DALLAS, TX — In a bold move that industry insiders are calling “unapologetically lazy” and “profoundly on-brand,” AT&T this week unveiled its Peer Support Network™, a revolutionary new system where paying customers can finally skip the hassle of receiving professional help by fixing each other’s technical issues—for absolutely no pay, benefits, or reason.
According to AT&T executives, the platform represents “a paradigm shift in customer engagement,” in which support is no longer provided by the company that sold you the broken service, but by Greg in Boise, who once watched a YouTube video about routers and now lives in your modem’s DMs.
“Why rely on trained tech reps when we have millions of underqualified, furious customers just sitting around waiting to be weaponized against each other?” said Claire Vant, AT&T’s Vice President of Customer Deflection and Community-Based Accountability. “This is like Uber, but for despair.”
Gamifying Helplessness
To make the process more engaging, AT&T has gamified the platform with a reward system where users earn ‘Self-Reliance Badges’ for providing solutions ranging from “try unplugging it” to “move to a different ISP.” These digital tokens, which carry no monetary value or actual utility, include distinctions like:
- “The Rebooter” – For successfully instructing someone to power cycle their modem
- “Bandwidth Whisperer” – For explaining upload/download speeds using a metaphor involving plumbing
- “Honorary IT Intern” – For diagnosing the problem before the customer realizes they’re crying
“After three hours in a support thread explaining DNS flushing to a retired dentist in Florida, I got a badge shaped like a broken ethernet cable. It made me feel… seen,” said user @WiFiWarrior_99, who has not had a stable internet connection since 2023.
Do It Yourself, or Do Without
Company officials insist this move isn’t about cutting costs, despite simultaneously announcing the closure of all remaining domestic call centers and replacing them with a cardboard cutout of a man shrugging.
“AT&T remains deeply committed to customer service,” said CEO John Stankey, reading from a note taped inside a modem. “We’re just redefining ‘service’ as something customers do for each other in a desperate attempt to avoid talking to us.”
Coming next quarter: the AT&T Tower Trek™, a “voluntary” program where Platinum Support Members can scale nearby cell towers to manually reattach loose cables for loyalty points and a branded headlamp.
At press time, the Peer Support Network was offline due to a server outage. No one knows how to fix it, but several users have suggested turning it off and back on again.
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