UPC Codes and 666 [1994] Review

 UPC Codes and 666 [1994]

 

“UPC Codes and 666” is a short Christian film, that’s a little over 13 minutes. It came out in 1994, so it was right at the end of the moral panic. It’s clear that the Satanic Panic lost much of its backing by this point, as the idea of this film is so ridiculous, I can’t imagine how or why anyone would believe this. 
For a 13 minute film, I didn’t expect a mountain of information, but it spends half of its time, over 6 minutes, just reciting various bible verses; which are, of course, from Revelations. 
The talk about UPCs is near the end of the video, and are nearly an afterthought. You can really see the Christian Conspiracy Theorists doing mental gymnastics with this one, as they have to spend over half the video prefacing with bible verses, then explaining how UPCs work. When they started talking about how the bars to codes work, it was like I was watching a job orientation video. 
From here, the idea is brought out that the numbers in a UPC can add up to ‘666’, the number of The Antichrist. They go on to talk about how eventually the world will be a “cashless society”, and “debit cards will replace credit cards”. They bring up things that, in 2026 have happened, but it’s not for Satanic and evil means. First of all, weren’t there already debit cards in 1994? Why were they painted as a bad thing? Second, why would it be bad that people spent their own money, instead of using a credit line? It was odd to me that it was painted in a bad light, that credit cards would be outnumbered. 
The ideas of direct deposit, chips in cards, and the like were all painted in a bad light. Of course, they tried to claim that eventually cash would never be used again, like it’d be phased out. This is a ridiculous claim, because cash is always king. It’s odd to me that direct deposit was also made out to be “bad”, like as having your own money sent directly to your account was so horrible. Is it really Satanic to not to risk getting mugged when depositing your paycheck? 
I wonder if the idea of this film was to somehow finagle the old to spend money on this guy and his company/church. Cash is king in many ways, and one of them is that allows transactions to be anonymous. If you send cash to someone, they can easily take it, and claim that you never sent them the money at all. 
I wonder if the intended audience was potentially the elderly that may have lived during the Depression era or similar. From what I understand, people of that time would save their cash and hide it in the most random of places, mattresses, floor boards, or even a giant safe in their house. Alternately, it could also be targeting adults that were children born to parents alive during the Depression era. Hearing how their parents struggled might have also triggered a fear about making sure they always had cash. This is just my speculation though.
What was also strange, was how the film asks, “Will debit cards precede the mark?”. This isn’t even the correct word. If you’re trying to fearmonger cash going away, you would ask if debit cards would proceed the mark, not precede. Precede means that it’d come before. 
Even still, what does any of this have to do with Satan?
The idea that a person should look at every item they intend to purchase at the store, grocery or not, and then add up the numbers in the UPC, is ridiculous. Not only is that way too time consuming, it doesn’t accomplish anything. If an item added up to 666, then what does the person do? Not buy it? Then what? They just have to find another item that doesn’t add up to 666? Would anything ever be purchased? Does this film have a UPC? Would it add up to 666?
This film is nothing more than Christian propaganda, and religious fanaticism. It also tells the viewer to inform everyone they know about this concept. I can’t imagine anyone watching this video and not feeling embarrassed at the thought of telling people they know to count the numbers on UPCs. This is also such a Christian thing to do, just go out and proselytize, like as if they’re helping people. Obviously, no-one stopped to think that this concept would sound fucking  insane to anyone that was perhaps Buddhist, Hindu, or any other religion. But it’s a very Christian thing to do, to assume that everyone is a Christian. 
My final contention is pointing out how stupid it is that they say “UPC Codes”. UPC stands for “Universal Product Code”. For the film to be called “UPC Codes and 666” would mean the full title would be “Universal Product Code Codes and 666”. It’s on the same level as saying ATM Machine! Obviously, not much thought went into this film, other than how to make cash right? Surely, the creators of this didn’t want to phase out cash, and hoped to make some from ignorant viewers. 
Obviously, this is a terrible film. 
I give it an F.

 

My video: https://youtu.be/g8k0SCtfSLI