Every year around this time I find myself aimlessly searching online for Christmas gift ideas. One of the sites I frequent is a notoriously trendy retailer that epitomizes the mass production of “originality.” I don’t waste my time with their overpriced fashion offerings, but proceed directly to the novelty bonanza that is their “APARTMENT” section. Mundane suburbanites need not enter.
My visits to the store’s website are never without internal conflict: On the one hand, I love clever things that look pretty. On the other hand, I am morally opposed to this store’s shady business practices, like using sweatshops and capitalizing on that whole ‘Indian Chic’ fashion trend. Ultimately, my primal yearning for savvy design and slick concepts will prevail. Not that I necessarily buy things there, but I do like to window shop while shaking my fist and muttering “sons of bitches really outdid themselves this year.”
As I scroll through page after page of charming gift ideas, I will turn a blind eye to this shamefully accurate provision of whimsy. Ha, looks like they really got my number, those sly devils. Good for them! It’s all fun and games until I encounter some items that are so egregious they serve as a shock to my system.
1. Ironically Priced Bean Bag
I want them to send this photo to all of our enemies abroad who say that Americans are lazy and wasteful and materialistic. Just troll the hell out of them.
2. Fancy Ass Cake Topper
The only reason I can see for getting one of these things is for the sole purpose of posting a photo of your precious princess cake to Instagram. That being said, I think it would be a great idea for someone to keep one of these in their purse and whip it out on first dates to set the mood “for the first night of the rest of our lives.” Better yet, they could do the same thing at a job interview to let the prospective employer know that they appreciate the finer things in life. “A smidgen of class could really improve morale around here,” they would suggest before being escorted to their new corner office.
3. Flash Drive / Statement of Originality
Are we living in a Wes Anderson movie set in the future? Pretending to stroll along the beach and find some nostalgic message in a bottle from the good old days of USB technology while listening to French rock music? Because that sounds freaking awesome. Maybe the bottle contains a plea for help from an orphan who has been stolen by a houseboatinhabiting harpie in order to retrieve a giant diamond from a bayou cave? Maybe the message is an ‘SOS to the world’ from an aging rockstar who will soon find 100 billion similar bottles on his island lost at sea? All of these scenarios sound delightful for a person who may or may not be a character in a stop motion hologram animation.
4. Stump Scraps
The very night before I saw this on the store’s website, I was out to dinner with a friend of mine and we passed by a Christmas tree stand. My friend starts eyeing a box of stump scraps that are being cut off the trees on the lot. She wants to see if we can buy some because they would be way cheaper than the actual trees or wreaths. I tell her that she is embarrassing me because this is not the Christmas episode of Saved By the Bell where the kids are working at the gift wrapping station in the mall and learn the true meaning of Christmas by giving their discarded wrapping paper ends to the needy.
45. Ugly Ass Pillow
What even is this? I thought this store had been trying to tone down all the cultural appropriation? Apparently not. Apparently this is what passes for taste nowadays. Maybe if someone was still reeling from the backlash of their ‘Sexy Pocahontas’ costume that all the Halloween #haterz sucked the joy out of, this pillow would be a good way to double down on the cultural sensitivity. It would really let people know how much they appreciate Native Americans for all their valuable contributions to looking cute and, like, communing with nature and shit. If visiting Mohegan Sun has taught this person anything, it’s that you gotta go all in when you already have a great starting hand.
6. Tent For LOVERS ONLY
I want to meet the Lothario that says to himself “I really need to get a tent for this upcoming outdoor excursion, but I also need people in the vicinity to know what is happening inside that tent, which is obviously a lot of smooching and sexual congress.”
Also, this tent costs as much as one month’s rent in some places! What gives? Does the tent come with an interior coating of pheromones and a bottle of vintage Courvoisier? Maybe I am just seeing the perspective wrong. Maybe this tent is actually 50ft long and could serve as a venue for large swinger gatherings in a jiffy. If so, then that is a steal.
7. Obscure T.V. Show Board Game
I envision the eBay tycoons out there salivating at the thought of throwing this baby in the vault. Sure, it’s worthless now, but it’ll be worth a small fortune as a kitschy collectible in 20 years. Better get a few just in case. They’re in this for the long grift. The New Girl board game boxes will stack neatly between the plastic tubs of vacuum-sealed Beanie Babies and the Scully and Mulder Dolls encased in lucite.
8. Fake Poor Tree Decor
What a predicament! You want your tree to be shabby chic, but you don’t want it to have any actual filth on it because that might give your guests the impression that you are one of the Poors. Quelle horreur! This ornament offers the perfect solution: Instead of having to drink a cheap beer and hang that empty can on your tree for a dollar, you can spend 12 times that amount and come off smelling like a rose. Well done!
The ‘fake poor tree decor’ is just astonishing. I’m in awe. It’d be like mass-producing my childhood salt-dough christmas ornaments and charging £30 for them/
Welcome to Etsy!
A marketing executive is sending that salt dough idea to John Lewis as we speak. They’ll feature in next year’s advert.
So are we all just gonna pretend we don’t know this is Urban Outfitters?
Nah, it’s right there in the tags, for those of us who aren’t familiar with the shop. 😀 (Thankfully, because I honestly had no idea. I’m not into that kind of trendiness. I’m hopelessly uncool.)
I thought it was Mod Cloth at first, but none of the objects had horrible punny names.
I thought it was modcloth until I saw the money bag. They’re a little too twee for that.
I actually bought a Ron Swanson bobble head from there for my brother. He loved it as we are big P&R fans.
Novelty gifts are a brilliant example of American ingenuity. Those who can afford to spend a good bit of money on Christmas gifts (usually) only give gifts to people who already own everything they need and most of what they want. What else is there to give these people except beer pong hats (real item!) and tiny books about internet memes?
i would buy that game if it were true american, but alas. (rules here: http://www.trueamericanrules.com/)
ha! spelled my own name wrong, niiiice
I have a bunch of friends coming over for a gaming weekend, and I kind of want to suggest this. I’m just worried my apartment’s too small, and I wish I could do a practice run-through first.
Not gonna lie, I would buy the shit out of that flash drive if the casing was in fact watertight
yeah that’s a huge missed opportunity!
NEW GIRL IS NOT AN OBSCURE TV SHOW DAMNIT (at least it shouldn’t be, although this season’s quality has dipped). Plus last year’s “Santa” episode is particularly relevant to this year’s holiday season.
I thought it was Mod Cloth at first, but none of the objects had horrible punny names.
I bought my mother the Firefly board game for Xmas! Also, I now really want to find a xmas tree stand and get some stump scraps. For what, I know not.
I bought some Iranian tea once called “American Tea” and the box was printed in a $100 bill design. Because that’s what we do in America, drink terrible loose-leaf green tea from boxes made of hundos.
I actually bought a Ron Swanson bobble head from there for my brother. He loved it as we are big P&R fans.