Exit Through the Grift Shop

July 21, 2024 12:23 PM

On November 14th of 2022, I received an FTX sponsored bobblehead of Jordan Poole. This was only a few days after the FTX collapse. I realized I had a collectors item and found other similar sports related collectors items at home such as a Webvan hockey puck. Combining my passion for entrepreneurship, risk taking, and collectibles, I built a collection of artifacts from failed companies, products, toys, and sports.

Remember the fun of playing lawn darts?
ALLAN
this extension of the brand was too far for lovers of the motorcycle; reeked the scent of tobacco
Raised $1.3B and lied to patients to keep partners and investors happy leading to it’s demise in 2018.

Search by Companies, Products, Sports & Toys

posted by chavenet (22 comments total)

It's not exactly a failure, but I do love my NFL-licensed fleece throw blanket from the Washington Football Team.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:36 PM on July 21 [4 favorites]

I used to have so much Kozmo swag…but my favorite was the hats from an early online music company that actually made deals with artists and labels…then went and used someone else’s trademarked logo without checking if it was available first.
posted by funkaspuck at 12:39 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

We were at a Brooklyn Cyclones game on July 3rd, and everyone got a free bobblehead of 16-time Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Champion Joey Chestnut. They had presumably been ordered and shipped before he was ejected from this year's competition for, and I am not making this up, signing an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, who make plant-based meat substitutes. There was a guy outside the stadium after the game buying bobbleheads for $10 a pop. We sold him one of ours. Hope he turned a profit.

(The bobblehead is cute. He's wearing a crown, sitting on a throne made of hot dogs, and is attended by huge ketchup and mustard bottles.)
posted by phooky at 12:43 PM on July 21 [6 favorites]

(Speaking of failed products: I still, after all these years, want to find a modo.)
posted by phooky at 12:45 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

I dunno. That failure page includes stuff like the Chevy Nova Latin America urban legend which is false.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:59 PM on July 21 [7 favorites]

I have a purple "Yahoo Research" rubber duck and I love it.
posted by constraint at 1:09 PM on July 21 [4 favorites]

The post title made me laugh, thanks chavenet!
posted by zenzenobia at 1:18 PM on July 21 [4 favorites]

Great post. I love the Fabreze one..
posted by Czjewel at 1:25 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

Those clackers!
posted by jessamyn at 1:27 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

I desperately want dotcom era swag to wear to work but it's real hard to find these days
posted by catcafe at 1:52 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

I desperately want dotcom era swag to wear to work but it's real hard to find these days

RedBubble's got tees
posted by chavenet at 2:14 PM on July 21

It's not exactly a failure, but I do love my NFL-licensed fleece throw blanket from the Washington Football Team.

You got it for free? Damn. The Cubs make a point of selling them for $80+ with walk around vendors every spring when fans miscalculate how warm Wrigley Field will be (pro-tip: It's freezing fucking cold and miserable even if it shorts weather in the rest of Chicago - bring your own blankets or sleeping bags)
posted by srboisvert at 2:44 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

One of the reasons I hated working in the energy industry was that you'd occasionally cross paths with someone unironically wearing Enron swag at social (read: golf) events. If you were really lucky you weren't stuck at the bar with them when they got drunk and started on their "Enron did nothing wrong" bit.
posted by scruss at 3:15 PM on July 21 [3 favorites]

You got it for free? Damn.

I got it at Cheap Ollie's for ten bucks. It's a nice fleece, too.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:31 PM on July 21 [2 favorites]

I have a pets.com sock puppet. I still say, "Don't tell me how to do my job, Puppet!"
posted by ob1quixote at 4:23 PM on July 21 [4 favorites]

Bag-O-Glass™
posted by clavdivs at 5:48 PM on July 21 [2 favorites]

This post reminds me of the time last year when a team member in her late 20s came to work in an old Intel hoodie. When I complimented her on it, she said "Oh, do you know what Intel is? I don't, I just thought it looked cool and vintage."

Not even a failed company!
posted by rhiannonstone at 6:10 PM on July 21 [6 favorites]

This website is pain in the ass to look through. The next/prev links are at the top but the photos are uncropped so you have to scroll down to see the damn things (not to mention read the sometimes error-ridden text blurb), then scroll back up to use the next button. They provide a button to scroll to the top but it's kinda slow. Come on, man, just put another next/prev at the bottom and make it so you can see the entire damn picture in a normal browser window. What are you doing?
posted by axiom at 7:04 PM on July 21 [1 favorite]

Proud (?) owner of a giant kozmo.com messenger bag.
posted by ordinary_magnet at 7:10 PM on July 21 [6 favorites]

It is downright foolish to declare HyperCard a failure, especially when the given criteria is "it didn't look Mac-like and it hid the menu bar".
posted by Spatch at 2:29 AM on July 22 [3 favorites]

I can't tell why a lot of the "failure" products are chosen for the list. There are lots of them that were around for 50+ years before being discontinued, and many others that were clearly promotional products that were never intended to be anything serious. Then there is the inclusion of the Theremin, where he not only gets the name wrong (he calls it a "Theremini"), misrepresents the history of this weird instrument (it didn't "fail" but has always been somewhat of a niche but widely-used instrument because it is difficult to play well), but also uses the Theremini, a product that is still made and sold today as the object example of it being a failure.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:09 AM on July 22 [4 favorites]

Schweddy Balls. Okay, never mind my previous criticism, clearly he is just messing with everyone with this list.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:13 AM on July 22 [3 favorites]