On Friday, a psychological thriller called A Cure For Wellness will open in theaters. Lots of movies open every weekend, so why should you care about this one from 20th Century Fox? You may or may not be interested in seeing the film, but you should be aware of an unusual tactic that the movie used to promote itself: propagating fake news. [More]
bad ideas
For Some Reason, No One Wants To Buy An Office Building Shaped Like A Giant Picnic Basket
By 9.7.16
For sale: one seven-story office building in the Midwest, less than 20 years old and in great shape inside. Price: $5 million. There are just two tiny problems that are keeping anyone from buying the building: it’s too far from the nearest city, and it’s shaped like a giant picnic basket. [More]
10 Questionable Movie & TV Tie-Ins That No One Asked For
By 8.3.16
No cultural phenomenon would be a complete success without its own line of merchandise attached to it, and it makes sense: fans of popular TV shows, comic books, and movies will often seek out products that tie-in with those franchises, providing a great way for a lot of people to make a bunch of money. But when it comes to some infamous product tie-ins, we’ve got to wonder if it all that effort was worth it. [More]
It’s True: Crystal Pepsi Is Coming Back For All Those People Who Forgot They Hated It The First Time Around
By 6.29.16
For better or worse (mostly worse), I’ve always been a big fan of soda, so when I was a senior in high school in Florida in the early ’90s, I was over the moon that my area would get to try Crystal Pepsi before some other parts of the country. Then I tasted the underwhelming clear cola for myself. Now, more than 20 years later, Pepsi gets to introduce a new generation of cola lovers to that same unique disappointment, with a limited time re-release of Crystal Pepsi that we’re pretty sure the world could have done without. [More]
New Jersey Legislation Would Create Student Loan Lottery To Let You Gamble Away Your Debt
By 7.8.15
While lottery proceeds may do an awful lot of good for state coffers, the odds of winning are microscopically small, and anyone who has lived in a poverty-stricken neighborhood has likely seen people who can’t afford to lose any money throwing away what little they have on a nose hair’s chance that they might win something. So why not apply that same model to the $1 trillion student loan debt problem? [More]
3D, Smell-O-Vision & Indoor Weather: Rating The Best & Worst Movie Theater Innovations
By 4.20.15
Summer blockbuster season is almost upon us. The months of kicking back in the full-blast air conditioning and watching digitally-created stuff blow up will begin in just a couple of weeks, and at this point, it’s an annual ritual. [More]
Bud Light Deletes Tweet Suggesting You Randomly Pinch People For St. Patrick’s Day
By 3.17.15
Today is the day some people celebrate the legacy of St. Patrick by wearing green, wearing shamrock antennae, and — if you’re a drunken, mannerless troglodyte — randomly walk around pinching people who didn’t wear green. [More]
Former Home Depot Worker Gets 30 Years For Planting Pipe Bomb In Store
By 2.9.15
If you want more money from your employer, we don’t recommend threatening to blow up multiple stores, let alone actually planting a bomb to show that you mean business. Not only are your odds of success small, it could also result in a 30-year jail sentence. [More]
American Airlines Flight Forced To Return To Gate After Passenger Discovers “Al-Quida” WiFi Network
By 10.27.14
While there’s no rule that WiFi networks need to employ good spelling, naming a plane hotspot “Al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork” isn’t going to help anyone. And it’s because of that poorly chosen/thick-headed decision that an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to London last night had to turn back before it even got started. [More]
Hey Kids, Let’s Not Trick-Or-Treat In This Completely Black Bodysuit
By 9.30.14
If there’s one problem with kids, it’s that cars can easily see them and avoid hitting them, especially at night. Wait. That’s wrong. Kids are small and easily overlooked when crossing streets, and never more so than when cloaked completely in black on a dark Halloween night. [More]
FTC: You Cannot Lose Weight By Wearing Caffeinated Underpants
By 9.29.14
Infusing ladies’ undergarments with caffeine does not make them weight loss aids, as it turns out. This news may not come as a surprise to most of us, but two companies were trying to sell just such a product with the claim that it would indeed have a slimming effect. The not-so-magical underwear has made one thing significantly smaller, though: the bank accounts of the two companies in question, which have reached a $1.5 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. [More]
Dept. Store Sorry For Selling Decidedly Unfunny Rape Joke Shirt
By 9.23.14
There are certain topics that don’t lend themselves to jokey T-shirts, and rape is pretty high on that list. Yet that didn’t stop one department store chain in the Philippines from selling a rape-joke shirt that even the most jaded person would find cringe-worthy. [More]
If You Dream Of Playing Piano While Shucking Clams, We Know A Place That’s Hiring
By 7.23.14
Did you put yourself through music school by working at a seafood restaurant? Well now you can put both your piano skills and your clam-shucking chops to good use at the same time. [More]
Police: Man Called In Bomb Threat To Southwest Airlines To Ruin Ex’s Vacation
By 6.26.14
There are plenty of immature ways that you could — but most definitely shouldn’t — get revenge on an ex. While most of them are, at worst, misdemeanors, a Seattle man is facing a much bigger penalty for allegedly calling in a bogus bomb threat to Southwest Airlines just to get back at an ex-girlfriend. [More]
Survey: Over Half The Country Thinks The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger Is A Terrible Idea
By 6.19.14
We here at Consumerist are skeptical at best about Comcast’s bid to merge with Time Warner Cable. From where we sit, the deal looks distinctly anticompetitive and likely to harm consumers. Plenty of other folks agree, but not just lawmakers and advocacy organizations. It turns out, over half the country thinks this is a bad idea. [More]
Mayor Resigns Under Cloud Of Poop-Throwing Scandal
By 6.18.14
Tens days after being caught on camera tossing a bag of dog poop onto the lawn of a man in his neighborhood, the mayor of an upscale Southern California town has tendered his resignation. [More]
Amazingly, Diners Didn’t Want To Eat At Toilet-Themed Restaurant
By 5.30.14
A restaurant whose entire bathroom-related theme — complete with toilets as seats, dishes with hilariously fecal names, and miniature toilet-shaped bowls for your food — seems to have been cooked up by a potty-obsessed two-year-old has closed down after an eight-month run, suggesting that most people would rather put foods in their mouths without thinking about how that food will ultimately exit their bodies. [More]
“Watch Dogs” Video Game PR Stunt Leads To Newsroom Evacuation
By 5.28.14
Back in the day when I worked at places where writers were allowed to receive free promotional crap (mostly DVDs and vodka… so much bad vodka) from PR companies, I got all manner of bizarre stuff, the strangest probably being a box that allegedly contained a few of Troy Polamalu’s signature curly locks. But if I received a tiny unmarked safe with a note to “check your voicemail,” and which beeped when I tried to open it, I might have gotten freaked out enough to call the police. [More]
