Clearly disappointed that they weren’t able to progress beyond the second round in Consumerist’s Worst Company in America Tournament, Time Warner Cable has put out a call to their customers asking for tips on how they can possibly do things worse. No… that can’t be right. We have a strong suspicion that this press release did not actually come from Time Warner. [More]
Time Warner Cable Impersonators Ask: What Can We Do Worse For Our Customers?
By April 17, 2013
Who Dares Visit A Restaurant Without Reading Online Reviews First?
By August 31, 2012
The best satire is deeply rooted in reality. That’s why an article from this week’s issue of the Onion shook us to the core. “Brave Woman Enters Restaurant Without First Looking It Up Online,” the headline blared. At Consumerist HQ, we asked each other: is there really anyone out there who is so bold and reckless that they would do such a thing? [More]
Bank Of America Has Gotten So Bad, It's Hard To Tell Satire From Reality
By April 19, 2012
Bank of America may have avoided the stain of the Worst Company In America Golden Poo for the second year in a row, but the perennial runner-up still has plenty of haters out there, including some who put together YourBofA.com, a satire site that will probably be taken down any minute now. [More]
Colbert Makes Dude Version Of Summer's Eve Hand Puppet Ads
By July 26, 2011
In order to rectify a troubling imbalance in the world, the Colbert Report made a spoof commercial of the Summer’s Eve talking vaginal hand puppets, just for men. [More]
Get A Free Inhaler From Coal Cares
By May 12, 2011
May is Asthma Awareness Month and you can celebrate it with a free asthma inhaler courtesy of Coal Cares. They’ve put together a fun and informative site to help teach kids that inhalers are cool, and so is coal! [More]
Inside A "Big Food" Product Development Meeting
By May 12, 2011
Where do they come up with all those great ideas to make 500 different snack foods out of the same four crappy ingredients and then try to trick us into thinking they’re healthy? This amusing xtranormal video takes you inside a hypothetical product development meeting at a “Big Food” company. It starts off slow but then delivers hit after hit as they skewer each of the different labeling and ingredient tactics food manufacturers use, like adding Vitamin D to Cheetos and saying they “support healthy bones.” [More]
H2O Police Says Just Light A Match Before Drinking
By May 5, 2011
At first glance this sticker I spotted on a water fountain appears to be from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, telling citizens that they’ve checked out the water and it’s probably safe. If you have any doubts about there being chemicals in there that seeped in because of hydraulic fracturing, don’t worry, just turn on the spigot and do the ‘ol match test and see if it bursts into flame. Wait, what? [More]
10 Ways To Make The TSA Crotch Grabbers Profitable
By March 7, 2011
Last week, the the Director of Homeland Security suggested to Congress that the TSA get a cut of airline baggage fees. The fees encourage travelers to carry on their bags, and this in turn leads to more bags that have to be inspected by hand at security checkpoints. Should taxpayers keep picking up the tab, or should airlines give the TSA a piece of the baggage fees? How about neither? What if instead the TSA looked for more creative ways to offset costs and even increase revenue? Here are 10 modest proposals: [More]
Smoke Pink Cigarettes, Fight Breast Cancer
By November 1, 2010
For every pack of pink cigarettes you smoke, RJ Morris will donate half a cent to breast cancer research. [More]
What Really Happens To A McDonald's Burger When You Leave It Out
By October 18, 2010
Recently photos of a McDonald’s burger left out for 180 days with no visibile signs of decomposing went viral. Consumerist reader GitEmSteveDave decided to recreate the experiment using time-lapse photography and came up with drastically different results. The burger was completely gone within just a short period of time! Also discovered? Time-lapse cats are hilarious. [More]
New Google Phone Whispers Targeted Ads In Your Ears
By May 18, 2010
So this is how Google is going to make the Nexus One work: Advanced voice-recognition technnology will whisper targeted ads directly into your ears, reports The Onion. [More]
Samsung Sues Journalist For Satirically Pointing Out That Its Chairman Keeps Getting Convicted Of Crimes
By May 11, 2010
Did you know that the chairman of Samsung, Lee Kun-hee, was convicted in 2008 for tax evasion in South Korea? Or that he was convicted in the 90s for bribing politicians? A British journalist, Michael Breen, wrote a satirical column in a South Korean newspaper last December, and now the electronics giant is suing him for libel. If found guilty, Breen could face jail time. [More]
Somali Pirates Disclose They're A Goldman Sachs Subsidiary
By April 27, 2010
A mosquito-boat’s worth of Somali pirates stunned the courtroom today when they disclosed their entire piracy enterprise was in fact a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. [More]
Video: Too Weak To Move Your Arms? The Food Lift Feeds You!
By April 9, 2010
We’ve all experienced the the age-old quandary, “I’m hungry, but I’m too weak/lazy to move my arms, whatever shall I do?” Enter the Food Lift! It’s a revolutionary new product that takes the work out of eating! Simply place the food in the trough and then the dynamo-screw lifts the meal through the tube into your mouth, “like a waiter climbing a staircase.” Try one today! [More]
Video: Plunder Funnel! New Consumerist Original Scam Spoof
By April 7, 2010
How would you like to be wallowing up to your eye sockets in filthy lucre?!?! PLUNDER FUNNEL is a sure-fire money-making factory that will teach how you to cannibalize any human relationship and turn it into cold hard cash. Taylor Sternberg from Broadway’s “Jersey Boys” stars in this Consumerist original video parody, written and directed by Ben Popken. [More]
Video: pHarmony Matches Polluters, Lobbyists, And Politicians
By February 18, 2010
New service “pHarmony” is like eHarmony except it matches together polluters, lobbyists and politicians looking to make that special connection that only money and power can bring! In this satirical Greenpeace video, an oil lobbyist talks about how used pHarmony to find his true special someone, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. He says things like, “We both like to stay up at night and gut energy bills,” “It’s like we finish each other’s legislation,” and, “We talked about how much we both don’t like Jon Stewart.” Worth a chuckle, as long as you don’t take it too seriously and get all bent out of shape about it, oh wait, here comes the Consumerist comment section. [More]
Gorge Like A Pro At All You Can Eat Buffets
By November 10, 2009
Eating The Road has posted THE definitive guide to maximizing your all-you-can eat buffet experience. From types of buffets, to pre-game preparations, to inter-diner tactics, to post-game, everything you need to know about pigging your friggin’ brains out like a pro is here. A sampling:
See The Fortune 500 Magazine Cover That Was Too Brutally Honest To Run
Fortune magazine commissioned artist Chris Ware to design a cover for their 2010 Fortune 500 issue, so he did. Unfortunately, what he delivered was a detailed, funny, and biting commentary on the current state of our economy–with banker types dancing on the top of mega-buildings that spell out “500,” a factory in Mexico churning out big box merchandise, and a “401k cemetary.” Fortune rejected it, but hasn’t provided any comment on why. Well, okay, it’s probably self-evident why they killed it, but it’s still funny. [More]