My personal favorites:
1. Dog Mustache Toy ($10): A chew toy for dogs, that when the toy is in the dog's mouth, it looks like he has a mustache.
2. Banana Guard ($10): A carrying case for your banana. Made out of plastic and paintedbright yellow, this is for you if you're tired of eating a bruised banana.
3. Pet Petter ($8): Shows just how lazy people are getting. This contraption pets your pet for you.
4. Peeka
ru ($80): It looks just like a Snuggie, except there is a whole in the chest area for your babies head to fit through. It will keep you and your baby warm at the same time!5. LifeGem Memorial Diamonds ($2,699-$24,999): This is by far the weirdest one. It cremates your pet deceased pet and then uses the carbon to make a gem. They then can put the gem on a ring, bracelet, or necklace.
6. Fiber Optic Holiday Sweater ($30): A typical holiday sweater taken to the next level by adding lights! Nothing gets better than that.
7. Butter Warmer ($50): For the people too lazy to simply use a microwave. You plug it in, put your butter in, and wait for it to warm up. Just plain ridiculous.
8. Spray on Hair ($15): Doesn't stroking your hand through spray paint just sound delightful? Just shake up the can and spray on the bald spots on your head.
9. How to Avoid Huge Ships Manual ($82): The stupidest one of them all. Not small, not big, not large, but huge ships. An entire hardcover book all about how to avoid them. How hard can it be?
9 comments:
Although these gifts may seem kind of stupid, there will always be people who are willing to buy them, and I don't see many of them has being that bad. Urban Outfitters makes tons of money every year by selling stupid books much like the one about avoiding ships. My personal favorite book that they are currently selling is titled How To Survive A Garden Gnome Attack. There will always be trendy hipsters out there looking for funny books that will decorate their coffee tables.
When it comes to the banana guard, I can see how this can come in handy. When I worked at a pre-school this summer there were numerous children who refused to eat bruised bananas. I think guards such as these could lead to healthy eating for American youth!
Also, American society, one that is constantly defining beauty, has created millions of people who are self conscious about their appearance. Spray on hair can give bald men the happiness that they deserve, the happiness that society's views on beauty has taken away from them.
I also think the dog mustache toy is GENIUS.
Each of these gifts can easily be given as a present. Even though some of these are random and not necessary, they add either a humor to a situation or become useful one day. There are many people out in the world and they all have different hobbies. Although many of these items seem pointless to most of us, they could be a great tool for someone else. America definitely has a certain variety of goods!
I definitely agree with Sandy. This post reminds me of NBC's Outsourced, but I'll spare you of a long and unnecessary plot summary to make a simple connection. The bottom line is that the point of American consumerism is to buy, buy, and buy some more. It doesn't really matter if the item in question has no ostensible value. You could easily give any one of these gifts during the holiday season. A fiber optic holiday sweater would certainly give your geeky cousin, Ben, quite the thrill!
In any case, your post is also a very interesting and relevant commentary on American society and economics. Americans have gotten into the habit of wasteful spending, leading to both the production of such seemingly useless products and the recession of the American economy. Hopefully, we'll be able to kick our irresponsible habits before it is too late.
I want the Dog Mustache Toy. :(
^See, it's perfectly normal to want these gifts ;)
This is really funny, and a good find!! It is crazy that people will spend this much money ("this much" even being $10!) on such odd things if they're convinced that they will like them or that they need them. Especially the LifeGem Memorial Diamonds! Melting your pet's remains down to a stone for up to $25,000... what?! Or you could just bury them in the garden for free...
-Alice Bebbington
This is a "Lulz" moment.
Remember the snuggie?
These are just a few of things that just can make those corners of ya'll mouths come up and reach your ears. It's about entertainment. There is a purpose: "They are hilarious"
Remember the snuggie?
We watch movies, download music (when was the last time you thought about buying first before downloading), procrastinate on the internet, go party, shoot the breeze with strangers, and enjoy time with our friends and family.
It's all to be entertained and have a good time. We're laughing at these items because they make no sense, but we already break into laughter because of "logical fallacies" --(example: man, that Silton test was so easy, I could've been marking up that scantron blindfolded and be done before I sat down in the desk.)
Remember the snuggie?--> when it first came out, nobody took it seriously... EXACTLY!
that's why now people buy them as funny gifts. (Great white elephant party gift idea!)Don't question humor: it's suppose to not make sense
On the American consumerism bit: A good majority of people often get the feeling that the "buy, buy, buy" culture is wasteful and out of control as you buy useless junk...but take one step back, and look at other places where buying stuff like this really is COMPLETELY USELESS, while here we buy this stuff so that we can have a good laugh. Just be glad that you live in a country we can buy useless junk and enjoy an illogical moment, have a laugh, and get back to our daily grind.
Don't get me wrong, the line between work and entertainment in American is far closer to entertainment than other places, but if we call entertainment useless, well... that would be boring.
Speaking of humor: "Yo mama's so poor, she made your family eat cereal with a fork to save milk"
-Raymond
haha! I was laughing the whole time while reading this!
While many of us find these things to be hilarious and odd, I can't help but think that the people who invented them weren't intending for that reaction. I mean, the person who did the dog mustache toy was probably looking for that reaction and the author of the huge ship book was probably going for an comedic ironic-type thing (at least I hope he was), but as for the others, they probably all thought that these were genuinely good ideas that people would want and would want to buy. Sure, some of them could very well be (and probably are) from some company trying to make more money, but you can't eliminate the chances of an Average Joe coming across a problem one day, like not being able to reach and pet his dog, and coming up with the pet petter. And to that man, I say sorry for people laughing at your invention, though I can't help you with the fact that it's not that great of an idea to start with.
People come up with strange ideas, good and bad, for gagdets every day. This is what happens when the really strange ones get made.
On a side note, that Peekaru picture is kind of disturbing. It looks like that woman is giving birth to her baby through her chest.
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