession of ghost goods, but I try my hardest to purchase democratically elected products only. At the time, I was shocked to hear that these accidental purchases were from the Nostalgia Renewal Front as I do not want to be associated with them in any way. I am actually thankful for Sentinal detecting this.
I cannot help but doubt Angela’s plausible deniability regarding her involvement in the PureBloom scandal. While Earthwise seems like a great initiative – a beacon of eco-conscious activism – I can’t shake my skepticism about supporting a movement lead by someone with damaged integrity. It really makes me think about the world we live in. I wonder, are we just living in a fake society fabricated by someone who, after a late-night brainstorming session, proposed product ballots as a remedy for consumerism?
