I would like to point out some other things botering me about Viki gifts.
My first point is on topic, about the money that Viki has:
In my case, Viki spent 300 reais (60 dollars) just on shipment fees to send me the crooked mask and the bag (which were cheap), something I fiercely complained about on my personal social media - that’s an exorbitant amount of money here in Brazil to someone young and poor, like myself. Also, I live in a capital city in Brazil: you can imagine how much they spent to ship to the people on the Amazon region or other “remote” locations. And they gave no choice to choose a gift card for a smaller amount of money! If you can afford to send gifts to travel worldwide, money is definitely not the problem here, just management decisions.
My second point is the following, kinda off-topic:
So, they spent 60 dollars on those lazy two goods. Worst than that, on shipment fees only. With that much money, I could maybe even buy the things the influencer has received. Heck, I could buy groceries with that (which in Brazil are rather expensive). I could feed my family with those shipment fees! My main complaint (that I wrote about on the first paragraph but didn’t say much about) is that they could just have, via gift card, given me those 60 dollars or even less and I would be so happy.
As simple as it seems, the circa 20 dollars they gave for the annual gift for 2020 were actually so helpful and I’m so grateful for that. It was 113 reais, but it meant so much because it’s so much money for doing voluntary work! I was thrilled. And it’s 20 dollars, some people have that as weekly allowance. I received 20 for a year’s work.
I’m sorry, but I’d rather have the money to use on the junk I like rather than have something low-quality-eco-friendly that I barely use shoehorned upon myself. And that costed way more! And I suppose I’m not the only one: dollar is such a powerful currency nowadays, who would want a crooked mask instead of that? Maybe some people do, but would’t it be more democratic if you just gave the money anyway?
But anyways, I don’t mean to seem mean spirited and petty. I learned to enjoy the mask and the bag sincerely, I just would prefer to have something else - money, for that matter. Drama lovers around me love the bag, but praises do not fill my belly like 메른 소다 or insta 김치 would.
I also don’t hate Viki, I’m actually thankful it helped me get out of the hole I ended 2019 inside. I love subbing: even if I started doing it for the subscription, I learned to be so fond of it that I’m actually changing my undergraduate course to be a professional translator, something I wouldn’t even know existed without Viki opening this door for me. I love the community, I love the dramas, I discovered I like Asian languages as well. Viki means a lot to me and that’s why it’s so frustrating knowing that this woman who barely knows anything about dramas is receiving more appreciation than I am. Maybe that’s how cheating feels like. Or maybe capitalism.(Don’t blame me for being dramatic now, I watch kdramas, okay, what did you expected?)
And I would also like to add that that girl is NOT a drama influencer, she’s a Chinese teacher with no involvement with dramas whatsoever. Preposterous!
