35 Products That Are So Bad, It’s Hard To Believe Someone Came Up With Them
Interview With AuthorIf you hate wasting time walking around the mall, online shopping might be right up your alley. It’s fast, it’s efficient, and it has become almost like a lifeline during quarantine. When you have something specific in mind, you often turn to the retail giant Amazon, a go-to site for virtually everything. Yet, once you scroll past the items you need, things take a bizarre turn.
The Worst Things For Sale (TWTFS) is a Twitter account dedicated to the most horrible objects on the web. After all, there’s plenty to choose from. The creator, Drew Fairweather, combs the site and handpicks "one terrible item every day" to make his followers a little baffled and a lot amused.
So if you’re looking for a terrible gift guide, you’ve come to the right place because we have selected some of the weirdest things the account had to offer. Continue scrolling, upvote the ones you enjoyed most, and tell us what you think about them in the comments!
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When people say that all things should have a function and a purpose, they've probably never stumbled upon an enormous USB-compatible Enter Key or a fried chicken phone case. The internet is chock full of items so extreme that they seem unreal. Yet, all it takes is one look at Amazon to recognize that it’s a true treasure trove of weird, strange, and peculiar objects.
We reached out to Drew Fairweather, the founder of the account, to learn more about his project and the inspiration behind it. The artist not only writes The Worst Things For Sale blog but is also the author of the daily comics Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea.
Fairweather started TWTFS about ten years ago when he was simply looking through Amazon. He noticed that there were many weird and hilarious items "always peeking out from under what I was actually trying to find," he told Bored Panda. Ever since then, the author has faithfully documented the oddest and most pointless objects found online. "Once you realize the breadth of bizarre things available there, you can't un-see them!"
I have seen it, its actualy amazing becase it hugely desexualite woman wearing it, so they arent fpcus of some random boner
When it comes to the Twitter account, it now has more than 11.6K followers. This shows just how many people are drawn in by a desire to discuss and figure out why on earth such things exist in the first place. Also, why some people actually buy them. Well, as they say, one person’s trash is another’s treasure.
"Since buying items is the main creative outlet of most people—most Americans, at least—people enjoy seeing unusual items for sale," he said. Statista reports that Amazon was responsible for 50 percent of US e-commerce spending in 2021. One of the company’s key tools to increase that spending is Amazon Prime, a membership that gives you free and fast shipping, plus extra privileges like streaming music and video.
In 2018, as many as 62 percent of their customers in the US were Prime members. According to Statista, they are highly engaged shoppers who spend a lot of money—more than double the amount of non-Prime members per year—and are relevant to Amazon’s success.
Fairweather also writes about items "that seem normal—branded waffle irons, pink screwdrivers—that have a strange or sinister subtext hidden beneath the sales pitch." When it comes to some of the most bizarre things he has ever come across, it has to be the "BabySaver, a box where you store your child's baby teeth after they fall out."
"The box has holes for each tooth, so you can reassemble your child's teeth into a jaw-shaped curio," he explained. "If that's not enough, it has a slot in the middle for your child's umbilical cord."
When it comes to finding such items floating around Amazon, he revealed that most of them he has dug up on his own, though his followers also help with suggestions. "I tend to stay away from novelty items, which are those intentionally created to be 'wacky,' since there's nothing unusual or sinister about these."
"I'd rather write about something like Extylus, which is a stylus for your smartphone that you strap to your finger, so you can use your finger to control your smartphone."
"As with any items manufactured and sold, these were all created with the purpose of making money! A lot of these companies, I'd imagine, start with someone having an idea they hope will be popular, a niche product that will become the next Beanie Baby or Scrub Daddy," he told us. "They're then put through the wringer of marketing to become one of the abominations I write about, like Bumper Dumper, the toilet you attach to the trailer hitch of your truck."
My family destroyed capitalism and the only thing they brought back was this tee shirt.
The artist revealed that his ultimate goal is to make people think about what they’re buying and why. "These products are mostly made of plastic, manufactured by underpaid factory workers, sold at a premium to people who don't need them," he explained.
"They're a colossal waste of energy and material resources, and it engenders suffering from the human cost of manual labor, the occupational health hazards experienced by the workers, and the ecological damage done by extracting these limited resources from the Earth."
Ok but I NEED this! I have autism and HATE when food touches, and I would buy this is an INSTANT!
Fairweather continued: "The very richest people accumulate wealth and use their power to strip the rest of us of health and happiness, then sell it back to us, one plastic piece at a time. We don't need any of these things! It's all a symptom of a society which has prioritized the accumulation of the wealthy over all other aspects."
So while these awful objects catch our attention and allow us to let out some genuine laughs, they also show a much deeper problem. Remember that each time we consume a product, we support certain businesses and their values. So next time you want to buy a funny-looking thing online, think long and hard whether it's actually worth it.
You can even store the umbilical cord and the lanugo in it. Every proud parent should have one.
Amazing how much american flag apparel there is. I'm sure that there's something written that the flag is not supposed to be worn
Because you can't just use your hands to shape hamburger into any shape you want.
For the niche market of people who want to date characters from early Simpsons video games
🎶 Don't tell me what to do, and don't tell me what to say, if I eat cheese from a gun, don't tell me how to behave! 🎶
I find it offending that they assume that only dogs want to video chat. Cats also want to video chat with their slaves at times.
I could see this being useful for people with certain mobility issues.
Taken my arms! Taken my legs! Taken my soul! Left me with life in hell! One of the best songs ever written!
Real men also don't need t-shirts telling them how to be a real man.
It's a squeeze trap. For keeping an animal still while giving injections.
Thanks to Freedom of Choice, people can decide not to buy it.
They were mostly for 2000 and 2001, I don't see the point in dragging it out. We were excited the year finally had multiple zeroes in it was all
Imagine being a kid excitedly opening this present from one of your grandparents and finding out it's a calculator.
Yeah, doesn't work when they are not magnetized under an oak tree during the Northern Summer Solstice by a certified druid.
You will definitely win the corporate-ugly-sweater-contest every year thanks to that.
Look at her, she's been sat there for 10 years and she still can't levitate.
I'm pretty sure the spinny thing would throw pee back onto whoever peed on it.
Le'ts get down to businness to defeat the Huns... Great, now I will have this song rstuck in my mind for hours!
still fascinates me that people will use all the products of science - you know, space ships, aircraft, nuclear power stations, cars, GPS, cellphones, computers, etc - but when it comes to medicine and how the body works they are like, no, screw science, Im going to go with some theory from like 5000 years ago.
People who have suffered traumatic brain injury would probably find this highly amusing. Not everyone is as easily offended as some people think they should be.
It's all fun and games until you accidentally turn off the emergency brake.
It's a hint to the "Now this is what I call [ Rock, Rap, Country, the 70's, the 80's] collections to sell people the same songs they already have on other "Now this is what I call....." albums.
People who need to die : whoever created that horrific 3Ds illustriation.
Now, i'm not saying anything particular, but "Elder Knight" sounds a bit like "Grand Wizard".
It's a card game where you have to win despite the fact that the rules are changed every 10 seconds, no card is what it appears to be and you're allowed to keep cards up your sleeve.
Why is it that in America, pot is still illegal in a majority of states, but alcohol (which is SIGNIFICANTLY worse for both the person using it and society) is so widely accepted that there's a market (however stupid) for things like this?!? I've never been afraid that I was going to get hurt by a stoned person, but drunk people are unpredictable and scary!
So... People wasted time, money, resources and energy to make... that?
Capitalism is gross. “Does anyone need this? No. But some people will still pay us for it, so let’s make it.”
Load More Replies...So... People wasted time, money, resources and energy to make... that?
Capitalism is gross. “Does anyone need this? No. But some people will still pay us for it, so let’s make it.”
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