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Goons getting excited over food? Well I never.
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Jul 8, 2016 01:43
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| # ? May 25, 2024 15:26 |
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LootCrate and its clones know exactly who their target demographic is - late 20s-early 40s nerds/gamers with no taste, at least half of whom work at video game companies. I swear like 75% of the people I worked with at Blizz subscribed to the stupid thing, and displayed their millions of nerd toys proudly on/on top of/under/around their desk, some to absolutely absurd levels. Nerds are the easiest demographic to scam because they have both disposable income and a limited sense of taste and/or quality. Also nobody who sells overpriced junk really feels bad about scamming nerds, unlike, say, old people, or kids. Nerds will give you money for anything and there's plenty of companies out there who will take full advantage of it while they relax in their swimming pool full of dork money like Scrooge McDuck.
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Jul 8, 2016 01:48
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Nerds are also fully capable of making their own decisions, so you don't have to deceive them.
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Jul 8, 2016 01:59
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DrBouvenstein posted:Does someone have a link to that SA-Mart thread where a goon literally scammed a bunch of other goons into his fake Lootcrate-esque service? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3338464&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post380921962
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Jul 8, 2016 02:06
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I always love threads where people just so gleefully get scammed "oh you know if it's a ripoff, whatever why is everyone so pessimistic? "
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Jul 8, 2016 02:10
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Nerds are highly into totemic indicators of larger phenomena that they have no clue about the surrounding context. The classic fedora wasn't about the fedora itself, it was about a presented lifestyle, attitude, and mindset. Nerds just latched onto the hat, which was subsidiary at best. Nerds hate context.
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Jul 8, 2016 04:41
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I would posit that the majority of LootCrate purchases are made by people/grandmothers as gifts for their nerdy cousin etc. that they don't know that well. "I don't understand all this star wars business that young Timmy is into, but I'll spend $10 and this company will get him all the weird nerd stuff that he likes." And on the food boxes - one of my favourite podcasts has started advertising this thing that sends you food and a recipe on how to cook it. They actually promote it like "we know how you hate to leave the house, and we know you can't make anything harder than macaroni and cheese. Well we will give you the food, and baby step you through how to cook it, and you will never have to go outside, or experiment and learn cooking skills" I might be being a little harsh on them, coz it might be good for people with no time to do the grocery shopping, but the way they market it is as if you are terrified of leaving the house, and are unable to boil water. Also, half the fun of cooking is fiddling about and finding out what you like and don't like, and tinkering with other peoples recipes to make them your own.
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Jul 8, 2016 04:55
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CobiWann posted:My wife gets HorrorBlock and it's been worthwhile - a horror movie themed t-shirt, a Vinyl Pop, some trinket like a zombie door stop or stickers, a copy of Rue Morgue magazine, and a cheesy straight-to-DVD movie. Yea I understand wanting the more 'specialized' crate services a lot more. Like, yea that actually sounds up my alley too, because I'm a horror dork so a box with a lovely horror movie and some trinkets every month is something I know I can actively use because I and/or my friends can at least get drunk and watch the movie. Same with stuff like the international snack/candy boxes, I can at least eat dumb Japanese candy and share the ones I'm not into and all. But the broad 'nerd' stuff never really hit me well. I got LootCrate for a bit and then stopped because, yea there's only so many graphic 'nerd culture' t-shirts a man needs. It's the most broad possible grab at the absolute most popular things. There's nothing wrong with popular but if I want, say, Game of Thrones magnets I can just get those at near any store with magnets, there's no factor of 'if only I had a box sent to me to do this for me!'. It feels like there's a bad relationship there, the more 'useful' a box is chances are the more niche and focused it is, but at the same time the more niche it is the less people go 'oh I need that'. Still somehow there's always new ones starting. A trading card game youtube channel I like started their own box of cards they send you, there was a (now gone I think) sports collectibles box for baseball and other sports. Are boxes our new weird bubble?
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Jul 8, 2016 05:07
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I feel like there's probably a lot of things in those boxes that probably should never have been made in the first place and people should probably stop collecting mounds of weird crap. Considering how many even here have tried these boxes, it seems like the whole scheme has been successful, but it's probably nearing time to get out of the box o' leftovers business. Anyway, you all need to check out the latest Dollop podcast and learn about what happened to The Noid (tm).
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Jul 8, 2016 05:18
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subscribe to my new service, Noidbox, for only 15.99 a month you'll be sent a box of hot Noid gear perfect for the Noidhead in your life.
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Jul 8, 2016 05:21
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I had a referral to the grazebox thing back when they were like $6 still and I only paid that full price for maybe 2 of 5 boxes, the others were free or very heavily discounted because they offer stuff when they want you to come back I recently cancelled my subscription after having it set to 'on vacation' for nearly a year and a few weeks later they sent the 'get a box half off!!' email, which was tempting but I'm poor It was cute, it had cute packaging, and the snacks were tasty; I think the 8 snacks for like $10? is still a decent price for what it is, but I could buy several meals worth of food for that price they kinda pick snacks randomly from the semi-selection you can make but even the 'bad' snacks were okay, I wouldn't be able to say that about some lovely gamer crate or make-up box
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Jul 8, 2016 05:36
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BrigadierSensible posted:And on the food boxes - one of my favourite podcasts has started advertising this thing that sends you food and a recipe on how to cook it. They actually promote it like "we know how you hate to leave the house, and we know you can't make anything harder than macaroni and cheese. Well we will give you the food, and baby step you through how to cook it, and you will never have to go outside, or experiment and learn cooking skills" We had chuggers in our shopping centre selling pre-packed recipe food box things. I stood in awe, as I realised that we had hit peak laziness*. (* = Until some other company offers a service to brush your teeth, or something.) Speaking of boxes, they rely on the Skinner principle, much like gambling in order to convince people that "maybe next month, I'll get something I really wanted".
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Jul 8, 2016 05:55
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Funktastic posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3338464&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post380921962 This is the greatest thing ever. I may have found my favorite thread on this site. I wish it wasn't closed so quickly, I wanted to see what happened with all of the information dug up
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Jul 8, 2016 06:18
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BrigadierSensible posted:And on the food boxes - one of my favourite podcasts has started advertising this thing that sends you food and a recipe on how to cook it. They actually promote it like "we know how you hate to leave the house, and we know you can't make anything harder than macaroni and cheese. Well we will give you the food, and baby step you through how to cook it, and you will never have to go outside, or experiment and learn cooking skills" The copy they read on podcasts I listen to really rubs me the wrong way because it reinforces this weird neurotic, infantilised thing that a lot of people my age seem to have latched onto in the last few years. 'We know nobody likes going to the grocery store after work. It's so confusing, what do I buy? How much of each thing do I need? If I buy all the ingredients for this dish I'm going to end up with a wilting half-bunch of parsley in my fridge. Well Blue Apron has the solution to your problem. Blah, blah blah.' Buying groceries and preparing food for yourself is a basic human skill. Going to the grocery store is not necessarily going to be fun on a bun but it's part of being an adult. It's something you do, get done, then move on with your life. You don't loving dwell on it and get stressed out or upset about having to wait in line for five minutes at the checkout (there's got to be a better way!!) or whatever the gently caress. It truly baffles me that people can have such a negative relationship with simple human tasks that essentially boil down to 'hunting / gathering'. If you can't find it in yourself to perform these tasks at at least a subsistence level then you've failed at being a human being. But then last week I watched my housemate try to make 'tacos' wherein the recipe was 'drain a can of beans, make a cabbage / carrot slaw, combine ingredients onto a taco' and she hosed up every. single. step of the process, caused herself a huge amount of stress and frustration and ended up throwing everything away and eating a bunch of plain taco shells for dinner. So maybe it's time for us all to lie down and let the roaches have a shot at running the planet for a while, is what I'm trying to say here.
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Jul 8, 2016 06:37
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cyberia posted:The copy they read on podcasts I listen to really rubs me the wrong way because it reinforces this weird neurotic, infantilised thing that a lot of people my age seem to have latched onto in the last few years. 'We know nobody likes going to the grocery store after work. It's so confusing, what do I buy? How much of each thing do I need? If I buy all the ingredients for this dish I'm going to end up with a wilting half-bunch of parsley in my fridge. Well Blue Apron has the solution to your problem. Blah, blah blah.' cyberia posted:But then last week I watched my housemate try to make 'tacos' wherein the recipe was 'drain a can of beans, make a cabbage / carrot slaw, combine ingredients onto a taco' and she hosed up every. single. step of the process, caused herself a huge amount of stress and frustration and ended up throwing everything away and eating a bunch of plain taco shells for dinner.
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Jul 8, 2016 06:47
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Tiggum posted:I don't think I could watch that without getting up and helping. Like, I might start out "do you need a hand with that?" or something, but at some point you've got to step in and go "look, I'll show you, just let me do it so you'll know how next time." I offered to help but she's super weird about doing stuff herself. She's vegan and I always offer to share my food or show her how to cook simple vegan stuff that isn't just fake meat or expensive 'organic, artisanal' garbage but she would rather just eat chips or pre-packaged salads and continue to stress about not being able to cook  As to how do people eat when they have this bizarre relationship with food? The people I know tend to eat junk food (hot chips are vegan, you know) or packaged salads from the supermarket or they just eat ingredients rather than try to make cohesive dishes. Like they'll buy a bag of spinach leaves and just eat them out of the bag instead of making salad. Those ninja blenders are popular, too. Just throw a bunch of crap in it and drink the sludge. Boom, nutrition hacked. It's weird, I don't get it and if I try to think about it too much I get a headache.
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Jul 8, 2016 06:52
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Sic Semper Goon posted:We had chuggers in our shopping centre selling pre-packed recipe food box things. Peak laziness is just ordering takeout/delivery.
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Jul 8, 2016 06:52
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cyberia posted:The copy they read on podcasts I listen to really rubs me the wrong way because it reinforces this weird neurotic, infantilised thing that a lot of people my age seem to have latched onto in the last few years. 'We know nobody likes going to the grocery store after work. It's so confusing, what do I buy? How much of each thing do I need? If I buy all the ingredients for this dish I'm going to end up with a wilting half-bunch of parsley in my fridge. Well Blue Apron has the solution to your problem. Blah, blah blah.' Jesus Christ, buy a cook book or just watch a how to video on YouTube if you're clueless enough that cook books won't help. My sister, who regularly burns instant ramen and recently gave me a crate of organic mac and cheese boxes because it was too difficult for her to make them, bought a very basic cook book and made sesame noodles with chicken by herself. They came out a weird, brown/gray color instead of light brown, but it legitimately tasted good. I only helped her by buying some tahini from an arabic deli and explaining the difference between scallions and green onions, everything else was a 25 year old woman cooking herself a meal for the first time by reading a book
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Jul 8, 2016 06:57
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BrigadierSensible posted:And on the food boxes - one of my favourite podcasts has started advertising this thing that sends you food and a recipe on how to cook it. They actually promote it like "we know how you hate to leave the house, and we know you can't make anything harder than macaroni and cheese. Well we will give you the food, and baby step you through how to cook it, and you will never have to go outside, or experiment and learn cooking skills" They're just putching this wrong, because it sounds great for someone like me. I'm not super adventurous with food, because trying to be is honestly too much effort between knowing what to get and how to use it given, if it's a new meal, I have no loving clue if I'll like the end result and if that's because I hosed up or if I just don't like this thing. As a kid I didn't eat pizza, ever, because the local pizza place was garbage but I had no frame of reference to figure that out. This sounds like something I could conceivably work with, because it's taking as many uncontrollable variables as possible out of the equation. Maybe I won't like it, and maybe the foodies I am inexplicably surrounded by would turn up their nose, but it's an opportunity to try something I don't know in an environment I can trust the result of. I mean, y'know, provided their end of things isn't totally hosed somehow like all those other box things are.
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Jul 8, 2016 07:10
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I have gotten the Lucha Libre themed crate before. It usually comes with cool stuff that is hard to get in America like Lucha DVDs and official merch from companies that don't sell merch in the US.
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Jul 8, 2016 08:31
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insane people posted:crates and food and other stupid bullshit
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Jul 8, 2016 08:41
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I just saw an advert that appealed nicely to my inner 5 year old. The new movie with Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, Central Intelligence has the tagline: "All it takes is a little Hart, and a big Johnson" I just found that amusing because I am a total child sometimes.
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Jul 8, 2016 10:49
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HairyManling posted:Holy poo poo, I never realized until tonight how doomed the younger generations are. You stupid fucks can't even buy food without it coming with some kind of gimmick arsenic laced almond shell, can you? thanks, gramps, your opinions are novel and unique to this generation and definitely not what losers have been saying in literally every generation of human history
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Jul 8, 2016 10:55
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I'd do the blue apron thing or w/e it is because it's the "i want to try a new recipe" night of the week or two weeks, only i don't have to decide from one of the 800 recipes i'm interested in but can't decide from, and then have to go pick the odd ingredients up that aren't my staples. I can notecard that poo poo, decide how i'd like to tweak it or if it was worth the effort, then do it on my own later with my own ingredients. If I got repeat recipes i'd be understandably pissed, but just having somebody else throw a curveball to cook? That's pretty cool. Dunno why everyone thinks it's the end of the world, for being a "cooking inspiration without extra work" deal it looks loving awesome.
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Jul 8, 2016 11:15
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thecluckmeme posted:I'd do the blue apron thing or w/e it is because it's the "i want to try a new recipe" night of the week or two weeks, only i don't have to decide from one of the 800 recipes i'm interested in but can't decide from, and then have to go pick the odd ingredients up that aren't my staples. I can notecard that poo poo, decide how i'd like to tweak it or if it was worth the effort, then do it on my own later with my own ingredients. Because it's not marketed that way to the majority. It's marketed as literally 'if the idea of deciding what to cook and going to the supermarket and then having to cook a thing unguided causes you to curl up in the foetal position and sob then subscribe to Blue Apron and we'll do all the hard work for you'. I've never heard it advertised as a 'sometimes treat', it's always shown as a 'this service will help you prepare dinner every night' type of thing.
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Jul 8, 2016 11:19
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Hey, man. Shaving is hard. Squarespace understands, but cannot help you.
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Jul 8, 2016 11:41
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Squarespace is not a law firm
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Jul 8, 2016 12:09
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Has anyone done a book, or should I say a none  book about the problem of a lot of adulthood being ridiculed or seen as a bad thing by people?Because, speaking from a personal perspective, I wouldn't want to be growing up now when the adult world is filled with insanity like Trump and mass murder and everything and a constant streaming of it through news and business and the complete collapse of all trust in institutions larger than 5 people. I mean, in general, people keep trying to argue that the world is getting better, but it does seem something interesting to have a look at.
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Jul 8, 2016 13:10
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I sincerely dislike cooking. Since my girlfriend moved in, she cooks while I clean. It works. She is now out for a whole month, so I just cook for myself. Like a functional adult. I don't know how people, even if they dislike cooking, can't manage to feed themselves without resorting to take out or pre packaged meals. The only situation where those meals make sense is if you're calorie counting, since it's easier to just eat what they send instead of cooking and going "oh I'm sure a bit more won't hurt" every time.
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Jul 8, 2016 13:24
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The Door Frame posted:explaining the difference between scallions and green onions There's a difference? I'm not being an anus here, I'm a fairly decent cook and thought they were just two different names for basically the same thing.
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Jul 8, 2016 13:46
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Sic Semper Goon posted:We had chuggers in our shopping centre selling pre-packed recipe food box things. Basically, they sell you a Blue Apron box in store? As someone who likes to cook, I'm not fully opposed to something like that. The problem for me arises when you encounter people like my parents. A few years ago, I moved in with them for a month due to unemployment. They have become so accustomed to eating nothing but Betty Crocker boxed type stuff, and Tyson frozen chicken type things that when I cooked them a rather inoffensive meal, they loving hated it. It's been 4 years, and I still occasionally get complaints about using a small onion and a clove of garlic. Back to the box, I would probably buy something like that on occasion. Sometimes I'll just feel uninspired, or have nothing planned, or whatnot, and being able to stop by Kroger on the way home and just pick up a box containing a full "from scratch" meal, would be nice. Thinking about it, from a marketing perspective, that might actually not be a bad way of selling off the perishables that are a few days from their sell by date.
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Jul 8, 2016 13:50
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Non Serviam posted:I sincerely dislike cooking. Since my girlfriend moved in, she cooks while I clean. It works. When I moved in together with my wife (then girlfriend) I ended up taking over cooking duties. After a few months I asked her if she was upset that she never got to cook, and over a decade later she says she still has no loving clue why I think that would bother her. Just think it's funny how different people's perspectives on this can be. Cooking to her as an annoying chore, whereas I love the alchemy behind a good meal and see it as a chance to make tasty things for myself and my family. Edit: for anyone who wants to cook but find things complicated, check out the Fannie Farmer cookbook. It's got some more interesting recipes, but it also breaks down the basics for you if you're just looking to boil an egg or something. Quiet Feet has a new favorite as of 14:13 on Jul 8, 2016 |
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Jul 8, 2016 14:11
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If you're making sweeping assumptions about an entire generation of people based on niche ads on a niche media format you don't really have any grounds to be looking down on other peoples' intelligence.
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Jul 8, 2016 14:36
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My favourite Lootbox type of thing was, I think, Possum in a Box (?), where somebody created a bot that would go through Ebay auctions and bid 5$ of money people would send them. You never knew what you would receive and the unboxing videos were hilarious. Tried to google find it right now but wasn't able to, so maybe I've gotten the name wrong - but I remembered it having a possum in a logo
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Jul 8, 2016 14:40
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Iron Crowned posted:Thinking about it, from a marketing perspective, that might actually not be a bad way of selling off the perishables that are a few days from their sell by date. We did this once in a while at the price premium grocer I used to work at. Stew meat that's a few days from its sell-by date, slightly wilted celery, dicey-looking carrots, etc. all in one bag, sold as a beef stew kit. Our store wouldn't allow bruised/wilted/iffy veggies on the shelves, so we were able to sell them for pennies per pound, and the meat would be marked down by 50% two days before we threw it out, so we were able to sell whole meals for next to nothing. It was pretty neat, and I wish more stores would do stuff like that rather than just throw away perfectly good fresh food just because it's bruised or wilted or whatever.
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Jul 8, 2016 15:01
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canis minor posted:My favourite Lootbox type of thing was, I think, Possum in a Box (?), where somebody created a bot that would go through Ebay auctions and bid 5$ of money people would send them. You never knew what you would receive and the unboxing videos were hilarious. Bobcat-in-a-box, maybe? Seems to be what you're describing.
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Jul 8, 2016 15:17
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Antitonic posted:Bobcat-in-a-box, maybe? Seems to be what you're describing. I kinda want that now. Although I also want some Dinosaurs too 
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Jul 8, 2016 15:23
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https://twitter.com/asterios/status/568658337404985344
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Jul 8, 2016 15:26
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PopeCrunch posted:There's a difference? I'm not being an anus here, I'm a fairly decent cook and thought they were just two different names for basically the same thing. GOTTA STAY FAI posted:We did this once in a while at the price premium grocer I used to work at. Stew meat that's a few days from its sell-by date, slightly wilted celery, dicey-looking carrots, etc. all in one bag, sold as a beef stew kit. Our store wouldn't allow bruised/wilted/iffy veggies on the shelves, so we were able to sell them for pennies per pound, and the meat would be marked down by 50% two days before we threw it out, so we were able to sell whole meals for next to nothing. It was pretty neat, and I wish more stores would do stuff like that rather than just throw away perfectly good fresh food just because it's bruised or wilted or whatever.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:11
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I have too much poo poo getting mailed to my house. Wife has BirchBox, teenage daughter has Ipsy, and youngest daughter has TinkerCrate. Overall it's not too bad. They get all excited over stuff in boxes. As far as Christmas gifts go, these at least keep providing brief moments of happiness every month for a year. The Ipsy one was pretty terrible from a marketing standpoint. They put me on a waiting list because 'demand'. The only way to get off the list was to wait multiple months or advertise for them on Facebook.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:32
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