7 High Tech Products And Their Cheap Ass Ingredients
Every day you are bombarded with commercials for things you have to buy to avoid ending up bitter and alone in a pile of your own, reeking filth. You trust these products, because they are state of the art and one of a kind, and because you are an idiot.
Or at least, that's what the advertisers think. It turns out a lot of these amazing, cutting edge products are really bullshit. Not just bullshit, but bullshit you could make on your own, for next to no cost. Such as...
#7.
Audio Cables
How They're Marketed:
The world of audiophiles is a strange and frightening one. For them, the actual song is bullshit. What really matters is the sound quality. Do you want to listen to t.a.t.u all scratchy and low fidelity, whatever that means? Fuck no, you want to hear it with such clarity and richness the pseudo-lesbian antics are practically tickling your eardrums right alongside every awful note.
And you can't do that with your shitty Walkman. You need high tech audio equipment. Shit like Pear audio cables. They fucking rule, because they cost thousands of dollars.
Pear stays in business based on the "holy shit" principle. As in "holy shit, those speaker cables cost thousands of dollars" or "holy shit, I breathe through my mouth, and these cables cost thousands of dollars, therefore they must be the best and I should buy them."
Pear's Anjou cables apply "rigorous consideration of applicable scientific and engineering principles followed by real world testing." That means they're so highly advanced that when you use them to connect your 8-track player to your speakers, if it happens under a full moon, Aqua may actually appear and sing "Barbie Girl" live for you. No shit. It's happened before. Twice.
It's not like they're doing anything else.
What it Really Is:
Like any audio cables, the Anjou cables--and other insanely expensive cables like them--are kinda sorta just cables. Pretty much a few pennies worth of copper and plastic. Not only do the expensive cables not make thousands of dollars worth of difference, they don't make any difference. To prove it, skeptic James Randi offered $1 million to anyone who could hear the difference between cheap cables and the high-end ones in a big, public "you are full of shit" throwdown.
Seriously, just take the blind hearing test, cheap cables vs. Pear, and if you can pick out the difference, you're a millionaire. As it stands, Randi still has his million dollars and you can get some decent cables at Wal-Mart for a few bucks.
#6.
Whitening Toothpaste
How it's Marketed:
Toothpaste ads are quick to inform us that every time you smile you're forcing the world to tolerate your corn-filled shitlog of a grimace and no one anywhere is enjoying it. Indeed, the fact is no matter how much you brush with your tube of Sponge Bob Bubblegum flavored toothpaste, your teeth are still manky, stained pillars jutting forth like the decrepit fingers of the damned. Brooke Shields wouldn't be half the woman she is today if she was walking around with the Crypt Keeper teeth she was born with
Brooke Shields, 1983.
Fortunately, toothpaste manufacturers offer redemption via just a few weeks of vigorous brushing with their cutting edged whitening toothpastes! What a miracle of modern fucking science!
What it Really Is:
Whitening toothpaste, by and large, is regular toothpaste with grit in it. It can be anything from aluminum oxide, which is the main ingredient in chalk used for billiards, to calcium carbonate, the basic ingredient of many antacids. Basically, if it's gritty, it'll scrub shit off your teeth. They could use sand in whitening toothpaste and get the same effect.
Or you could grind your teeth on a big bag of rocks.
Another popular ingredient is hydrogen peroxide; that stuff that mom put on all your scraped knees that fizzed up like nobody's business. Peroxide does have bleaching properties, but in toothpaste is at such a low level its effect is pretty negligible. So your dentists formulated and recommended whitening formula's actual working components could be mimicked at home if you drop your toothbrush on the floor and simply choose not to wipe all the crunchy shit off of it before brushing.
#5.
OxiClean
How It's Marketed:
Like us, you probably do your monthly load of laundry then pull out your graying boxers, tears in your eyes, and lament those fart starts that just won't come clean no matter how much detergent you put in the wash. And while we're on the topic, how do we get the barbeque stains off the other side of the boxers? Can't anyone answer our prayers?
Fuck yes, late infomercial barker Billy Mays can!
Rest in Peace, you magnificent beard.
OxiClean is so amazing that pitchman Billy Mays cannot keep his voice at a reasonable volume at all. He is losing his shit and it's because stains are history.
Did you see how Julia saved her home from the filth trail left by those two dwarfs on PCP? Amazing. If it hadn't been for Billy Mays and his ultimate weapon against stains, Julia would probably be turning tricks right now.
"You'd never know that I just killed a hooker in this bed. Thanks OxiClean!"
What it Really Is:
In fact, OxiClean is actually sodium percarbonate, a standard cleaning chemical that's been around just short of forever. You can buy it in bulk at most chemical supply companies or pool supply stores where it's sold to help balance your pool's pH. You can get bucket loads cheap as hell there, but you have to ask yourself if you're willing to deprive the Mays estate of the income.
Do you want Billy to have died in vain?
#4.
HeadOn
How It's Marketed:
After an evening of drinking Wild Turkey and smashing open coconuts with your forehead, chances are good that you're going to wake up with a splitting headache. Sure there's proven, over the counter drugs like Tylenol and Advil that you can get at the drugstore, but you know what else they sell at the drugstore? Tampons. Ergo, drugstores are for pussies.
You need some scientifically formulated awesome that's going to fix your mildly bruised frontal lobes and allow you to go about your day. You need HeadOn. We hear you apply it directly to your forehead.
If you haven't seen the commercials for this stuff, count yourself lucky. It's like a gypsy curse that grasps your brain with spindly, boney claws and won't fucking shut up.
"Apply directly to the forehead. Apply directly to the forehead."
Nowadays the commercials just repeat "HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead" about 16 times. But back when it first hit the market they assured consumers that one rub of this giant chapstick of pain thinner was all it took to make your headache vanish.
In fact, they said it was "clinically proven." Hey, that sounds clinical, sign us up! And it provides fast, effective relief for headache pain. They even have a migraine strength version that probably contains opium or something. Best of all, the shit is available without a prescription, so thank God you don't need to offer your doctor a hummer to get your next HeadOn fix, you can just go to Walgreens and buy some.
What it Really Is:
But then the Better Business Bureau asked the makers of HeadOn to remove any "factual claims" from their commercials because there weren't a hell of a lot of "facts" to back up anything they were "claiming." HeadOn is really easy to duplicate even without the use of a fully stocked chemistry lab. If you'd like the same effect at home, you could rub a candle directly on your forehead.
HeadOn, as it turns out, is almost completely made from wax, with a small amount of extra crap--small as in parts per trillion--added in. That means it is, effectively, just wax.
Or, in other words, HeadOn is a shitty wax placebo. HeadOn is a shitty wax placebo. HeadOn is a shitty wax placebo!
I love you. I love you so, so much.
ReplyIn the oxiclean commercial "I called my mom" b***h please, I'd have been calling for one small coffin, because there would only be enough salvageable parts between the two of them to make one complete child
ReplyI saw another blind test where they used a straightened coat hanger versus Monster cables, and no one could tell the difference. The main thing is inuslation, if you are using them for an application where you can expect a LOT of interference, then paying a few extra bucks for a more heavily insulated wire can help, but for 90% of people, there's no need whatsoever.
ReplyI'd buy a lot more Gatorade if it made my sweat the color of the drink.
Reply#7. I use just any old cables to listen to the Randi Phone Tapes (google it) of the time he called up some teenage boys and talked dirty sexy talk to them, then had to go to court about it and had three different explanations for it. The man looks like a malevolent Santa Claus. Would you let him near children or the retarded?
ReplyI don't know about Anjou cables, but back when I recorded things off the TV, I noticed that gold-plated cables significantly reduced the noise level in recorded audio.
Reply*googles douchewater*
ReplyStill works!!
These seem more like pharmaceuticals, than high tech products.
ReplyI like how OxiClean has no oxygen in it...
ReplyIt has hydrogen peroxide...
Taurine is an essential amino acid... that CATS need in their diet, not humans. And it can be troublesome if you're allergic to it, like I am.
ReplyMy cat wouldn't drink energy drinks. I guess there are times when cats are smarter than humans.
why would you even...
I thought Gatorade was made by wringing out the socks and jock-straps of athletes, adding some lemon-lime flavor and putting it in a bottle. That's the only thing I can think of that explains that taste.
ReplyThat was how it was designed. Salty kool-aid water is pretty close to sweat.with sugar in.
If one looks at the backs of Dove Men's deodorant and Axe deodorant, there is no difference whatsoever. You're just paying two bucks more for Axe.
ReplyDove doesn't attract swarms of insatiable women. You obviously have never watched a tv.
The first paragraph of #6 made me laugh for a straight 5 minutes XD
ReplyFunny. When you do a Google Image search for douchewater, the first image is from a site that re-posted this article. lol
ReplyI have to use a specific brand of deoderant/antipersperant because all of the others could not keep me from sweating (apparently I sweat just by doing nothing except sitting in a chair. I think it's from nervousness? idk but it happens) It's just arm and hammer. Yeah, have to use baking soda stuff just to keep from sweating.
ReplySad thing it works, awesomely, at least for me. Bad thing is it does give you white spots under your arms on shirts, but should come off when washed.
I agree that audio cables are pretty much all the same. What really matters is the speakers. I really miss my high quality headphones. With the right headphones, you can hear things in songs you've never heard before. But don't buy beats from Dr. Dre or whoever. for 30 bucks and some time on ebay you can get better, and they don't look goddamn retarded.
ReplyI would like to comment on the gatorade one, seeing as I just read the article on how to trick you mind into making you better at sports (or something to that effect). There was a whole section on why gatorade-style drinks /do/ make you better. The end point was that is just made you enjoy suffering, but still, if it works, it works :-)
ReplyWild Turkey. I used to live near that distillery...
ReplyThe only thing about the first one is that he specifically is offering one million to anyone that can tell the difference between Monster cables, and Pear.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesNow, Pear are priced insanely, stupid high- but calling Monster cables cheap Walmart s**t is like calling a BMW a Kia because it's not a Maybach. Try Dollar Tree cables and Monster cables and tell me you don't hear a difference.
My next question is have you ever used headon? It's NOT a cheap wax placebo, it's a cheap wax substitute for a cold wet towel. The same way your head feels cold "cures" headaches with a towel, is the same way headon does it. Your f*****g face feels so cold that you can't feel the internal pain. It works, but not by magic. It works the same way punching someone in the stomach will make them think they don't have a headache- it hurts or feels to much elsewhere to feel the other, relatively minor pain.
You can try Monster against "DollarTree" cables and it will sound the same. Its literally the exact same wires. The only difference is Monster uses things like gold platted tips, that don't make sound quality any better what-so-ever
I liked your comment but still...it's a placebo. Having a "positive" effect without any active ingredients to cause that effect=placebo.
no, there's a marked f*****g difference dumbass. i'm no audiophile but even i can hear the difference when i use the s****y worn out cables that the previous tenants left here and my s****y worn out monster cables.
"You know what else they sell at drug stores? Tampons. Ergo, drugstores are for pussies." I compliment you on your flawless logic.
Reply