Another of life's little mysteries

Why do people buy this stuff? Just what is the attraction of mass-produced weirdness? There was a sales flyer in the mailbox the other day that had multiple blow-in cards all pushing collectibles of various types. There's a godawful, tacky beyond the human capacity to grasp Thomas Kinkade-inspired Christmas tree that comes complete with a glowing star on top and a snow globe in the base. It's one of those things that you look at and the mind boggles. The only places I can think of where people might have taste that weird are also places where one is unlikely to find Christmas tree knickknacks, like cheap bordellos. It is so weird and so ugly. . . I thought Kinkade related items were bad when the man was alive. Apparently his estate has decided they can sink even lower.

The carousel isn't quite as bad. It's got a verse printed on the base about how wonderful granddaughters are so it's easy to picture some sweet little old lady (definitely not me) buying it to give to a little girl as a decoration for her bedroom. That's a pretty obvious market. The kids won't appreciate it much, although you never know. Even if they're not thrilled at getting a knickknack instead of a toy, they're likely to still think it's cute. At least it's not overtly painful to look at and it is a music box, which gives it some entertainment value.

And then there's the dachshund in the sheriff's outfit. Holy wah. The little dude is both cute and appalling. What type of drugs are the people who came up with that design doing? How stoned do you have to be to decide that a dachshund with a badge is a good idea? And just how much persuasion did it take to get the Hamilton Collection t to decide to add it to their product line? Then again, considering just how much crap Hamilton cranks out annually, the dachshund probably wasn't that hard a sell. For all I know, it's just the latest in a long line of canines in improbable costumes and cast in resin to gather dust for all eternity. Dalmations as firemen. Golden retrievers as nurses. Pomeranians as meth heads.

At least they're not trying to convince anyone that the beast is going to increase in value over time, which is actually part of the sales pitches for one of the others where production is going to be limited to a mere 95 days. Ninety-five days! Apparently they're assuming no one is ever going to do the math and think about just how many hundreds of thousands of "collectibles" can be cranked out on an assembly line when the production line is running for over three months. Three months! They could probably saturate their target market with three hours' worth of production, let alone three months. 

OMG. Just realized the little dude has spurs on his boots. I'm suddenly feeling relieved I threw the ads in the burnable trash right after I took the photos.