Do we really need another product like this in our lives?
More useless products that cost more than they're worth!
Why are there so many useless items in the world? We are surrounded by things we just have to have only to find out that once we use them the novelty is all worn off. I was watching a commercial for an egg cracker. Yes, I said an egg cracker. I never thought cracking eggs was particularly hard. I can even crack an egg one handed so why would I need this device? https://www.ezcracker.com/?MID=800450 Remember “Field of Dreams” and the moment when you heard the whisper, “If you build it, they will come.” I think we have grown into a society that will buy anything if it is marketed correctly. If you market it, we will buy it, even if it is a pile of crap!
Back when I was doing art shows I did the Ann Arbor Art Fair. People would stand for hours in line waiting to buy a metal sculpture on a stick to put in their gardens that was supposedly made by one person. Of course I questioned this after seeing the first thousand or so of these stick items walk by my booth. The Ann Arbor Art Guild surely wouldn’t let some mass produced Chinese junk into the art show would they? My son and I used to joke about putting “shit” on a stick and selling it. We would dream up all kinds of clay blobs to put on a stick but I never got around to producing those art “pieces”. We weren’t the only street artists whining about the “taste” of some people that would buy anything and call it “art”.
In the seventies the big rage was the “pet rock”. That guy made a million bucks selling “rocks” as pets and “we” bought them! Another product, that I absolutely detest, is the extremely ugly “Croc” shoe. I know those shoes have sold like crazy and they are beyond ugly. I went into a Hallmark store a few years ago and they were selling their “version”. I was thinking out loud and said, “Oh, my God, those are ugly.” I actually thought I was “thinking” it and not saying it but the sales clerk assured me that they are so comfortable. She couldn’t convince me though as I walked out of the store without the ugly shoes.
Another product that I’ve noticed advertised on T.V. recently seems kind of “X” rated to me. https://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/shake_weight_ood_ontv.html?gid=
It’s a shake weight used to get in shape and lose weight. To me it just looks a bit too much like a vibrator. When I see the ad it makes me laugh instead of taking it seriously. I don’t know if everyone is going to run out and buy one but someone thought they would make money on it. Over the years there have been many products that we have bought and then had buyer’s remorse a week later. Some have bought the weight loss product with accompanying books, etc. that sits in their closet. Some have purchased unusual exercise machines because they were convinced by the ad that they would really use them. Others have bought everything from those strange “Chia” pets to those “Ginsu” knives knowing that they just couldn’t live without them.
What is there about us humans that make us so prone to buying these “junk” products? Are we looking for a quick fix to all of our problems or are we just plain gullible? I don’t know but I do know that I have my share of useless products that I have purchased over the years thinking I couldn’t live without them. Today it’s the EZ Cracker egg machine which I will not buy. Tomorrow it will be something else we just can’t live without. I think we buy to satisfy a need for completion. We will be completed when we “fill” our lives up with so much useless crap there isn’t room for anything else. My home is full of crap but there aren’t many people there to share the crap. I’ll end up carting my crap off to the Goodwill store and wait for the next irresistible product to come my way. Oh, I’ll resist the temptation for awhile but in time those old feelings of “needing” some stupid product will creep its way back into my life and I’ll buy something stupid once again. Advertisers have really got a gimmick going when they can sell everything from a pet rock to “Sham Wow”. The products may be stupid but the people buying them are stupider!