By David Futrelle
Browsing Twitter this morning, I came across this video, which at first I thought was just a joke.
But no, these things are real. You can buy them at Target and Amazon and, I guess, everywhere else where vomiting, shitting toys are sold.
While I was initially a bit repulsed, I realized that these toys are the perfect symbol of a time in history when the news, on a daily basis, causes me and probably billions of others to (figuratively) shit ourselves in fear or vomit in disgust.
These aren’t just toys; they’re cultural commentators. And they’re a good deal better at their job than most of the commentators I see on the news or in the New York Times op-ed pages.
PS: Consider this an open thread.
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On one hand that is a big old helping of WTFery up there with this ad that I still suspect is some elaborate joke:
https://youtu.be/qxaNMe8oDE8
On the other hand my god-daughter’s birthday is coming up and I haven’t forgiven her parents for making me renounce Satan and all his works and pomps. It’s either that or some more Harry Potter merchandise, I just got an email about a themed advent calendar, and I think JK Rowling has had enough of my money.
I suppose it’s also not too late to plan my niece’s Christmas present either as I can guarantee my brother will hate them.
At this point I’m wondering if I should just bulk buy them as I’m sure there are many more kids I know who’ll love them and their parents will not.
These seem like a child of the eighties decided to combine My Little Pony and Mattel’s tragically short-lived Mad Scientist toylines.
(My favorite of those was the Monster Lab, where you would build a monster skeleton, cover it with putty-like flesh that you would sculpt and texture, add details like eyes and antennae… and then drop it into a vat of acid to watch the flesh dissolve. Good times.)
@Allandrel: They don’t market things like that to kids anymore, because… acid. Lawsuits tended to make them short-lived and unprofitable.
Jeremy Renner just released a new music video this week. Taika Waititi shows up several times, once in a hot dog costume. If you want something with less Autotune, there are links to more of his songs in the description.
@alan Some quotes that might help
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
― Howard Zinn
“No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich
“And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? … It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau
“It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.”
― Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad
“Sometimes it’s appropriate to scream at them.”
― Dr. Helen Caldicott
@ sheila
Thank you ever so much for those; I’ll try and incorporate them.
It’s interesting experimenting with what forms of protest are most effective. This article is part of the prep for the team-up with Extinction Rebellion in October. XR have been having a bit of a practice this week in Dalston.
With animal rights/veganism it seems the most effective form of protest is ‘The Cube’ (which is a misnomer but I’ve been told to shut up about that). Basically people stand silently in a square holding laptops or tablets showing footage of what really goes on in farms and slaughterhouses. If people want to know more then they can choose to approach and ask; no-one on our side initiates anything.
It’s proving especially effective next to Farmers’ Markets and similar.
(I’m less of a fan because of the Anonymous connection; but there’s no denying it works)
Sparkly pink poop and puke?
These dolls win the femininity contest.
@Snowberry: The “acid” in those toys was relatively innocuous citric acid, and the fizz powder baking soda. Probably it was a combination of fading trends and parents tiring of the mess that killed it off (and, fad cycles being what they are, about 20 years later slime toys became A Thing again…)
Cœur de pirate is the Celine for Quebec millennials — we love her but some macho assholes make a big deal of hating her. (I’m just a bit old for a millennial but I sometimes try to fit in.)
These poopy toys are great for training kids to think about the consequences of having cats, dogs, or babies. They’d also work in physics class for a demo of conservation of mass. I think I’m in love.
Alan: what you want to call a square has volume, which a square notably does not have, so it’s definitely not a square. Standing around in a square while forming four walls is close enough to cubical even without the floor and roof and making sure you match the height of the protesters with the breadth of your square.
If you were a proper stickler you could reasonably argue you’re actually a torus. But then you’d risk being mistaken for Tories.
@ Alan
Is there any scope for playing with different meanings of “civil” when discussing civil disobedience? I’m not feeling inspired but there’s bound to be something.
@ numerobis
Ooh, that’s a great point. I’ll still reserve the right to whinge at the Flatland branch of Anonymous though.
@ Weatherwax
There undoubtedly is. Thanks everyone for your help here; it’s very inspirational.
I was thinking of going with:
“I predict a riot; or possibly a violent disorder; depends how many people turn up”
But that’s (a) a bit technical; and (b) sort of asking for trouble if anything does kick off.
I got so accustomed to the “Surviving the Trumpocalypse” subheader. Wondering why it was changed back to the original.
Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry on “I Fought the Law”, for anyone who’s interested in the song’s history. Long story short: It was written by Sonny Curtis (the same guy who wrote the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song!), originally performed by the post-Buddy Holly Crickets when Curtis joined them, and popularized by the Buddy Fuller Four. The Clash is one of several bands who have done cover versions.
@ personalpest
Oh wow; thanks for that! That Bobby Fuller versions is great. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to wind up some old punks!
@Allendrel:
Nope, it’s not just you at all.
Hello, hello. Today is kind of my worry-about-other-people day, so it’s nice to hear/see some relaxing things like the songs people posted and @numerobis’ square-vs-cube analysis 😛
So what’s up? Well, my brother called Friday night in a bad mood. He’s working at a summer camp and apparently one of his supervisors gave him a bad report or was unfair in some way. He wouldn’t give me details, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see what’s up.
Then a friend of mine is going through a custody hearing for his son (about 2). His ex is giving him a hard time. (Note for any lurking MRAs that this can happen to a man without the said man blaming feminists for everything. Amazing how that is.)
And THEN a bunch of my students have a big test this Thursday. It’s a language test they have to pass in order to be certified as teachers in this province (not as bad as the GMAT or MCAT in that it’s only 2 hours long, but everything’s pretty fast-paced and it’s pass/fail).
Stand by for the usual suspects’ response…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/15/lashana-lynch-new-007-james-bond-daniel-craig
Hi everyone, I’m not caught up on recent threads so apologies if this has already been brought up.
I also suspect I’ll be preaching to the converted on here to some extent, but for anyone who would normally shop on Amazon or uses their other services, their workers are currently on strike. Please consider boycotting their services at least for the duration of Amazon’s ‘Prime Day’ event (today and tomorrow).
Hope this embeds…
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Are you telling me these toys weren’t inevitable combinations of:
— the current trend of glitter slime
— the current trend of squishies (cheap stress toys)
— the various rainbow collectable animals
— the baby dolls we’ve been giving little girls for years to train them for their children peeing or pooping?
Random openness:
1. I have a cat in my lap on my back porch, it’s warm out. Life is good.
2. My ex seems to finally understand it’s over. (It’s been over for months) Thankfully no kids to fight over, just our life savings.
3. OK Go “Writing’s on the wall” was exactly on point for what I was facing. Stromae has a line about how he said he was leaving but he didn’t mean it and you did and how can this be — pretty much exactly what happened (with genders flipped). Music reminds us we are not alone: all of us are a mess.
4. The climate is a mess, pollution is getting stupid, and there’s solutions if we just get to it, but the oligarchs don’t want to rock the boat that’s served them so well. That’s driving people to rebel, finally.
5. The oligarchs are no longer nearly as owned by the fossil fuel industry as they used to be. They’re driven by money. There’s money in the solutions now, and not much growth potential in fossil fuels. That’s dividing the powers at the top.
6. Canada’s election is coming up. The greens are polling better than they ever have, and are likely to outright win a few extra seats. My riding has potential. I’m in!
7. My industry has disastrous worker exploitation. My company refuses to partake. That’s going well. On the flip side, management is hard. I’m hoping we can fix things before employees bail and I burn out.
*sigh* And people back in the 90s thought the Cabbage Patch Kids were asinine. Then came the Tamagotchi. Then the Beanie Babies. Then Tickle-Me-Elmo. Then the Furby.
And lest we forget Teddy Ruxpin back in the 80s.
Gotta love fad toys. I remember Air Farce once had Carlos Delgado on back when he played for the Blue Jays (I think it was like the 1996 or 1997 year-end show), and they had a Furby that was programmed to say one of Roger Abbott’s catch phrases from their “Canadian Moment” sketches, which was “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.” They had it behind a desk and were like “Okay, Carlos, here’s the Furby… and here’s the bat” and it actually said “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh shit!” as he knocked it towards the studio audience.
Ah, memories… I really wish it was on YouTube so I could show it.
Open thread topic: I just turned 40 on Saturday, and have been having a lot of issues with my depression being exacerbated because I feel like a failure. I’m disabled, autistic, and have never been in a relationship, and feel like I have no future.
But I came across this song by a band I’d never really been fond of, and now I can’t stop crying. It’s the chorus:
When you think all is forsaken
Listen to me now
You need never feel broken again
I don’t know, for the ‘down in the gutter, straining to see the stars’, I still tend to go with the classics: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCS_MwkWzes
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack, in everything.
That’s how the light gets in…
For anyone interested in covers of “I fought the law”, the Dead Kennedys’ version is my favorite. It keeps a lot of the original song, but warps it into an attack on the judicial system that permitted Harvey Milk’s killer to escape justice.
It even references the “twinkie defence”.