Ian Fortey
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War. What is it good for? Absolutely marketing. From Wario to Warren Buffet, people can't get enough war, and companies know that there's a certain subset of customers who will 100 percent invest in products that make them feel like patriotic members of Seal Team 6 when they wipe their asses or poach their eggs. All you need to do is stretch credulity a little bit to tie your product into the theme. Super easy, right?
AmazonGet it? Cuz it shoots! Do you get it?
You have a lot of choices in the world of personal lubricants, from things like KY Jelly to my old standby, a handful of margarine. But there's also a popular brand called Gun Oil, because dicks and guns look alike and they both shoot and heh. Also, this is the product description on Amazon: "During Operation Desert Storm, Marines jacked off with actual military-issue gun oil while hunkered down in the trenches of Kuwaiti battlefields. A group of those marines has developed a high-tech, condom-safe formula for smooth, rapid-fire action." I don't know how true that is, but after reading it, come on. Of course it's true. Some dude was jerking off with gun oil in a war zone, came home, and thought, "Jesus, I need to recreate my desert war zone jack-off experiences! And I need several of my friends to do it with me, because the description was plural!"
You'd think soldiers would want to minimize things reminiscent of their wartime experiences back home, but maybe if the jerking off is really good, it's like a safe space memory. I don't know. In any event, this is the most combat-intensive jack lube on the market by far.
Monster Energy is the dick pic of energy drinks, putting a ton of effort into its presence online but clearly not getting you going as much as it thinks it does. Why else did they need to abandon the vague "drinking this will unleash a green-clawed beast from your soul" angle and try out black-and-grey camo pattern plus the most perplexing marketing manifesto since the Pillsbury Doughboy went on that foul-mouthed rant about the Hamburger Helper glove's sexual dalliances?
BigPaulieDoyleTaste the bloodshed.
The back of a can of Monster Assault lets you know Monster is not for "the war" or against "the war." Ideally, it would then clarify what the fuck war they mean, but that doesn't happen. Instead, they let you know the can has a camo pattern because they think it looks cool and it helps fire them up to fight the big multinational corporations that run the beverage industry. Monster, which is distributed by Coca-Cola, is worth about $32 billion. Maybe they forgot that after drinking too much of their own product and blacking out for a minute.
When you think of intense military gear and cutting-edge machines of war, you probably think of pens. If you don't, then do so now, because this entry is about tactical pens, and it only works if you try to mix the two themes in your head. War + writing = a pen meant to stab a dude.
GearmooseMusket < M-16 < Pen
I found a list of the 20 best tactical pens, thus robbing me of the ability to one day write the same list, which I had on my schedule right after the 11 most explosive suppositories. The list is prefaced with the acknowledgment that you ideally don't want to have to kill a man with your pen, but if you run out of bullets, then these are the pens with which to do it. This makes me wonder why I'm killing people with guns or pens, because I don't have a hankering to put a killing on anyone. Regardless, I know now which pens are best for ending human life and writing upside-down.
AmazonSomeone tried to write a Post-It with this pen, but then it killed everyone in marketing.
Thanks to this list, I know the Valtev Tactical Pen is wallet-friendly at only $15, and guess what else? I can kill a man with it. If I use it right. I think that goes without saying, though, because obviously there needs to be some level of penmanship somewhat beyond where I currently am before they become tools of mortal danger.
The pens are produced with things like "rugged aircraft aluminum," and may feature a "textured shaft for superior grip." I don't care who you are, that's funny out of context.
How does a man clean himself in the middle of a war zone? Well, actual soldiers are generally issued soap, because why wouldn't they be? But back home, when you're trying to sell cleaning products to a random dude, there's one clear-cut marketing path to take: Make them camo-printed, and also insinuate that other products are up to their missing nuts in estrogen and lilac.
Human trashwater stain Alex Jones sells on his Infowars website something called Combat One Tactical Bath. The packaging is beige and black, and it looks like some kind of desert-issue MRE. Is it a kit for removing the blood and guts of your enemies from under your fingernails after a grisly bout of combat? No, it's ass wipes. It's a fucking packet of pre-moistened shitter sheets. Like baby wipes, only endorsed by a guy who thinks school shootings are made up and takes his shirt off to yell during podcasts. They call it a broad-spectrum hygiene tactical bath, because "This'll get taco residue out of your ass beard" doesn't sound like something a commando would say.
ComebatOne"Listen soldier, I want that butthole so polished that we can use it to signal a ship off the coast!"
United Spirit of America, which is not the monstrous merged ghosts of the Founding Fathers but apparently people who make soup, have Tactical Unscented Waterless Body Wash. Because the word "tactical" doesn't mean a goddamn thing on the internet.
"Hey Ian, what tactics are you going to use to wash your ballsack?"
"Well, I think the most tactically sound maneuver is to use my left hand to rub in this waterless body wash right here in the living room so I neither have to stop watching Roseanne nor stop eating this Hot Pocket."
USA Spirit"Oh, him? That's just private Douglas. He watches everyone in the shower."
Sure, waterless body wash has plenty of practical purposes. I'm not disputing that. I just question why there's a camouflaged mercenary dude eyeballing me from the label like he's about to use this to wash Osama's brains off his elbows.
I would label this whole company a joke I just don't particularly get, if not for the fact they do legitimately sell the product they're advertising. And it's so batshit crazy that I wonder if the office where these people work has fallen victim to a slow, steady gas leak for years that's made each and every one of the poor saps in marketing trip out like a mescaline-soaked chimpanzee.
Outbreak Nutrition"We're serious about nutrition. Now eat this radiated gummy worm supplement."
Everything on the Outbreak Nutrition site is in character. The fact that they sell nutritional supplements makes that exceptionally weird, as the point of view they've adopted is that of the survivors of an apocalypse fighting against some kind of sci-fi villain future dystopian government. It's like if Fallout stopped being Fallout long enough to try to get you to buy boner supplements made from radscorpions.
Outbreak has its own trailer, which is a thing I don't think most nutritional supplement companies have. And if they do, they're not like this shitshow.
There was a popular story when Suicide Squad came out about how Jared Leto, method actor that he is, stayed in character as the Joker the whole time, pulling off-putting and creepy pranks on his co-stars, such as sending them used condoms. This happened because Jared Leto doesn't get what the hell he was doing. Likewise, Outbreak chooses to advertise its product through what I like to call "What the fuck?"
For instance, they have something called Adapt: Glucose Disposal Agent. The first line of the description reads "Adapt will turn your body into the weapon you need it to be, with a type of product you have probably never heard of." The last time I ate something that someone described with those words, it was a Triscuit covered in cream cheese and Flakka.
There's a particular term that's appeared in the media increasingly over the last several years: "toxic masculinity." If you're not sure what it means, then I will write this entire entry without ever using it again, and maybe it will be totally irrelevant to you, and maybe not. Maybe you'll order some of this stuff from a company that specializes in tactical baby gear, because your super soft, shitty baby was so un-warlike when it stealthed out of the uterus that you need to bolster its ballistic capabilities in every conceivable way as soon as possible.
TacticalBabyGear"My baby can garrote every baby in daycare."
The website for Tactical Baby Gear has, as the first text your eyes are drawn to, the words "Drop the girly diaper bag." Then there's a dude in full tactical gear holding a baby, and he's bedecked with various baby items, as well as all the military gear. A surface reading says that of course they're in on the joke. This is just a cute website that gets it, and they're selling fun stuff for dads. Except that all the text and imagery is still there to literally sell these products. It's not a joke, it's a real business, and even couched in cuteness, it's built around the idea that your baby is cramping your ability to snipe the enemy, and the smell of napalm in the morning has been befouled by the smell of baby wipes and soft stool.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the stuff this site sells. It's probably great-quality stuff, too. It's just the unbridled fear and desperation that you'd somehow not be as manly as a motorcycle crafted from whiskey-soaked rocket launchers with a baby in tow that makes it all so questionable. Men fear being "girly" because they have a diaper bag handy that looks like it might appeal to a baby, as opposed to a full-grown man who plays Call Of Duty more hours per week than he works. As any good dad knows, babies are goddamn sissies, what with their pale blues and pinks and whatnot. Fuck your baby aesthetic, everything you have is desert camo now. If the baby ever gets lost outside of Vegas, it's staying lost.
All the text on the website is from the perspective of a dude who watches satire with total sincerity. "Your diaper bag is not your child's accessory -- it's yours!" reads the first line of text on the "About Us" page, and that is quickly followed up with referencing how it's "a world in which parents find themselves in the trenches of child rearing together. So why are diaper bags still designed as if the wife will be the only one carrying them?" Because that powder blue bag is for girls! You had sex with your wife and reproduced? What a wuss!
I drive a Nissan, and if there's one major complaint I have about it, it's that nothing on it can take an explosion very well, and I doubt it would escape the Hundred-Hand Slap from E. Honda very well either. What good is it? I should have invested in "The Tank" from Rezvani Motors, because anything you call a tank is practical and reasonable for everyday life. Look at fish tanks! No one says they're crazy.
Rezvani MotorsThe cupholders are so big that your civilian drinks fall right through to the floor.
Like any vehicle, this sort-of SUV is for regular folks like you and me, though they call it a Tactical Urban Vehicle and really talk up how good it is at off-roading, which is a thing all kinds of people like to do in Jeeps and such. But if you buy the Tank, you get a much more in-depth option package and can off-road though places like RoboCop's Detroit. It is for people who are, in the words of the founder, "ready for the apocalypse."
Aside from the usual options for an off-road vehicle, like improved shocks and front and rear driveshafts, you can also outfit your Tank with thermal night vision, gas masks, electrified door handles, and bomb protection. None of these seem to be jokes, and they'll cost you up to $97,000 on top of the $178,000 base cost. Electrified door handles, incidentally, are apparently exactly what they sound like -- the handle shocks people who try to open the door uninvited. Suck it, valet at that new steak place!
And in case you still think all of that is a wacky fake product some car maker created to sucker rubes like us, here's Jamie Foxx driving his around town.
Yep, that looks like the apocalypse, alright.
And hey, forget Monster, it doesn't mix particularly well with anything the way Red Bull does.
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