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| 9 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dashcon.png]] |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Consider this section as a dumping ground for places and things that we know ''[[DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible suck]]'', but don't fit into any other category (warning: NauseaFuel coming up). |
| 12 | |
| 13 | '''''Important Note''''': Any additions need to be considered objectively horrible. A restaurant or infomercial product with a few bad reviews and mostly average reviews doesn't qualify. Also, don't include products that have been mentioned on other pages, such as toys. Bad infomercials do not belong here; place those into the Horrible/{{Advertising}} page instead. Likewise for bad automobiles; they should go onto the TheAllegedCar under the Real Life folder. To ensure that the item/event/etc. is judged with a clear mind and the hatred isn't just a knee-jerk reaction, as well as to allow opinions to properly form, '''[[Administrivia/NoRecentExamplesPlease examples should not be added until at least one month after release]]'''. This includes "sneaking" the entries onto the pages ahead of time by adding them and then just commenting them out. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | ---- |
| 16 | !!Examples |
| 17 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 18 | |
| 19 | [[folder:Conventions]] |
| 20 | In {{fan convention}}s, there are pros and [[{{Pun}} cons]]... and then there's ''these'', which, at worst, are nothing ''but'' {{con|Man}}s. |
| 21 | * [=BotCon=] was the world's largest ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' convention for decades until it was discontinued and replaced by [=HasCon=], a convention dedicated to all Hasbro franchises. '''[=BotCon=] 1996''' was the first and only [=BotCon=] overseen by Men In Black Productions. They announced a ''Film/PulpFiction'' theme, but abandoned it some time after. There was, however, a celebration of the 10th birthday of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'', including a screening on a TV and cake... but the VHS copy of the movie didn't work. The event was only (somewhat) salvaged when one of the guests managed to produce their own VHS copy. Even then, the cake was a generic sheet cake and had no forks, and the only drink was water. Attendees didn't get any lanyards or anything; identification was done with generic "Hi My Name Is..." stickers. While these were easy to forge, no one needed to -- Men In Black managed to run out, leading to people being able to walk in from the street. Website/TFWikiDotNet has more info [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/BotCon_1996 here.]] |
| 22 | * '''Crunchyroll Expo Australia 2022''' was the first held outside of the United States, and by all accounts the absolute worst. To start, their handling of the Artists' Alley was a shitshow: The application was a Google form that somebody mistakenly left open to edits (but mostly vandalism). Artists were only notified of acceptance six weeks from opening, which left them in a hurry to produce merch. The labels for whose booth was where were unparsable, even to the artists. They released the (incomplete) public list of vendors with only a day to go. And on the second day, they started early without notifying the artists; this left all booths wide open for ransacking, which ultimately ended the con. Attendees weren't treated much better: The venue's max capacity was 5,000, while Crunchyroll sold 8,000 tickets ''and counting''. Nevertheless, well fewer than that were actually allowed in. People waited as long as five hours before being turned away with one excuse or the next (the most common being they had run out of wristbands). To make matters worse, it rained the entire first day, leaving congoers in full cosplay out in the freezing cold. By the time most of them were allowed in, anyone they may have come to see was already gone -- and that's if their panel hadn't sold out ''before it was announced''. Eventually they rioted; one is said to have bitten a volunteer. Meanwhile, inside the con, the PA consistently blasted loud enough to cause hearing loss, and maggots were found in the official Crunchyroll merch. An attendee was supposedly caught masturbating at a booth, and another had their mobility aid confiscated -- not the only reports of either. Many artists lost money on the con, between thefts, low attendance, and having to undersell their stock. Watch Melty Milo's recap of the con [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUWZw3RZJos here.]] |
| 23 | * '''[=DashCon=]''' was a convention organized in 2014 by and for community members and artists on Website/{{Tumblr}}. The convention was first conceived the previous year after successfully raising $4,000 in donations. Approximately 1,000 attendees were present on the first day, only to see the convention descend into farce:[[note]]All the juicy details of how the event came to be and how badly it evolved can be found on our [[TroubledProduction/RealLife Real Life subpage for Troubled Production]].[[/note]] Right away, most of the top-billed guests canceled after they didn't get paid; that is, the ones that even agreed to appear. This included the hotel itself -- the con solicited an "emergency donation" of the $17,000 in booking fees that $65 weekend passes, retroactively non-refundable tickets to already-canceled events, and rescinded accommodations failed to cover.[[note]]While the organizers claimed they offered refunds to everyone who'd helped raise the $17,000, in light of all the confusion surrounding the process (nobody got any written proof they'd chipped in), there aren't any reports of this having happened.[[/note]] What remained was a "games room" with just a single TV and game console, a much-hyped "ball pit" (actually a kiddy pool full of plastic balls), a bouncy castle, and a handful of panels on Tumblr culture. [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/dashcon KnowYourMeme]], [[http://www.dailydot.com/geek/dash-con-controversy-tumblr/ Daily Dot]], and WebVideo/InternetHistorian ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgxeX2dCnQ main video]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vfZqByi808 a more in-depth Q&A]]) discussed the sorry affair in full, while WebVideo/SarahZ [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwgSXZJcok analyzed the con]] in the context of the Tumblr culture at the time. Even Denny's [[https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8259775232/hD837DC44/ poked fun,]] and [[http://missassychan.tumblr.com/post/92233917024/oh-snaps-dashcon-ball-pit-cosplay people started cosplaying AS DashCon]]. It's even thought to be the nail in the coffin for the Superwholock fandom[[note]]An amalgamation of the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', ''Series/DoctorWho'', and ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' fandoms, whose overlapping demographic base of mostly young women who [[YaoiFangirl love to ship their series' male characters]] made them [[FriendlyFandoms receptive to each other]][[/note]] that once made up so much of the site (see [[http://phantomrose96.tumblr.com/post/146802889137/agriff11-phantomrose96 here]] for further analysis). |
| 24 | * '''[=Fortnite Live=]''' was held from February 16-17, 2019 in Norwich, UK. It was to feature activities like dance battles, archery and rock-climbing, and a bank of computers available to play ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'' on. Tickets were priced between £12-20 [[note]]USD$15-25[[/note]], and just below 3,000 attendees showed up, many of whom were children, with hundreds waiting hours just to be let into the event. There was also a ''big'' lack of activities, with only one rock wall that only three people at a time could climb up. Attendees quickly realized that you had to ''pay money'' to actually play ''Fortnite'' at the convention, something that can be done for free at home. There was not enough staff employed at the event, and it wasn't even licensed by Epic Games, who later filed a lawsuit against the organizers. The event was more of a scam than anything, with many angry parents of disappointed kids wanting refunds. Massively Overpowered looks at it [[https://massivelyop.com/2019/02/18/the-uks-fortnite-live-event-is-another-convention-giving-you-a-free-hour-in-the-ball-pit/ here]]. |
| 25 | * '''[=GamerCon=]''' was a generically-named Irish gaming convention which was the first attempt to run a professional gaming convention in Ireland, and one which failed miserably. For starters, it quickly became notorious for sheer overcrowding. Despite the convention hall only supporting 9,000 people, they inexplicably decided to sell '''24,000''' tickets. The results were predictable, with long lines of families being stuck for hours outside -- and to make matters worse, there was a heavy downpour in Ireland that day. The problems went beyond that, too: According to one volunteer eyewitness account, when people started coming in every game needed an update because nobody thought to check for that, and nobody thought to actually buy copies of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'' for the tournament they were meant to have, either, leaving them having to try to download 12 copies of the game on wi-fi being used by thousands of people. That volunteer was also one of only ''five'' trying to manage a convention filled with thousands, and they ended up abandoning the entire convention the day after. [[http://kotaku.com/irish-gaming-con-sounded-like-a-disaster-1793424888 Kotaku has more details of the entire affair.]] |
| 26 | * Throughout the 1930s, the town of Hollister, California had run an annual '''Gypsy Tour''' over the Fourth of July weekend, a motorcycle rally sponsored by the American Motorcycle Association designed to boost tourism. While the event had been suspended during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, in '''1947''' Hollister and the AMA brought it back into town. Unfortunately, the popularity of motorcycles had grown dramatically since the end of the war, with returning veterans picking up used military surplus bikes on the cheap, and while previous Gypsy Tours had been relatively sedate affairs, this year the town was faced with roughly 4,000 motorcyclists at an event that had been planned for less than half that. Hollister was [[https://jalopnik.com/the-riot-and-the-photo-that-made-bikers-into-outlaws-1729051837 plagued for three days]] with a swarm of drunks who trashed bars and storefronts, ran street races, got into fights, left litter all over town, and slept on sidewalks, in parks, and on people's lawns because all of the hotels in the area were booked solid, with the town's seven-man police force helpless to stop them and the California Highway Patrol eventually having to step in with tear gas. [[https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--_aVZVC9I--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1420078570117532966.jpg A photo]] of a man sitting on his motorcycle with a bottle of beer in each hand and a bunch of broken bottles at his feet was immortalized as the defining image of the event when it was published in ''Life'' magazine. 60 people were injured, all of them visitors, local and later national press soon [[IfItBleedsItLeads sensationalized the gathering]] as the "Hollister riot", and the AllBikersAreHellsAngels trope was birthed overnight, with the AMA forced to distance themselves from the 1947 Gypsy Tour and the 1953 film ''Film/TheWildOne'' being [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely]] based on it. Later rallies in Hollister, fortunately, would be far less troubled, the town having learned hard lessons in how to properly manage such gatherings, and they would even host a 50th-Anniversary event in 1997 to commemorate it. |
| 27 | * '''Las Pegasus [=UniCon=]''', a ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' convention, was organized in UsefulNotes/LasVegas in February 2013. It promised to be a huge event with over ''22'' special guests from the show, including Creator/JohnDeLancie, Creator/TaraStrong, and several of the show's writers and musicians, and promised dealer room and artist alley vendors a crowd of over 2,000 attendees. The first warning sign was the venue: the Riviera, an old, dumpy Vegas Strip hotel best known for nude showgirl revues. It went downhill from there; overworked, underprepared staff, an attendance of 1,200 at most,[[note]]and according to some reports, a fraction of that[[/note]] no respect for the special guests,[[note]]Tara Strong was served food she was allergic to, and Creator/NicoleOliver was forgotten at the airport[[/note]] and a cheaply-made, error-filled convention program. Artist alley patrons were requested to deal in con-made, cash-redeemable tokens; predictably, when it came time to do the redeeming, the organizers had already left. Two days in, the convention completely collapsed from lack of money--not only weren't the hotel or special guests paid, not only were ticket holders double-charged for rooms they'd been told were part of the package, but ''charity funds'' could not be accounted for. It took a huge community outreach to keep the fandom in Creator/{{Hasbro}}'s good graces, involving convention organizers across the country. The event went {{memetic|mutation}} for its failures -- the only other brony convention in Vegas for five years was a one-off, despite its rousing success. A more detailed account of the fiasco can be read [[http://bronydramarecorded.tumblr.com/post/45728669070/the-unicon-that-went-wrong here]], with a first-person account from an artist alley vendor available [[https://archive.li/F431Y here]]. WebVideo/RebelTaxi and WebVideo/SaberSpark (who was present at Unicon alongside his friend Final Draft) also dissected what went wrong [[https://youtu.be/EdiLfxoZxaA here,]] as does WebVideo/{{Izzzyzzz}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNGvDUTM6lo here.]] |
| 28 | * '''VideoGame/PokemonGo Fest''' was Niantic's first convention for the game. Despite its gradual decline in popularity, the game still maintained an active player base. The event promised the ability to obtain rare Pokémon like Unown, and to catch the first Legendaries of the game to be released. Unfortunately, while the concept for the event sounded good on paper, when it came to the execution everything just went completely awry: Massive, poorly-managed lines, not being handicap-accessible to the point they were rejecting people for having ''life-saving medication'', complaints over the warm July weather in the Chicago park the con took place in, and the game simply refusing to load due to the heavy demand and overwhelmed cell service providers all led to pissed-off players booing the CEO of Niantic, tossing water bottles at one of the other emcees, or just leaving the event early. Niantic attempted to save some face by expanding the scope of the event to a two-mile radius outside of the park the con took place in, refunding everyone's cash[[note]]which was little consolation for those who came in from out of town and spent money on gas or plane tickets and hotel accommodations, however[[/note]], and giving players $100 in Coins and a free Lugia, but it was too little, too late, and the convention was still considered a total wash. The app and developer's already-shaky reputations only just barely survived the incident. [[https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16019404/pokemon-go-fest-refunds-disaster-review The Verge has more details.]] Some attendees [[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-28-pokemon-go-fest-attendees-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-niantic filed a lawsuit against Niantic]], demanding refunds for the ticket prices, wanting Niantic to pay a $1.5 million settlement to said irate attendees. This [[https://www.vg247.com/2018/06/05/pokemon-go-fest-class-action-payout/ eventually succeeded]]. John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic himself, [[http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/05/07/how-pokemon-go-fest-2018-will-avoid-the-problems-of-last-year would later admit]] that the event was a flop, the only upshot of which was that they learned what not to do the following year. Further Go Fests and similar events have indeed been successful for the most part. |
| 29 | * '''[=RainFurrest=] 2015'''. One of the most popular [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furry]] conventions off the Pacific, it had a history of attracting the unrulier parts of the fandom. This was the culmination of years of lax, barely-there management and the reputation that ensued. From the start, people too unsavory to realistically describe here plagued the con, having convinced themselves and each other that the all-ages convention was a fetish con. Other attendees showed up with illegal drugs and boatloads of alcohol -- some turned up drunk, and others still were arrested for drug deals or hospitalized for overdosing. They all but laid waste to the Hilton hotel, breaking toilets, smoke alarms, elevators, the outdoor pool, and anything that happened to be in the path of same. They left trash, including large volumes of discarded fetish gear, everywhere but the trash cans; including parking lots and the street outside. Vandalism, theft, assault, sexual assault, and public nudity were so rampant that a full list of reports would bloat the page. Thousands in damage and constant non-attendant complaints later, the hotel kicked the entire con out and [[PersonaNonGrata banned its staff]]. The writing was on the wall, but [[FranchiseKiller the entire convention]] ended here, as [=RainFurrest=]'s track record now alienated any prospective venue. Covered by WebVideo/InternetHistorian [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmULc5VANsw here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rddog2Y70hU here,]] Izzzyzzz [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jNP9PJM761Q here,]] and a former organizer [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190908052505/https://orrery.prismaticmedia.com/2016/02/20/rainfurrest-2016-post-mortem/ here.]] |
| 30 | * In 2018, vlogger Creator/TanaMongeau founded '''[=TanaCon=]''', a competitor to [=YouTube=]'s [=VidCon=], [[StartMyOwn out of spite]]. She made the decision only a month in advance, when she was denied a Featured Creator pass. The convention promised panels and meet-and-greets with numerous prominent [=YouTubers=] (including people who were already booked at [=VidCon=]), a rare public appearance from WebVideo/ShaneDawson, and top-of-the-line catering, among other things. Congoers waited for hours in the blazing Los Angeles sun to pack into the Anaheim Marriott -- a few were hospitalized. The halls were barren, without even food or water. The actual functions were few and far between; less than 200 were allowed into any of them, through an almost completely arbitrary process. Several guests just didn't turn up, citing scheduling conflicts and safety concerns. General admission was free, but VIP passes were $65 -- the latter included a gift bag with a promised value well above that. Said gift bag only held cheap fashion accessories, a shopping guide, stickers, and a convention-branded condom. It also ran out very quickly. And despite the con's promises, they both had to wait in the same line. Six hours in, the entire convention was cancelled outright, despite the promises of Mongeau and convention staff. Mongeau immediately resorted to damage control, even BlatantLies, to save her own image and that of the con. |
| 31 | * '''Platform/{{Twitch}}Con San Diego 2022'''. What was meant to be the convention's triumphant American return after the COVID-19 pandemic instead became yet another addition to the site's growing list of controversies. Security detail barely even existed; a cursory bag check at most, no regard for the metal detector, and no ID checks. This resulted in thefts, stalkings, harassment, and accused sex offenders freely roaming the same premises as unaccompanied minors. What few COVID screenings there were happened only after vocal complaint -- on the contrary, streamers were not allowed to keep their masks ''on''. General staff were a nuisance more often than not, frequently misdirecting con-goers and ignoring even basic disability accommodations. The latter went as far as interfering between service dogs and their handlers. The events were badly planned, with the lines being completely arbitrary even if they weren't overly short. This caused concerns of a crowd crush in the ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'' panel, limited to a pitiful capacity of 400. A cooking contest was staged in which challengers handled sharp knives and hot ovens with blindfolds on. A foam battle arena for matches between streamers was two feet deep with no padding on the bottom, which caused crippling injuries (and a miscarriage) when challengers fell (or unwittingly dove) straight onto solid concrete. Aimsey and Cuptoast were misgendered at a panel (and anyone who corrected the staff in the panel's chat got timed out), and Creator/{{Sykkuno}} was temporarily kicked out by security because fans wouldn't leave him alone. NBC News has an article on it [[https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/twitchcon-foam-pit-injuries-rcna51410 here]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kLufVLf8H0 thescore Esports]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuUAPY3F24U TheGamerFromMars]] did videos going over these problems. |
| 32 | * In 2013, the Dutch territory of UsefulNotes/SintMaarten teamed up with Empire Arcadia's Triforce to host that year's '''Video × Games (V × G) ''', a gaming tournament that would take place one week after EVO. This fact emphasised by the fact that Triforce himself said it will be an "EVO Killer" and a number of players did skip that tournament to participate in this one. The hype only managed to emphasis how much of a disaster the tournament was. For one, the number of entrants failed to get anywhere close to that of EVO. And the problems only continued when that weekend arrived. There was no official schedule of streams from the start, many of the brackets were created on napkins and [[MosquitoMiscreants the players were hounded upon by mosquitos]]. Even getting there turned out to be a problem as a number of players such as Ryan Hart and guest star Creator/CaryHiroyukiTagawa were unable to make it to the island in the first place and Justin Wong had to wait 12 hours for staff to pick him up from the airport. Cosplayer Creator/JessicaNigri did manage to make it there, but her presence made for some [[{{Squick}} awkward commentary with co-commentator Gootecks]]. The ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee Melee]]'' tournament that had a $3,000 pot bonus was cancelled due to insufficient players, even when [=Mew2King=] had already arrived at the tournament. The ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' tournament was marred with accusations of collusion as grand finalists Flocker and [=NYChrisG=] played suboptimally throughout the set, forcing the entire community to set up new guidelines to discourage such practice. And when the tournament was over, some players had to wait ''months'' for their prize money to arrive. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz32LIyJZmY it was the subject of memes for weeks]] and it stands as the most infamous fighting game tournament of all time. |
| 33 | * '''The first official ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' tournament''', back in 1999, quickly turned into a complete disaster thanks to Konami's incredibly poor promotion of the event. You see, Konami decided to increase interest for the event by announcing an exclusive pack of cards that would be sold only at the tournament, with one of the cards in the pack being the final piece of Exodia the Forbidden One, allowing players to use its InstantWinCondition for the first time ever. This by itself would be fine... if they didn't ''also'' announce that [[PermanentlyMissableContent it would never be sold again]]. This led to 65,000 people showing up at the Tokyo Dome, which had a maximum capacity that was ''10,000'' less than that, and almost all of the attendees just wanted to buy the cards. Konami had not expected a turnout that large, and as such only had ''one'' vendor selling the cards, so people who wanted the cards were waiting in line for hours while the poor vendor was desperately trying to keep up with demand. In a rather poor attempt at damage control, Konami ''blocked off the line'' and declared that they had sold out, so everyone had to go home. This [[FromBadToWorse only made things worse]], as the attendees, who had stood in line in sweltering heat for two hours at this point, straight up rioted. Things got so bad that riot police had to be called in, and two people had to be hospitalized. As for the tournament itself? Not only did the actual participants have to wait inside for two hours while Konami decided what to do with the disgruntled spectators, but after the riot police got called in, the event was cancelled before the semifinals could begin. Due to several people being hospitalized from the riots, the card game almost died entirely due to players quitting the game in disgust at the fact that people rioted over a ''children's card game'', and Konami went out of its way to [[CreatorBacklash never speak of it again]]. More information can be found in [[https://youtu.be/h8jbR39Eu08?t=1080 this video on the history of the card game]]. |
| 34 | [[/folder]] |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[folder:Design]] |
| 37 | Good designs are simple yet memorable, and represent their respective brands well. These designs, on the other hand, fail at all of that. |
| 38 | * Even if '''the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Summer_Olympics#/media/File:2012_Summer_Olympics_logo.svg logo]] for the 2012 London Summer Olympics''' didn't feature AccidentalInnuendo,[[note]]With people commonly joking that it looked like [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Lisa Simpson]] giving a blowjob[[/note]] it is still considered ugly and unpleasant to look at. The logo is supposed to be the number "2012", but is so jagged and crudely drawn that it's hard to tell; its illegibility is such that the IOC had to reassure the Iranian government that it wasn't a show of support for Israel because [[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/28/iran-london-olympics-logo-zion they'd misread it as "Zion" and were threatening to boycott the Games if it wasn't redesigned]]. There was even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7CCDeomLz0 animated footage of the logo (a health warning is in order)]] that triggered seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Many British newspapers even ran contests asking readers to come up with a better logo. While the logo ultimately remained in use for the Olympics that year, it is considered to be not just one of the worst Olympics logos, but also one of the worst logos ever made. |
| 39 | * '''Gap's [[https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2021/04/learnings-gap-logo-redesign-fail/ 2010 rebrand]]''' by Laird and Partners is widely considered one of the worst rebrands of all time, and for good reason: the dynamic wordmark in a dark blue box that had been in use since 1986 was ditched for a bland Helvetica wordmark with a smaller, bluish-gray gradient box on the top-right corner. Intended as a "modern, sexy, and cool" design to combat sales slumps, it was widely condemned both by critics and by consumers, due to being perceived as [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks change for the sake of change]], the way it was handled (Gap never warned of this redesign in advance or introduced any new designs or clothing lines to go with the logo), and above all, looking like what ''Medium'' [[https://bettermarketing.pub/gaps-million-dollar-rebrand-lasted-6-days-754966d3d03a compared to]] "a high school kid's first attempt at designing on Microsoft word (sic)". A Twitter account dedicated to protesting the logo garnered around 5,000 followers, and a site dedicated to making better Gap logos went viral, with almost 14,000 designs submitted. After six days (plus an attempt by Gap to shrug it off as [[BlatantLies the first part of "a crowdsourcing project"]]), the 1986 logo was reinstated, and another redesign in 2016 that removed the box has seen much better reception. To this day, it stands tall as an example of how ''not'' to rebrand a well-known company's image, as well as exemplifying the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". |
| 40 | * '''The 2009 redesign of Tropicana Orange Juice''' is still often taught in marketing classes as an example of what not to do. The old design of the packaging created by Sterling Brands was swapped out for a new one created by Arnell Group, which redesigned the Pepsi logo the previous year and originated the infamous "Breathtaking Pepsi" PDF. [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/865ccbd6_f501_45b5_aa6a_88abc99636c1.jpeg The result]] made the brand almost unrecognizable, with the logo and layout being completely overhauled and the "orange with a straw" symbol removed, leaving a lot of consumers confused about whether it was even supposed to be the same brand or not. Even aside from that, the new packaging was seen as a mess: Arnell's head Peter Arnell believed that there were too many orange juice brands that put oranges on the packaging (presumably unaware that this is for a reason), and therefore decided to swap it out for a glass of orange juice, which was itself cut in half by the box's layout, and the company's logo, already redesigned into a generic font, was positioned ''sideways'', making it hard to read at a glance--not a good thing when it's the only thing to remind consumers that it's still the same orange juice. Many people either couldn't find it or thought it was a store-brand knockoff (all the more problematic when Tropicana tended to sell itself as a somewhat upscale brand), those who did recognize the change mocked it, and the only remotely well-liked element was changing the cap to be shaped like an orange. Tropicana's sales dropped a whole 20% overnight, and the company immediately reverted the packaging back to the Sterling design after only two months, with only Tropicana's [=Trop50=] brand retaining elements of the Arnell design. |
| 41 | [[/folder]] |
| 42 | |
| 43 | [[folder:Foods]] |
| 44 | Most foods, even the most polarizing ones, are a matter of taste. However, even the most experienced foodies make sure to stay away from these. |
| 45 | * Haribo, in an attempt at being health-conscious, released '''a sugar-free version of their famous gummy bears'''. The problem is that the sweetener they decided to use to replace the sugar was lycasin, a sugar subtitute that the human body cannot digest properly. Thus, if too much of it is consumed, it can cause heavy diarrhea or flatulence, and sometimes even PottyFailure. Despite the warnings on the packaging, people still had horrible experiences with it; if some of the reviews are true, it even caused ''hospitalization.''[[note]]While other sugar substitutes ''can'' cause some level of diarrhea and flatulence if you were to eat too much of it, the side effects only last for a half-hour and aren't nearly as extreme as to lead to hospitalization.[[/note]] The only positive thing is that it works as an impressive colon cleanser and weight-loss treatment. It also led to many [[http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummi-Bears-Sugar-Free/product-reviews/B000EVQWKC/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0 hilarious Amazon reviews]]. You can watch professional stunt eater L.A. Beast eat a 5-pound bag of it (to predictable results) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMjgaa5j_LE here]], which he described as making him "[[TheFoodPoisoningIncident feel like Mount St. Helens just exploded out my ass]]", [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYXO2tXbVWM this video by Illuminaughtii]], which is a dramatic reading of one of its most famous reviews, and WebVideo/PhantomStrider also covered it in his video of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_waT9H9sFJ0 10 most controversial or otherwise banned foods.]] |
| 46 | * Pillsbury is generally known for making high-quality food products that, at worst, [[BrokenBase are divisive amongst consumers]]. But one product which is almost unanimously agreed upon to be terrible is their '''2023 Creamy Supreme Cinnamon Bun Icing'''. While previous editions of the icing have been generally well-received, the 2023 batch was decidedly ''not'', with dozens of people going online to complain about knowing it was putrid from the moment they opened it, getting a powerful odor that some compared to walking into a nail salon. The taste only proved to be worse, as nearly everyone that tried it mentioned the chemical-like flavor, something akin to [[{{Squick}} bug repellent or gasoline]]. One reviewer even went so far as to say they would go to the ER to make sure they hadn't been poisoned by the stuff.[[note]]Given that no news reports have surfaced about anyone having to be hospitalized because of the icing, this claim cannot be confirmed.[[/note]] Many retailers were forced to sell the product at increasingly high discounts because of its unfavorable reputation, and even threw massive quantities of it out because it couldn't be moved. Though it's generally theorized that the product was somehow contaminated by chemicals or plastic before it was shipped and sold, it seems unlikely given that the ''entire'' batch of thousands of canisters seemed to be tainted rather than a select few, something that would never get by the FDA or even the company's own quality control, leaving the product's atrocious flavor a mystery. |
| 47 | * Cartoonist Scott Adams tried his hand in the food business with the '''Dilberito''', a vegan microwave burrito named after his best known creation ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}''. Inspired by how Adams was not eating well due to a busy work schedule, he conceived a mass appeal healthy food product enhanced with the required daily intake of vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, it didn't taste good -- [[https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/07/dining/eating-well-at-last-a-vitamin-pill-wrapped-in-a-tortilla.html a review]] stated that while similar to other microwaved frozen burritos, it was made for "someone who eats lunch without much thought to taste"; Adams claims part of it was not being able to disguise the mineral fortification well. The ingredient combination was also very gas-inducing, which made it unappealing even if taste wasn't a factor. Additionally, shelf placement was often unfavorable for being a new product, which hindered potential brand recognition. The Dilberito was discontinued after four years, with Adams having lost millions on it. |
| 48 | * In 1996, the FDA approved selling food made with '''Olestra''', a modified fat whose molecules are too large for the intestine to absorb, that could completely replace the fats and oils in many foods. Unfortunately, the idea soon proved [[GoneHorriblyRight too good to be true]]: Because Olestra still has the physical properties of fat, it robs fat-soluble vitamins from the diet until it's passed out of the body. Because none of it is absorbed, eating a large amount of it has all the effects of eating more grease than your body can digest--abdominal cramping, gas, and loose bowel movements. Olestra is not approved for use in several countries including Canada and the U.K., but despite this, it still remains on the FDA's approved list, and the initial warning labels were even removed in 2003. ''Time'' magazine included Olestra in its list of the [[http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991785,00.html 50 worst inventions.]] It did eventually find another market, though... as a firearms lubricant and remedy for certain chemical exposures.[[note]]As a mostly-non-toxic organic solvent that passes straight through the gut without being absorbed, it's good for leaching carbon-based poisons out of the body, including some particularly notorious Persistent Organic Pollutants.[[/note]] Like the previously mentioned sugar-free gummy bears, WebVideo/PhantomStrider covered it in his video of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_waT9H9sFJ0 10 most controversial or otherwise banned foods.]] |
| 49 | [[/folder]] |
| 50 | |
| 51 | [[folder:Household Products]] |
| 52 | When we watch infomercials, we're never sure if the products are as good as they claim to be without a second opinion. While there are in fact several products which are quite useful and worth the price, these... aren't. Here are a few examples. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | |
| 55 | * The '''Abox TV''' is a digital TV streaming box that promises the ability to watch cable & satellite channels and newly released feature films for ''free'' at home. The catch? The box does this by using illegal Chinese apps to ''pirate'' movies and TV channels. The use of these apps alone could very well enough have put a user in serious trouble with U.S. copyright laws, but that was the least of the problems with the device -- it wouldn't even suit a pirate's needs, as the device has also been known to overheat, freeze, or fully crash and power down when livestreaming any content, legal or otherwise, and what content did make it through these hurdles would wind up buffering or having the video quality reduced to the absolute lowest possible. Even worse, the Abox is primarily sold at home improvement and electronics floor shows, and comes at an ''outrageous'' price of $300 (remember, this is a TV ''box'', not an actual TV)[[note]] For reference, an official Android TV box can sell in-store or online for ''one-tenth of that price''.[[/note]]. As for the company that sells it, they're under constant surveillance for fraudulent or illegal business practices, such as selling the boxes at a gouged price, refusing customer refunds, and bundling the boxes with the aforementioned illegal piracy apps. |
| 56 | * The '''[=AutoCool=]''' is a small, solar-powered air conditioning gizmo that you're supposed to attach to the window of your parked car to cool down the interior during the summer. Despite the claims made by its advertisers, the device only [[http://www.kfvs12.com/story/6768883/auto-cool-test-2-does-it-work lowers the temperature]] inside your car by a few degrees, while the TV commercials claim it can lower the temp to 30 degrees (and in some cases, it can even ''raise'' the temperature of the car). The manufacturer also admits that the [=AutoCool=] is not recommended for use in cars with automatic windows, even though 1) cars with manual windows are very rare nowadays, 2) the commercials don't mention that the device is not suitable for automatic windows, and 3) the commercials clearly show the [=AutoCool=] ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW2JndLlrcs being used on automatic windows]]''. |
| 57 | * The '''Emery Cat''' is a cat toy that consists of a rest with an emery board on it and filled with catnip, advertised as being designed to prevent pet owners from having to clip their cats' nails all the time. A great idea... that's very poorly executed. The board is ''very'' flimsy and is easily breakable, the emery board isn't scratchable enough, the whole thing can just flip over very easily, and a ''kitten'' can easily break off the "playful toy" mounted on the side and carry it triumphantly away. |
| 58 | * The '''Handy Heater''' is advertised as a mini-stove designed to be as powerful as a heating fan or radiator and sold for $30. It is advertised as being able to heat up rooms up to 5 square meters, but in reality it would struggle to heat even a closet. The problem is that it uses a lot of voltage and tends to overheat and turn off. It won't even work as a hair or hand dryer, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQO8vMqgLUQ Freakin' Reviews]] agrees. |
| 59 | * '''Advertising/HeadOn''', which is known for its [[Horrible/{{Advertising}} infamously obnoxious ads]], being deliberately unclear about its purpose but marketing itself as a homeopathic medicine, is almost entirely paraffin wax. You would get the same result applying a ''candle'' directly to your forehead, and you wouldn't be rubbing something made with a toxic plant extract on your skin -- though as it's homeopathic, "made with" might be giving it too much credit. And the reason for its vague slogan and repetitive advertising is that since the product consists mostly of wax, it would be ''illegal'' [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope for them to claim that it actually does anything]]. |
| 60 | * The '''[[https://consumerist.com/2007/04/13/the-infinity-razor-shaves-wallets-better-than-faces/ Infinity Razor]]''' claims to be a razor which never requires replacement or sharpening. In reality, it's an overpriced disposable razor that dulls quickly and doesn't even last a week, let alone forever. Perhaps a product which supposedly never requires replacement being offered in a "2 for 1" deal should have been a tip-off to its quality. |
| 61 | * The '''Juicero''', a cold-press juicing machine that promised to be a game-changer for the way households bought and processed vegetables. It folded just a few months after officially launching, and was laughed at by virtually everyone, including industry advocates and those who bought their juicers. Here's why: |
| 62 | ** The $400 (originally '''$700''') device had a needlessly-complex setup procedure. To start with, there's ''[[EverythingIsOnline online DRM]] on a juicer''. Those who bought the juicer were required to set up an account and connect to a cloud-based service in order to activate it in the first place. Don't have easy access to an internet connection? Too bad. It was speculated by Bloomberg News and other sources during the machine's launch that the user information was being harvested by co-developer Google as a condition of funding the juicer in the first place. |
| 63 | ** The machine itself is not actually a juicer, but a large press. The machine only worked with pre-approved, overpriced packets that, it was stated, would average to $10 ''per day''--and that this was somehow "cheap". The packets had to be ordered from Juicero's website and had a limited shelf life of less than two weeks. Not only were you paying more for the machine, but you had to sign up for a subscription plan which, at cheapest, would have come out to almost two thousand bucks a year. In the event that you couldn't, or didn't, buy the packets, the machine became functionally useless. |
| 64 | ** A QR code on each packet had to be scanned into the machine when you used it. The QR codes served to make sure people didn't use any unapproved packs, their excuse being that it prevented you from using spoiled juice packs. If you attempted to scan a QR code from an "expired" juice pack, the machine would brick and simply not work. Questions about how the codes would function in the event of a sudden food recall or other extenuating circumstance were never fully answered by the company. |
| 65 | ** The company's fate was sealed when Bloomberg put out a damning feature in April 2017 showing that ''it wasn't even necessary to own a Juicero to get juice out of the packs''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lutHF5HhVA Merely squeezing the packs by hand is enough to get the same amount of juice out]], and ''faster'' than the machine would do it. CEO Jeff Dunn was roundly mocked for claiming that people who were squeezing the packs were "hacking" the product. Even Juicero's own investors didn't know what was happening, with two publicly claiming that they didn't realize the problems until they were highlighted by the media. Funding dried up within days, and the company quickly started hemorrhaging $4 million per month. By September 1, 2017, [[https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/1/16243356/juicero-shut-down-lay-off-refund Juicero officially shut down]] and offered refunds to those who bought the product. |
| 66 | ** The reason why it was so expensive is made clear by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ examining the hardware]] - the machine is filled with custom machined parts, expensive steel gears, a ''completely custom power supply''[[note]]on top of the extra design and manufacturing expenses versus just using an off the shelf unit, a custom power supply also requires extensive safety certifications, adding more cost[[/note]], expensive molded plastic for the sleek outer shell, and a needlessly complicated design--it took over 23 parts just to ''hold the door closed''. A lot of this is also due to the odd design choice of extracting the juice by spreading the force over the entire bag, like closing a book. Anyone with any knowledge of high school physics knows that pressure is inversely proportionate to surface area, meaning you need a ''lot'' more force and thus a much more powerful mechanism to provide the same amount of pressure, hence why the bags can be squeezed out faster and more easily by hand. If it weren't for this textbook example of overengineering, the Juicero could have easily been sold for a fraction of the price. |
| 67 | ** LetsPlay/{{Critikal}} highlighted everything wrong with the Juicero [[https://youtu.be/PCRx78Zhj7s while watching its instructional video.]] |
| 68 | * The '''MXZ Pocket Saw''' is an "As Seen on TV!" product that claimed to be able to cut through anything, including brick, glass, tile, and drywall. To its credit, it can... provided you have the strength and endurance of a dozen men and don't mind working at it for a long time. The commercial for it was deceptive to the point of false advertising: a careful eye could spot that several of the items it was supposedly sawing through ''had already been cut.'' As ''Series/AttackOfTheShow'' [[https://archive.org/details/g4tv.com-video44753 demonstrates]], it's not even useful for [[VulgarHumor cutting through a lamb's head.]] Most importantly, the blade can be switched out for regular reciprocating saw blades, which is perfect for finishing the more tricky cuts. |
| 69 | * The '''Package Shark''' is a tool claimed to be able to cut open clamshell packages. However, many reviewers say it doesn't work and describe it as little more than an overpriced razor blade, wrapped in a cheap plastic shell. You know something's bad when it ''[[TheKeyIsBehindTheLock comes in the same kind of package it's supposed to open.]]'' |
| 70 | * The '''Pocket Hose''' claims to be an innovative water hose that is very long and compresses back into a smaller size once shut off. A novel concept [[AwesomeButImpractical that sadly has a wide variety of issues]]: The construction of the hose is made of cloth webbing and plastic, which means despite the retractable aspect, it's not as durable as a regular hose and it can easily burst open, develop holes, and/or leak a lot. Even worse is the fact that it's attached to two ''plastic'' levers. Most damningly, however, is that the manufacturer has tried ''numerous'' times to "improve" the Pocket Hose - this includes making it "3x stronger", replacing the plastic connectors with brass, and trying to make the webbing "stronger", none of which have improved its overall reception. |
| 71 | * '''Smooth Away''' is a hair removal system where the user takes a pink buffing oval [[BuffySpeak thingy]] and rubs it against needed areas, and is supposedly intended to remove hair without any sort of pain or chemicals. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. The buffing system is better at removing dead skin cells rather than hairs, and the "skin exfoliation" it does is actually done by leftover crystals from the buffer. Most egregiously, the product can irritate or even ''swell'' certain areas. It takes forever for it to start actually removing hair from skin...and as ''Series/AttackOfTheShow'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssTqc1ZTIxk shows us]], the pain it causes makes it not even remotely worth it. |
| 72 | %%* The '''Steam Buddy''' is intended to de-wrinkle clothes easily, and looks to be a cross between an iron and lint roller. If you like getting your garments wet and still leaving them wrinkled, then by all means get one now. |
| 73 | %% Adminstrivia/ZeroContextExample. It needs explanations of why it doesn't work, people's reactions, credible reviews, ect. |
| 74 | [[/folder]] |
| 75 | |
| 76 | [[folder:Media Formats/Storage Media]] |
| 77 | The home video revolution had some failed formats. Some, such as Cartrivision, Betamax, CED, VHD, and HD-DVD (as well as V2000 in the UK), still have quite the cult following to this day; however, even the most hardened home media junkies will want to steer clear of these technological terrors that even Betamax and HD-DVD (the two most notorious failed formats) will not touch with a ten-foot pole: |
| 78 | * '''Platform/{{DIVX}}''' [[note]]not to be confused with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DivX the video compression codec]], which was originally named "[=DivX=] ;-)" (yes, with a winking smiley) after the format as a joke[[/note]], short for Digital Video Express, is a video format marketed by Circuit City that was flawed from the word "go". DIVX was marketed as an alternative to standard DVD rental, at a time when [=DVDs=] were still new and Blockbuster Video was still VHS-only. Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong did. For starters, you had 48 hours to watch the movie after your first payment; to pay the continuation fee to "renew" the disc for another 48 hours, one had to set up a DIVX account over the phone. The discs themselves were [[VanillaEdition content-anemic DVD knockoffs]], and the only thing separating compatible and incompatible players was a bit of circuitry, typically added only to low-quality budget models. DIVX was rumored to spy on subscribers through the players' "Dial-home" feature as well. End users rejected it, and with six exceptions (among them Circuit City), retailers flat out didn't bother and just stocked normal [=DVDs=]. Practically all positive reception came from big companies like Creator/DreamWorksSKG, Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, and Creator/{{Paramount}}, being that it was a zero-ownership scheme founded on DRM. DIVX's death knell came when Blockbuster Video chose not to deal in (or with) the format, in favor of just renting out [=DVDs=]. Though far from the only reason, DIVX was a contributing factor in Circuit City's financial problems and eventual 2009 bankruptcy. The entire format was rendered useless midway through 2001, when the DRM server went down, and so far there has been no effort to crack it. It only sold 85,000 players and 535,000 discs[[note]]in contrast, 3.9 million standard [=DVDs=] were sold in 1999 ''alone''[[/note]], and PC World listed it as a dishonorable mention in their [[https://www.pcworld.com/article/535838/worst_products_ever.html "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" column.]] Watch Ben Minnotte of the WebVideo/OddityArchive shred the format in the last three or four minutes [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=nv8qTauyJVA here]] and [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=V3KIqgLIrsE here]]. WebVideo/{{Chadtronic}} laughs at its promo video [[https://youtu.be/P8VQrabM_Mo here]]. A deeper analysis of the DIVX format's failure can be read [[https://randocity.com/2018/04/29/the-divx-format-history/ here.]] |
| 79 | * The '''Flexplay''' format can be considered a SpiritualSuccessor to DIVX, and fared little better. The idea was that after opening the disc's sealed packaging, the user would have 48 hours of unlimited viewing before a chemical compound that coated the surface of the disc would react with oxygen in the air, theoretically rendering it unreadable. Like DIVX, it was positioned as an alternative to rental stores, and it at least had the advantage of being compatible with regular DVD players, but it came with a host of issues that prevented the idea from ever catching on even as its 'convenient rental' competitors, Redbox and a pre-streaming Creator/{{Netflix}}, found success and carved out their own niches. WebVideo/OddityArchive covered the format alongside DIVX [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=V3KIqgLIrsE here]] and proved that, at least on dual-layer discs like his copy of ''Film/Armageddon1998'', the destruction mechanism didn't work as intended, while WebVideo/TechnologyConnections dedicated a video to it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccneE_gkSAs here]]. For a textual explanation of what went wrong: |
| 80 | ** Needless to say, from an environmental perspective the idea of disposable [=DVDs=] was a tough sell to consumers. Flexplay attempted to alleviate this concern by offering recycling bins in stores, as well as shipping labels to return the discs to be disposed of, both of which completely defeats the point of having a "no-return rental" in the first place. Environmental impact aside, the format struggled to make itself appealing to consumers, as their main competitors in the convenient rental market both offered services that worked out to be cheaper: Flexplay sold its only-good-for-two-days discs for around $5 each, while Netflix was offering unlimited rentals for $10 a month and Redbox offered its rentals for $1 per day. If you were looking to rent a movie, Flexplay was overall the most expensive and least appealing option you had. |
| 81 | ** Aside from the consumer, another touted advantage of Flexplay was that it would allow convenience stores to sell movie rentals without needing to worry about tracking their inventory. This was likely the best thing Flexplay had going for it, but as Technology Connections argued, Redbox fulfilled the same niche while offering a service that made far more sense to consumers. In the format war between the two, Redbox won handily. And if businesses are expected to take care of Flexplay's recycling bins, that defeats the appeal of Flexplay as a product you merely need to stock and sell. |
| 82 | ** Despite the odds stacked against it, Flexplay was somehow saved from the chopping block twice. In 2003, Disney trialled the format under the name '''EZ-D''', and it lasted less than a year before they cancelled it, largely due to pressure from environmental groups. After a few years of sporadic limited releases, in 2008 Flexplay managed to license movies from Paramount, Warner Bros. and Starz, alongside an agreement to sell the product in stores such as Staples and a range of travel retailers. It didn't do much better, and the format was dead for good by 2013. Today, Flexplay stands as a perfect example of a decent-on-paper idea that made zero sense to either consumers or businesses, and was pushed despite all evidence pointing towards failure. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Merchandise]] |
| 86 | You'd have a hard time getting even the most hardcore of fans to purchase these [[TheMerch pieces of merchandise]]. Not unless [[VeryFalseAdvertising you lied to them about the product's quality]]. See also [[Horrible/{{Toys}} the Toys section]]. |
| 87 | |
| 88 | * '''''VideoGame/Fallout76'''''[='s=] [[ObviousBeta gameplay]] already gave it a bad reputation, and the many failures in producing TheMerch did not help one bit: |
| 89 | ** '''[[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition The Power Armor Edition]]''' cost $200 and included a number of {{Feelies}}, most of which weren't that bad: a wearable [[PoweredArmor Power Armor]] helmet replica, a glow-in-the-dark map of the game world, codes for in-game items, and a bag of Army Men-like figurines. But most infamous of all was another item: '''a canvas bag''', which made many things go wrong: |
| 90 | *** For a start, shipment of the items were delayed, so game codes had to be given out to its purchasers so they could still play the game while waiting for it. |
| 91 | *** When the items arrived two weeks after the game's launch, [[https://kotaku.com/200-fallout-76-edition-promised-fancy-bag-delivers-ny-1830724582 the bags were made from nylon instead of canvas]]. [[https://www.spieltimes.com/news/fallout-76-power-armor-edition-canvas-bag-baited-and-switched-false-advertisement/ According to another source]], the bag in the promotional image was a prototype and they only found out afterward that it would be too expensive to manufacture - showing a complete lack of planning on their part. Not only did Bethesda not tell purchasers this at all, their official response to complaints was "We hope this doesn't prevent anyone from enjoying what we feel is one of our best collector's editions," and [[https://i2.wp.com/www.spieltimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JF7EjzR.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&ssl=1 in a support email]] they responded to the complaints with "We aren't planning on doing anything about it." Some buyers have even threatened legal action under false advertisement laws, with the general consensus being that they have an OpenAndShutCase--Bethesda advertised a product, then shipped something else without notifying anyone at any stage. |
| 92 | *** They finally gave an apology a few days later, but it consisted of 500 Atoms, a non-refundable in-game store currency... which is worth exactly $5, costs Bethesda nothing to give out, and isn't even enough to buy a canvas bag ''in the game''. If you accepted the petty 500 Atoms, it left you unable to accept later, more substantial offers. |
| 93 | *** Bethesda announced a few weeks after that they'd be shipping out real canvas bags to people who bought the Power Armor edition for free. The replacement canvas bags would apparently take about six months to ship out, according to emails that Bethesda's customers received about the issue, suggesting that Bethesda never had any original intention of making or distributing them (six months is about the length of time it would take to hire a company to both gather the materials and then make enough canvas bags for everyone who bought the Power Armor Edition, considering the primary part of the design was already done). To make things even worse, when Bethesda finally set up production for the canvas bags, they needed Power Armor Edition owners to submit their address and other sensitive information for validation and delivery. However, they accidentally leaked the personal information of thousands of players. For many, this was the point where the whole ''Fallout 76'' affair went from "fiasco" to "farce". |
| 94 | *** The canvas bags became shorthand for how poor the production of ''Fallout 76'' was. Creator/JimSterling touched upon that subject [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhA1NmRJPDQ here]], as did WebVideo/AngryJoe [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1PMfzGaA8M here]] and [=YongYea=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKrb43F4pI in]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2n-sGSSrKE multiple]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzZAsfCJyUU videos.]] |
| 95 | ** If anyone purchased the '''Nuka Cola Helmet Edition''' from Gamestop instead of the regular Power Armor Edition, they would get a red and white colored variant of the Fallout [[PoweredArmor Power Armor]] helmet... which could include ''mold'' festering inside of it after a while. Thankfully, only a limited amount of those editions were ever sold directly to any customers (with most if not all of them being recalled and refunded), but the fact that it made people question whether the ''regular'' helmets might have also been affected in a similar manner says quite a lot about the aftermath of it, never mind how ripped off those people might have been to hold a shoddy bag and a moldy helmet in their special edition version of ''Fallout 76''. |
| 96 | ** '''Nuka Dark Rum'''. Bethesda sold what they claimed was a "premium-grade" rum in authentic, frosted glass Nuka Cola bottles. Right from the beginning the product reeked of sloppiness with a store description copy-pasted word-for-word [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Nuka-Cola_Dark_(Nuka-World) from the fan-wiki]], followed by a sudden several month delay in deliveries that took over a week to be addressed. When the rum finally arrived, the promised glass bottles turned out to be cheap, store-brand glass bottles in a cheap, easy to break plastic shell, with the label consisting of a cheap paper sticker. The "rum" itself [[ATankardOfMooseUrine barely even qualified as swill]], with several tasters who made videos of their sampling of it openly gagging on it. This was assuming you were even able to drink the damn thing at all, as the bottle's lip was so thick that you were more likely to spill the rum ''inside the shell'' than actually get it into your glass. All this, on top of costing around eighty dollars on release--compared to the bottles you could get on Etsy or some other craft site for 20-40 dollars, or even the rum you could get from the average grocery or liquor store, it's a wonder anyone thought this was ready for sale. |
| 97 | * The '''Infinity Gauntlet oven mitt''' by [=LootCrate=], based on ComicBook/{{Thanos}}' IconicItem, is a poorly-designed oven mitt that could ''burn one's skin''. While stated to be resistant to temperatures [[BlatantLies up to 500 degrees]], in reality [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/6/3/11852380/infinity-gauntlet-destroyed-utterly-by-pizza-rolls attempting to use said mitt at 425 degrees will destroy the mitt and burn your hand, as demonstrated in this article]]. [[https://help.lootcrate.com/hc/en-us/articles/210786983 Thankfully, LootCrate recalled them due to these major safety flaws]]. |
| 98 | * While the [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition Collector's Edition]] of ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcomInfinite'' had some relatively good deals, including high-quality figures of ComicBook/IronMan, ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|Marvel Comics}}, [[Franchise/StreetFighter Chun-Li]], and VideoGame/MegaManX, the game's infamous reputation amongst fans ended up being further compounded by the '''Infinity Stone Replicas'''. [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_4470.jpeg Promotional material]] advertised the Infinity Stone Replicas as being crystalline and fully-scaled, as well as having an LED switch that gives them a brilliant gleam. When fans finally got their hands on them, however, they [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_4471.jpeg turned out]] to be made of cheap plastic, resembled dollar-store Easter eggs for children, were halfway embedded into the box, and the LED switch only gave off a weak, flickering light. Nicknamed the [[FanNickname Infinity Eggs]] by fans, the false advertising prompted such massive backlash that it received news coverage from gaming news outlets such as [[https://kotaku.com/marvel-vs-capcom-infinites-collectors-edition-is-disa-1818524714 Kotaku]], [[https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2017/sep/19/marvel-vs-capcom-infinite-special-collectors-edition-infinity-stones-are-very-much-not-what-fans-expected/ EventHubs]], and [[https://www.destructoid.com/thanos-reportedly-fuming-at-mvc-collectors-editions-infinity-stones/ Destructoid]]. |
| 99 | * '''So Rich Lipstick''' turned the first line of beauty [=YouTuber=] Jaclyn Hill's much-hyped "Jaclyn Cosmetics" makeup brand into a huge failure. Customers reported their lipsticks coming in smudged or chunky, or even finding small fibers, human-like hairs, and black dots suspected (and in at least one case [[https://www.revelist.com/beauty-news-/jaclyn-hill-lipsticks-mold-test/15804 confirmed]]) to be mold on the lipstick. While Jaclyn Hill initially denied that her products were contaminated or expired, the company later [[https://twitter.com/jaclyncosmetics/status/1142562322642157570 offered full refunds to everybody who purchased them]]. Jaclyn Cosmetics released more successful products later on, but [[OvershadowedByControversy has yet to fully shake the bad reputation it got from the lipstick controversy]]. |
| 100 | * '''Teezyli''' and other similar novelty t-shirt online stores [[note]](for the sake of [[Administrivia/ExamplesAreNotGeneral keeping this example non-general]], this example will be focused specifically on Teezyli because they seem to be the biggest offender)[[/note]] launched a pretty annoying Website/{{Twitter}} campaign in late 2019: bots would look at artists' posts, search for people who say variations of "I want this on a shirt", steal the art in question, and then send notifications advertising a t-shirt featuring the stolen art. Spam and art theft are already bad enough, but [[GoneHorriblyWrong this campaign then backfired horribly on Teezyli]] (and hilariously for everyone else) when artists started posting images with written admissions of plagiarism and copyrighted characters demanding to be sued and asked their followers to reply with "I need this on a shirt". [[https://www.polygon.com/2019/12/5/20997056/i-want-that-on-a-shirt-bots-copyright-infringement-twitter The ruse worked]], and the site's store page became flooded with designs [[EngineeredPublicConfession warning people that the site steals art and admitting to copyright infringement]]. |
| 101 | * In November 2017, vlogger Zoe "Zoella" Sugg released the '''Zoella Lifestyle Advent Calendar'''. For the exorbitant price of £50 (about $69 USD), fans would get a pathetic 12 items, half the amount of regular advent calendars. Given the ratio of items to cost and the existence of expensive, high-end advent calendars, the items themselves must be high quality, right? Nope. Instead, you get such things as a small pouch of confetti, a set of seven stickers, a pen, and a small notebook that would have been disappointing to get in a cheap calendar. The highlights of the calendar are a pencil case/makeup bag, a spray bottle of air freshener, and a pair of scented candles, but they don't come close to justifying the cost, since similar items bought separately on Amazon [[https://twitter.com/YasmineSumman/status/929468553857830912 would cost a mere £21]] (about $29 USD). Zoella was accused of exploiting her young fanbase for money, and after mass outrage the price was halved, but it was too late. [=JaackMaate=] takes a closer look [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA91BaJWYQw here]]. |
| 102 | [[/folder]] |
| 103 | |
| 104 | [[folder:Mobile Devices]] |
| 105 | * The '''Airphone No.4''', a ripoff of the iPhone 4, belongs to a [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct category]] that only hasn't been blanket added because Administrivia/ExamplesAreNotGeneral, but even by those standards, it's absolutely awful. The box is filled with [[VeryFalseAdvertising lies about its capabilities]]. The touchscreen responsiveness can potentially rapidly deteriorate to the point of forcing the user to hunt for a random stylus they have lying around. It's almost useless as an actual phone, with dropped calls and the phone bugging out if there's a SIM card installed. Worst of all, however, the "apps" are mostly spun off from the Multimedia and Settings apps, with a number of them repeated on different pages or, in one case, ''on the same page'', in order to make it seem more feature-rich than it actually is. WebVideo/StuartAshen reviews it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUT39op2Pp8 here]] and sums it up thus: |
| 106 | -->It doesn't do anything well at all; in fact, it barely does anything compared to the amount of apps it lies to you at. |
| 107 | * The Umidigi A9 Pro, an entry level Android smartphone for the Chinese market (two factors that generally mean poor performance) wouldn't normally be notable enough for this page — that is, until self-described "world's youngest Bitcoin millionaire" Erik Finman decided to capitalise on conservative grievances as TheMoralSubstitute against Silicon Valley, bought them in bulk, and resold them at an over '''''300% markup'''''. The result, the '''Freedom Phone''', was marketed heavily on being "free speech and privacy first", with a custom app store that would never be censored. The reality wasn't so simple. First of all, the custom Android distribution that the Freedom Phone ran used content lifted wholesale from other distributions (including "Trust", the much-vaunted major privacy feature, being copied from a feature that debuted on [=LineageOS=] ''three years prior''). The so-called custom app store, [=PatriApp=], is just a reskin of the Aurora Store - an open source frontend for '''the actual Play Store''' - and all of the "censored apps" offered are just pre-installed (and permanently locked to old versions, because no online support meant there were no updates). Oh yeah, and it's worth reiterating that it's a $120 phone, with all the underperformance that implies, selling for '''''five hundred US dollars'''''. Tellingly, the official website says nothing about the (awful) specs of the phone, instead finding room only for 10 different "buy it now" buttons. [[https://youtu.be/3KPY-gjmHWA Mrwhosetheboss goes into the scam here.]] |
| 108 | * Facebook and HTC's '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First HTC First]]''' was a phone dedicated to being used for Facebook. The default [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Home Facebook Home]] interface was unintuitive, the phone itself was cheaply made, and compared to the Samsung Galaxy [=S4=] smartphone that was released around the same time, it was far too restrictive and lackluster in terms of its specifications. Initially released with an MSRP of $99, the device sold so poorly that AT&T dropped the price to less than ''$1'' before pulling the plug on it. |
| 109 | * The '''[=JuiceBox=]''' was only sold for a few months when it was released in November of 2004, and it's easy to see why it was discontinued in early 2005. It was Creator/{{Mattel}}'s entry in the "portable media player" craze of the mid-2000s, at a time when the market was already crowded with stuff like Tiger Electronics and Creator/{{Hasbro}}'s [=VideoNow=] and Majesco's Platform/GameBoyAdvance Video formats, and while the aforementioned formats had their own flaws, they at least went on to have a cult following. The [=JuiceBox=], on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Although its design was more compact than [=VideoNow=] and played videos at a higher resolution [[note]](240x160; same as the Game Boy Advance)[[/note]] compared to [=VideoNow=][[note]](80x80 for black & white models, or 216x160 for color models)[[/note]], the [=JuiceBox=]'s video playback was of a lower framerate at around 6-10 FPS. [=JuiceBox=] relied on its own "Juiceware" cartridges as opposed to [=VideoNow=]'s proprietary PVD discs, which meant that videos were less prone to skipping. Problem is, the [=JuiceBox=] can sometimes fail to read the cartridges and get stuck at the built-in demo video. If that wasn't bad enough, the device was also partially covered in rubbery plastic, a common fixture of 2000s electronics that can turn into sticky goo over a long period of time, a bit like the Platform/{{Gizmondo}}. Billiam covers the [=JuiceBox=] along with other portable media players [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAsHX5kwAGg here]], while WebVideo/{{Phelous}} dedicated a video to the device [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS09kjWEKTY here]], with both having very little praise for it and Phelous specifically noting it was the worst feeling device he had ever held in his life. |
| 110 | * The '''Kodak Ektra''' smartphone exemplifies the idiom "[[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-had-one-job You had one job]]". It was billed as a smartphone for photography enthusiasts, with a DSLR-quality camera. In functionality, the camera app was slow and unintuitive, and the camera itself took very crappy pictures that appeared washed out in ideal lighting, and struggled with low-light surroundings. The phone portions of this smartphone did absolutely nothing to compensate for the camera. [=CNET=]'s review of the device is simply titled "[[https://www.cnet.com/reviews/kodak-ektra-review/ Kodak shouldn't have made this phone.]]" Canoopsy also talks about the phone [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhb2a1_4wHU here]], and concludes that he can find no good reason to recommend it to anyone. |
| 111 | * The '''[[https://gizmodo.com/the-twitterpeek-is-so-dumb-it-makes-my-brain-hurt-5396213 TwitterPeek]]''' is a baffling product: a handheld electronic device that could access Twitter, [[CripplingOverspecialization do absolutely nothing else]], was inferior in every way to the Twitter app available on every single smart device ever, ''and'' was more expensive than a regular smartphone. Regardless of your opinion of the social media platform, it was a hard sell from the start, especially considering that it was sold for a whopping ''$200'', and you had to ''pay a subscription'' after six months to use this device to access a platform that was ''completely free'' to use on virtually every other electronic device created before and since. The device's screen is also too small to display entire messages at once, and requires extra steps to get images to display. Unsurprisingly, the [=TwitterPeek=] crashed and burned, and Peek sank in 2012, three years after releasing this utter dud. Mrwhosetheboss placed it as the [[https://youtu.be/IErvIekMD3U?t=1259 fourth biggest technological failure]] behind the 2019 iPhone Facetime bug that equated to spying on someone else without their permission and two different cryptocurrency scams that ruined people's lives if they invested in them. |
| 112 | [[/folder]] |
| 113 | |
| 114 | [[folder:Musical Instruments/Equipment]] |
| 115 | * '''Esteban's Gift''', frequently cited as the ''worst'' acoustic guitar model of all time. Endorsed by Spanish-guitarist Stephen "Esteban" Paul (actually an accomplished musician in his own right), instead of being sold in music shops, it was [[NotAvailableInStores actually sold on late-night infomercials]], and it shows. While its $99 pricetag makes it seem enticing as a beginner's model, it's plagued with set-up issues like high action (the distance between the guitar strings and the fretboard), poor intonation, a warped neck, and terrible tuning stability. The instrument itself sounds terrible, the body is cheap-feeling, and in one customer's case a fly was encased in the finish. For the extra hundred or so bucks you'll spend to get the guitar set up to a remotely playable state, you could instead go out and buy a beginner Fender or Ibanez guitar of much higher quality. Watch Robert's Guitar Dungeon review the line [[https://youtu.be/gcoIgBZ-yO4&t=510 here.]] samuraiguitarist also [[https://youtu.be/Y5BP6ug4PXo&t=218 tears the infomercial a new asshole.]] |
| 116 | * '''The Getzen French Horn Trumpet''', aka '''Frumpet'''. It tried to be a cross between french horns and trumpets, looking like a large trumpet with a very large bell, albeit with a french horn mouthpiece. However, it had only the same amount of tubing as an alto trumpet in F, while a French Horn had tubing twice as long, and the business end was incredibly short for its width. Because of this, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXxwCb3eMA8 as Trent Hamilton says in his video explaining the instrument]], "it has ''abysmal'' intonation and tuning." [[note]]Quote around the 3:20 mark. Emphasis his.[[/note]] Someone in the comments said that Trent's video healed almost 30 years of marching band trauma when they learned how badly the instrument sucked. |
| 117 | * Since the TurnOfTheMillennium, the Gibson guitar brand (famous for their Les Paul model electric guitar) has been struggling to keep up due to high prices, poor quality control,[[note]]Examples are cosmetically flawed bodies right from the factory, improperly grounded electronics, off-feeling necks, loose control knobs, things you shouldn't expect from a $1,000+ guitar, and those are only a few examples.[[/note]] the addition of unnecessary, controversial, and just plain gimmicky features, and a lack of interest from younger guitar players. This all culminated in 2011 with the '''Gibson Firebird X''', a modern re-imagining of their classic Firebird model, which is a hideous amalgamation of everything wrong with Henry Juszkiewicz-era Gibson and frequently cited as one of the worst electric guitar models of all time. What it was aiming to do was provide an all-in-one solution for electric guitar tones with on-board effects and Bluetooth control pedals. However the controls are so convoluted that many users didn't know how to utilize these effects properly. The effects on the guitar are not the greatest (nor are the pickups themselves), and can easily be outdone with a Line 6 POD and an Epiphone guitar for a small fraction of the price. Worse is that it was outfitted from the get go with Gibson's downright infamous Robot Tuners which have their own entry here. Most egregiously is the entire guitar is battery-powered, which wouldn't be bad on its own if it weren't for the fact that if the battery died, you could not use the guitar until you recharge it, with no analog bypass setting to just get the signal from the pickups into the amp. So heaven forbid that your guitar's battery dies in the middle of a show. What really doomed it is its ''[[CrackIsCheaper $5,500 price tag]]'',[[note]]For reference, a high-end guitar costs roughly $1,000-$2,500, with experts saying that the quality of the guitar relative to its price tag begins to plateau beyond that point, beyond that you're either paying for brand name, premium cosmetics, or something custom-ordered[[/note]] [[UncertainAudience driving away any novice players who might be interested in not having to set up a bunch of FX pedals (if they can figure out the complicated control scheme), while professional guitarists ignored the model completely.]] It was discontinued the next year and is rumored to have sales numbers in the ''single digits'', with Guitar Center employees [[EveryoneHasStandards actively discouraging customers from buying the guitar]], it was that terrible. In 2018, coinciding with the company filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy, Gibson did away with any and all models containing any semblance of the Firebird X's feature set. The guitar was so unsalvageable that Gibson was forced to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd7ySopIwog destroy their remaining inventory valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars]],[[note]]Even ''this'' was controversial, with detractors pointing out that Gibson simply could've donated the instruments to music programs and that destroying the guitars was a huge waste of money.[[/note]] with it and the rest of the post-2000s Juszkiewicz era becoming [[CreatorBacklash a source of shame]] for the company. Robert's Guitar Dungeon talks about the guitar [[https://youtu.be/gcoIgBZ-yO4?t=303 here]], and about how neither his shop nor others around him were able to sell even a ''single'' model. |
| 118 | * '''[=TronicalTune=]''' was an automated guitar tuning device mounted behind the headstock that would automatically tune the guitar strings to pitch. A good idea in theory, but the problem was that it would often tune out of pitch, malfunction with non-standard string gauge configurations or for no reason at all (there are reports of a tuning peg perpetually downtuning or a string randomly retuning itself out of pitch), and the device was hard to tune manually. Worse is that the device itself was horrendously unreliable, with reports of the device malfunctioning as soon as a month later. Worse is that Gibson had licensed the technology under the name '''"Gibson G-Force Tuning System"''' (though most people just call it the "Gibson Robot Tuners") starting in 2007, and despite guitarists panning and shunning the system, Gibson still tried to push it ''hard'', with them introducing the system on many of their models during the New '10s, which contributed to Gibson's already declining reputation. Luthiers were advising guitarists to replace the device with regular tuning pegs, which they did in droves, as it wasn't a matter of "if" it would fail, it was a matter of "when". Later they relegated it to an optional [[BlessedWithSuck "upgrade"]] before discontinuing the system entirely. [=SamuraiGuitarist=] gives the device a negative review [[https://youtu.be/L6QfaK_9X5M?t=224 here.]] |
| 119 | * The '''Unison MIDI Chord Pack''' is an expensive ($67) collection of MIDI chords intended to be dragged into audio editing software, which is almost useless because the software probably has a built-in tool that gives you access to the same chords and is more practical to use. Additionally, it's easy to find free MIDI chord packs on the Internet if you really want one. The only other potential draw of the Unison chord pack is the included chord progressions, but there's a small number of them and they're too run-of-the-mill, so they're not worth it at all. Watch Tantacrul review the product and mock its also-Horrible advertising [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50m2Q7wPUFg here]]. |
| 120 | * The '''[=ZaanU=] Headphones''' aren't even really headphones at all, so much as they are an over-head shell built as cheaply as possible and designed to stick Apple's Ear/Airpods into. Those aren't exactly audiophile quality to begin with, and sticking them in these destroys the audio so badly that [=ZannU=]'s official instruction manual outright gives instructions on how to ''max out the equalizer'' on mobile devices and Spotify, because they're so quiet that's the only way to even make them audible. While this would be stupid but slightly forgivable if they were, say, $5, the MSRP is $40 - money which can instead be used to buy much, much better sounding headphones that are also ''actual headphones''. The materials and construction of the headphones feel very cheap and don't justify the price at all. Watch WebVideo/{{DankPods}} skewer them [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1hvDqNcnEk here]]. |
| 121 | [[/folder]] |
| 122 | |
| 123 | [[folder:Pop-Up Events]] |
| 124 | * '''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapland_New_Forest Lapland New Forest]]''', run by brothers Victor and Henry Mears, which opened briefly in the United Kingdom in December 2008. Visitors to their website were promised a spectacular Christmas experience, only to find a bare field with a handful of overpriced rides and concessions, a broken ice rink, a highly unconvincing "tunnel of light", a crudely painted billboard across a muddy field for a nativity scene, horribly mistreated huskies in chains, and entertainers in unconvincing snowman and elf outfits -- all after paying theme park prices for tickets. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in numerous credit card chargebacks and a fraud conviction for the park's owners, plus Santa[[note]]who unintentionally traumatized children guests when he was caught smoking[[/note]] and his helpers being beaten up by angry guests. The Mears brothers insisted that [[NeverMyFault they did nothing wrong]] and blamed the park's failure on crowd manipulation and slanderous media. ''Podcast/{{Swindled}}'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skEVYr6youw explores this ill-fated carnival further]] as a prelude to an episode dedicated to the similarly-disastrous [[ShoddyShindig Fyre Festival]]. |
| 125 | * Ever since Lapland became famous on the news, the media reports on similar attractions every year, and always points out the similarities. '''[[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-25390071 The Milton Keynes Winter Wonderland]]''' "carnival" is one such example. The SpecialEffectsFailure alone is a sight to behold. The "wonderland" was more of a mud pit with tents made of white tarp here and there, and "Santa" was a skinny man with a very fake looking beard and his clothes visible under his suit. The "ice rink", which, like everything else on site, was a paid attraction, was made of plastic and had no ice. Advertised reindeer and Christmas lights were nowhere to be found, and only two huskies were on site, both in a cage far too small and howling. It was referred to as "Winter Blunderland" by many newspapers, and got shut down just a DAY after it opened for the first time, with the attendees refunded. |
| 126 | * Tyler, Texas, has an annual drive-through Christmas light display called [[https://santalandtylertx.com/ Santa Land]] that's decent in and of itself, and has multiple yearly goers who enjoy the spectacle. However, even its biggest enjoyers will not defend '''Santa Land 2015''', by far its single most disappointing year. The first issue was that road construction was being performed on a neighboring highway that month, forcing multiple vehicles to be rerouted onto the highway leading to Santa Land. Given that Tyler is already notorious for its congested traffic as is, this led to a line forming that was many miles long and took as much as six hours to get through, with the rerouted drivers getting traffic priority over the hopeful eventgoers. Furthermore, budgeting issues that year had led to the light display being heavily reduced, so even when people finally did get through the incredible line and into the park, they were left disappointed by a very lacking display that year, with many of the park's usual displays having been taken down. To add on top of this, the Christmas music radio station for the park was experiencing technical issues, leaving it sounding scratchy and coarse, and [[ShadyScalper scalpers had managed to ransack a large number of the items in the gift shop]], leaving little for anyone else to buy when they reached the end of the path. |
| 127 | * In what appears to have become a Christmas tradition in the United Kingdom, '''[[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-55376683 a drive-through grotto]]''' that opened in Norfolk in 2020 was almost immediately branded as "creepy" and "an absolute fiasco". Families queued for three hours in rush-hour traffic conditions only to be greeted with deflated inflatables and severely cheap-looking surroundings. The attraction also had unnecessarily creepy performers including [[TheScrooge a Scrooge-like character]] who reportedly told kids that they were mutants and gave at least one child nightmares, as well as having a man wrapped in chains just staring at cars. The presents just came in brown paper bags and were reckoned to have probably been bought from Poundland. Finally, the tunnel lights weren't even switched on and the SantaClaus couldn't be any less interested. |
| 128 | * '''''Theatre/WillysChocolateExperience''''', an unlicensed ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory''-themed walkthrough event and transparent ''Film/{{Wonka}}'' cash-in held in Glasgow, Scotland in February 2024. The promotional website featured colorful, conspicuously AI-generated images (advertising such things as "[[PerfectlyCromulentWord catgacating]]", "exarserdray lollipops", and "a [[TyopOnTheCover pasadise]] of sweet [[AccidentalInnuendo teats]]") and descriptions promising "stunning and intricately designed settings" and "an array of delectable treats... throughout"; well worth the £35 ticket price. What visitors got instead was a dingy, almost bare warehouse with one bouncy castle, a handful of scattered props, and wrinkled tarps bearing AI-generated images strung about as backdrops and partitions. The cheaply-costumed actors were given no more than a day to rehearse a script one referred to as "15 pages of AI-generated gibberish" featuring nonexistent props, impossible special effects, and ridiculous stage directions. No effort was made to provide for the script's rambling specifications; the actors were told to improvise, and three performances in, to throw the script out. This reduced the length of the attraction from 45 minutes to two. One of the few things inexplicably retained from the script was the original character The Unknown, "an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls". The character was written as the storyline's antagonist but, in practice, only served to frighten small children. Despite the name, there was no chocolate to speak of; the Wonkidoodle (read: [[WritingAroundTrademarks not-Oompa-Loompa]]) was given one bag of jellybeans and a pallet of Tesco storebrand lemonade to portion out among all in attendance, at a candy station strewn with random bottles and lab equipment. The event was shut down midway through its first day when irate customers called the police to report false advertising. Pictures of The Unknown and the [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/oompa-loompa-bartender Wonkidoodle's actress in-between performances]] went [[MemeticMutation viral]] as symbols of the event's failings. The whole thing has one positive outcome: it allowed the Unknown's performer, Felicia Dawkins, to reprise her role for the Ride/LondonDungeon. |
| 129 | [[/folder]] |
| 130 | |
| 131 | [[folder:Restaurants]] |
| 132 | %% Specific examples only, please! |
| 133 | * The U.S. version of ''Series/KitchenNightmares'' reached almost memetic status when it featured '''[[Recap/KitchenNightmaresS6E15AmysBakingCompany Amy's Baking Company]]''', a bistro in Scottsdale, Arizona owned by Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, and a perfect example of how not to run a business in nearly every way possible. |
| 134 | ** The Bouzaglos are [[SmallNameBigEgo spiteful egomaniacs]] who [[NeverMyFault believe everyone is conspiring against them]] and have so little respect for their customers that they've ''had the police called on them'' because they decided to fight customers who complained about their poor service. Samy reveals that they had gone through [[HighTurnoverRate over 100 staff members in just 18 months]][[note]]For comparison, UsefulNotes/McDonalds chain restaurants go through about 45 people in 18 months[[/note]], many of whom were culinary school graduates who had more cooking experience than the owner. The restaurant stole pictures of food off the internet to put in their menus and filled their shelves with desserts bought from other bakeries, and Samy even confessed to pocketing every tip meant for the waitresses (which is illegal in the United States). To top it all off, Amy herself was an incredibly incompetent chef, taking hours to cook a bad meal for just one customer, and the only reason they got any customers at all was because they were right next to a movie theater. |
| 135 | ** It wound up being the ''only'' episode in the history of the U.K. or U.S. versions where Creator/GordonRamsay [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere called it quits]] and left before he could even begin to fix the place. However, due to the nearly memetic response of the initial episode, the show dedicated ''another episode'' to revisiting the bakery at the start of the following season.[[note]]This had never happened before, as revisit episodes usually featured multiple restaurants with varied results in mind.[[/note]] In this case, however, Ramsay did not come along, which was probably for the best because ''nothing changed''. Amy's Baking Company eventually closed its doors in July 2015, [[https://www.eater.com/2015/7/10/8928887/kitchen-nightmares-amys-baking-company-shutter but the owners intend to go into other cooking-related ventures]]. Amy also [[https://www.youtube.com/c/AmyBouzaglodesserts/videos has a YouTube channel]], and while the (likely filtered) comments show glowing feedback, the few videos that have ratings enabled average at a staggering ''89% dislikes''. |
| 136 | * '''Purr Cat Café''' was a short-lived cat café based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was doomed from its very inception due to very poor management, lack of funding and employees, and most importantly, lack of cats. The café's management was unable to maintain good business relationships with the local animal shelters, missed several opening dates, and ran into legal hot water multiple times for operating without a license and attempting to work with an unlicensed shelter; the owner also displayed [[CantTakeCriticism a complete inability to take criticism]], constantly ignored and brushed off helpful advice, and generally acted completely delusional. When it did open, it was criticized for its poor living conditions for the cats that ''did'' live there who seemed scared and hissed at customers, the layout of the building not being designed with cats in mind, its wildly inconsistent business hours, and the eccentricities of the owner. The café closed two years after opening due to low visitation, and the landlord would sue the owner for unpaid rent and win. The location would later [[{{Irony}} be leased out to a cat shelter.]] Watch [[WebVideo/DownTheRabbitHole Fredrik Knudsen's]] video chronicling the fiasco [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNsqEntHuV8 here]]. |
| 137 | [[/folder]] |
| 138 | |
| 139 | [[folder:Software]] |
| 140 | There's [[KillerApp Killer Apps]], and there's ''toxic'' ones. Take particular caution, you may have your device start clanking out just reading this section. |
| 141 | * '''Cpedia''' was a bizarre attempt by failed Website/{{Google}} competitor Cuil to combine a search engine with an encyclopedia. For starters, a search engine that would format the results as wiki-like pages was not a good idea -- If you want to read about something in a wiki format, why not just go to Website/{{Wikipedia}}? If you want a search engine, why would you want to make it hard to search for things? Even worse however, the technology wasn't even ''close'' to being able to pull that off in 2010. Cpedia's pages were little more than [[http://onefoottsunami.com/2010/04/12/the-mechanized-madness-of-cuils-cpedia/ incomprehensible messes]], with information jumbled together into auto-generated text blocks that would frequently switch topics entirely at a whim. [[https://onefoottsunami.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/20100412cpedia/ahamburger.png One archived screenshot]] shows a search for "a hamburger", with the resulting page showing [[SarcasmMode helpful]] sections such as "Richard and Mac [=McDonald=] in San Bernardino" and "Bürger". Cuil, and by extension Cpedia, has since been put out of its misery, but [[http://www.webmasterworld.com/alternative_search_engines/4114978.htm many]] [[http://www.marco.org/2010/04/12/the-mechanized-madness-of-cuils-cpedia reports]] of its failure remain. At least we got [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cuil-theory a meme]] out of it. |
| 142 | -->''"I threw up a little in my mouth trying to decipher [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100419142422/http://cpedia.com/wiki?q=Batman+Returns the results]] for Film/BatmanReturns, which according to Cpedia includes such characters as Creator/HeathLedger and Film/EdwardScissorhands."'' |
| 143 | * '''Microsoft Bob''' was a shell for Windows 3.1 designed for people new to computing. The desktop was designed as one of several rooms, with each application represented as an item in said room, and a "guide" character talked the user through whatever they were trying to do. The problems here were severalfold, but the most important: there were multiple complaints that the concept itself [[ViewersAreMorons treated the user like a child]], condescending to them in every way. What's more, Windows 95 debuted soon after Bob's release, proving to be just as (if not more) user-friendly than Bob without the childish overtones. Bob's only real legacy was the "guides", which used an early version of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Agent Microsoft Agent]] -- the technology behind the notorious Office Assistant characters (including Clippy) and [=BonziBuddy=] -- as well as, [[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-magazine/cc565089(v=msdn.10) according to]] Raymond Chen, being included in the Windows XP setup CD as a means of slowing down the download of illegal copies. [[note]](Comic Sans, widely considered one of the ugliest fonts ever, is often blamed on Bob as well, but while it was created with Bob in mind [the font's creator found it weird that the assistants "talked in Times New Roman"] it was never used in the program itself.)[[/note]] On top of all this, putting your password in wrong three times in a row would result in the system unlocking and recommending you change your password, which made having a password in the first place pointless. It was a flop, particularly due to its hardware requirements [[note]](a 486 CPU, 8 MB RAM, 30 MB free hard disk space and a 256-color VGA display, which was demanding by early-90s standards)[[/note]], which most home computers at the time were not able to meet. WebVideo/LazyGameReviews takes a look at Microsoft Bob [[https://youtu.be/RkU4WWEUj-Y here]], and while he doesn't believe it's as bad as most people think it is, he still has little positive to say about it. |
| 144 | * '''Microsoft Windows Me (Millennium Edition)''': In addition to being a pointless stopgap Windows version between Windows 98 and Windows XP that was developed in just one year, this OS was a [[ObviousBeta bug-ridden mess]] with terrible security,[[note]]it was ''very'' common to walk over to your computer one minute and see some strange new programs on your desktop that were never manually installed (spyware, links to scamming webpages, etc.)[[/note]] horrible stability,[[note]]it was so bad that it's likely one of the reasons that the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" reached the level of MemeticMutation status it has today, and screenshots of it on its [[https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-me/final WinWorldPC page]] consist entirely of bluescreens[[/note]] and very poor compatibility with older software.[[note]]Due in part to having access to real-mode DOS disabled to speed up the booting of the OS, though this could be manually enabled through [[http://www.oocities.org/mfd4life_2000/ a hack]][[/note]] Its failure resulted in its much-better designed companion OS Windows 2000, originally intended for servers, businesses and power users, becoming more widespread among the general public. Not surprisingly, Microsoft quickly abandoned Windows Me once Windows XP[[note]]itself a bug-ridden mess until Service Pack 1 was released, but significantly better-coded than Me[[/note]] was released, with all support for Me being terminated on the same date as Windows 98 (July 11, 2006),[[note]]especially notable as Windows 2000, which was released several months before Me, was supported until July 2010[[/note]] and it's now considered by many technology publications and critics to be one of the biggest misfires in computing history, to the point that a common nickname for it is "Mistake Edition"). The Science Elf defends Windows Me [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OXdqXj9IbU in this video]], calling it "ahead of its time" and cites all of the multimedia features it introduced before Windows XP. [[spoiler:He takes it all back in the end because of how many times the OS crashed while recording the video and then says that it really is as bad as people make it out to be.]] Seemingly the only following that exists for it comes from WebOriginal/OsTan giving it a MoeAnthropomorphism as "ME-tan", which reinterpreted it as a CuteClumsyGirl. |
| 145 | ** The main cause of the infamous BSOD in Millennium Edition was due to it being a transitional OS, supporting both the older [=VxD=] driver types and the newer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Model Windows Driver Model]] DLL system we all know today. It could individually support either of these adequately... but if a process called for both, it shat itself in spectacular fashion, resulting in a bluescreen and byzantine error code that often referred to the aforementioned [=VxD=]. A good deal of the reason that 2000 and XP were significantly more stable, even while buggy on launch, was because [[https://web.archive.org/web/20070717081308/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244601 they rejected the old system outright]] - old hardware and programs simply not running on a new OS is a bummer, but it upsets people much less than an OS claiming compatibility with old hardware and programs and then killing itself entirely from trying. That said, this is ''even more damning'' when this is exactly the sort of thing a transitional OS should be ''designed'' to handle, especially as Windows 98 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98#Windows_Driver_Model featured similar support for both legacy and more modern drivers]]. |
| 146 | * '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftRAM SoftRAM]]''' was a product that, from the get go, sounded too good to be true: it was sold as a cost-effective way to double a computer's random-access memory without having to buy additional RAM sticks or another computer altogether. At the time, Windows 95 was about to hit the shelves and not everyone had the 4 megabytes of memory to install the OS, and [=SoftRAM=]'s developer Syncronys pushed the product heavily for users who didn't want to spend additional money. However, it ''was'' too good to be true, as it didn't even ''attempt'' to touch a computer's memory. Instead, the closest thing [=SoftRAM=] did to alter the system in any way was to increase the size of Windows' page file, which a typical user can easily do with absolutely no cost whatsoever and would provide a minimal performance improvement at best. The Federal Trade Commission and dozens of customers sued Syncronys into bankruptcy for false advertising for both this and other failed products, and the product was unceremoniously pulled from stores a scant four months later in December 1995. Nowadays, [=SoftRAM=]'s the definitive example of snake oil software, and PC World named it the [[https://www.pcworld.com/article/535838/worst_products_ever.html third worst tech product of all time in 2006]], behind only the infamous [=RealPlayer=] and America Online. Watch Nostalgia Nerd trash the product [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxEoZEphs9g here]], and Digital Trends [[https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/software-and-snake-oil-software/ has an article]] outlining the whole scheme. Michael MJD also talks about it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rxssVFeKr8 here]]. |
| 147 | * The '''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal]]''' is perhaps the textbook example of how low a music corporation will go to enforce copyright law at the consumer's expense. Thinking that they had found the solution to combating {{digital piracy|IsEvil}} of music, Sony placed certain forms of copy-protection software in over ''22 million'' [=CDs=] that, when inserted into a PC, would enable a form of digital rights management (DRM) that would ''tamper with the operating system'' to stop a user from attempting to burn an album to another CD. But it did more than that: it installed a rootkit that would give Sony access to information on the user's listening habits, and would hide itself to where it was impossible to uninstall easily.\ |
| 148 | Even worse, the software would install '''the moment the computer read the CD, even if the user didn't agree to the licensing agreement''', without any warning or prior notice. Oh, and the kicker? The software didn't even work as intended: people could still copy the music to blank [=CDs=], and instead left people who weren't interested in copying music vulnerable to scores of malware. That was bad enough, but then Sony tried to mitigate the damage by releasing an "uninstaller" for the software....that didn't actually uninstall anything and instead collected the user's e-mail address among other additional security vulnerabilities.\ |
| 149 | To compound the failure, the developers of Extended Copy Protection, the more common rootkit, forgot that Platform/MicrosoftWindows is not the only operating system in the world, meaning people with [[Platform/{{UNIX}} Linux]], a [[Platform/AppleMacintosh Mac]], or other Windows alternatives were inherently unaffected. Although [=MediaMax=] CD-3's developers remembered that Macs exist, Platform/{{macOS}} has required user permission to install software since it became UNIX-like, resulting in SchmuckBait that few Mac users fell for. Even on Windows, both rootkits relied on autorun, which could be temporarily disabled by holding down the left Shift key as a CD was inserted, rendering the rootkits effective only at screwing up computers and angering even unaffected consumers.\ |
| 150 | Sony found itself in the crosshairs of a massive public relations disaster,[[note]]Which was so bad that even ''music artists working for Sony Music labels'' called out Sony for their deceptive practices.[[/note]] forcing the company to recall all [=CDs=] with the copy-protection software and face numerous lawsuits and criminal investigations for consumer privacy violations. No other music corporations have bothered putting copy-protection software on [=CDs=] since the scandal, and Sony has never recovered from the fallout. [[https://www.networkworld.com/article/2998251/malware-cybercrime/sony-bmg-rootkit-scandal-10-years-later.html This article goes into detail]] over just how badly Sony botched the copy-protection scheme and its impact for both the company and cybersecurity as a whole. |
| 151 | * While the ''VideoGame/GameShark'' (also known as Action Replay in the UK) line of cheat devices were legitimately powerful and useful tools for console gamers back in their heyday, the same cannot be said for '''the Windows 95 version'''. While the usefulness of dedicated, paid cheat software on a platform that already allows for unrestricted modification of all games is dubious to begin with, the [=GameShark=] makes its case even worse by not only supporting a paltry amount of games out of the box (only ''seventeen'' in the US release, all of which only have a small handful of basic cheats) but also requiring a pointless dongle to be plugged in to the computer for the sake of CopyProtection. However, the worst part is that the software itself is almost completely non-functional - it's exceedingly likely that the cheats will just do nothing at all, or, if you're ''really'' lucky, half-work. (One such example being the infinite resources cheat for ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresI'' only working for placing buildings and building units.) Version mismatches seem like they may be the culprit in some cases - the software will warn users if they're using the incorrect version of the game, but it provides no help on finding what version to use and it's still entirely likely the cheats will do nothing even if no mismatch is reported. Not only would one be far better off downloading free trainer programs off the internet, most of the games included (such as the aforementioned ''Age of Empires'') already have ''built-in'' [[CheatCode cheat codes]] that are more powerful and far easier to use, meaning even a functional version of the software would be pointless. WebVideo/LazyGameReviews looks at both the Action Replay and [=GameShark=] models [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY54vZlgfx4 here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQnCdDpU1to here.]] |
| 152 | [[/folder]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[folder:Vanity Plates]] |
| 155 | Nope, not even {{vanity plate}}s are safe from being horrible. Despite their short lengths, many logos exist that would make one stunned as to how they ever came from a well-meaning, caring company. Even stranger, they always seem to be spotted in similar places to one another.[[note]]For example, many early British home video logos (before the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Recordings_Act_1984 Video Recordings Act 1984]] drove zero-budget home video distributors out of business) are lacking in both quality and effort.[[/note]] |
| 156 | * There are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dF7mMbTg4s three logos]] from the UK in the pre-cert days that use the same basic design - '''ATA Video, Mega Video, and Temple Video''', who all clearly got their hands on the exact same BASIC script. The three are so similar that it was once thought they were the same company. The only differences are the music and color scheme; ATA Video's logo is yellowish-green and uses "Triumph (Edit (B))" by Richard Harvey, Mega Video's logo is green and uses "The Appliance of Science" by Keith Mansfield, and Temple Video's logo is darkish pink and uses "Superstar Fanfare", also by Mansfield. The basic design is just a bunch of lines forming onscreen with the company name in the middle, the trail pausing to allow the company name to form and continuing as a trail of white lines. It was supposedly made using a Platform/BBCMicro, and very much looks it. |
| 157 | * '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa__mWqvlkU Aligator Video Enterprises]]''' is yet another bad logo from the Greeks. It seems like a simple concept to get right: the company name appearing word-by-word on a generic space background via trail effect. Yet the words are badly centered on the screen and the overall aesthetic looks uninspired. The music is also [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} stolen]] from [[https://youtu.be/_nvR2GWTBxI?t=34 the early-80s PolyGram Video logo]] (repeated ''twice''). [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking "Alligator" isn't even spelled right]], which can't even be chalked up to a language barrier since the Greek αλλιγάτορας[[note]]alligátoras[[/note]] is a direct loanword. |
| 158 | * '''Boyd's Videos and Video Films''', whose only known releases are ''The Mandarin Magician'' and ''Film/ThePumaman'', used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h_UxPK0FNo perhaps the most amateurish, incompetent vanity plate ever created]]. It's two slides kept up for way too long on what appears to be an office projector, separated by a pink screen, resulting in a logo which could have easily lasted a few seconds taking ''almost a minute''. Both slides are zoomed in way too far initially, forcing whoever was filming to zoom out slowly and awkwardly. The pink doesn't cover the whole screen, meaning that you can see the slides being swapped, revealing that this was all done in one take. Even for a low-budget home video company, this is completely absurd. |
| 159 | * The Argentinian logo for '''[[https://youtu.be/deOEeChT6LE?t=55 Bujotoon Magic Video]]''' consists entirely of portions of a ''different logo'', music and all - the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDc5pvrUN_c&feature=emb_title second Cinehollywood logo]]. The editing is amateurish, with the music abruptly skipping when the scene changes. What new additions are here aren't even interesting; it's just blue text with white outlines and nothing else. |
| 160 | * Greek company '''Carrey Video'''[='s=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCKq_dUpolo logo]] is amazingly unprofessional. First off, the logomark, text, and animation have been stolen from another logo, specifically that of the similarly-named British distributor Carey Home Video. It looks as if they put more effort into the music than the animation, though they did a rather poor job of plastering it over the original logo's music as you can still hear it. The overlaid text "Carrey Video" is also not centered well with the logomark, and fades out faster than it. |
| 161 | * The logo for Argentine home video company '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RxufMc3Fb4 Class Video]]''' forms very slowly, without too much movement and emotion being added into it. The logomark takes ''one full minute'' to come together--add the magic of some dated computer animation and poorly-added music that isn't clearly audible most of the time (possibly due to auto-tracking), and the result is one of the worst things to come from a VHS tape. |
| 162 | * Yet another horrible British pre-cert logo, that of '''Cyclo Video''', has been given to us courtesy of 1980s computer technology. It consists of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlaExiYjiOI two terrible logos, both created with no effort what-so-ever]]. The first logo is just the company name being written with dots in a matter that makes it look like something out of a bad Platform/Commodore64 game. The second logo has more to offer, but it isn't any better. It involves [[SpecialEffectFailure a barely moving 8-bit sunshine being made until it starts disappearing to reveal the company name]]. The only remotely good thing about this is the music, which is the same "Superstar Fanfare" stock piece used in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHEF2xTpNDM countless other pre-cert logos]]. |
| 163 | * Argentina seems to have a dreadful track record when it comes to home video logos, but the one '''Enterprise Producciones''' used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtWP3BGCvd8 takes the cake]]. It's [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} a direct steal of another logo]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBLcroh-3t8 that of Prism Entertainment]], except it's paused near the end for Enterprise Producciones' logo to come onscreen with ''very'' cheap computer animation, all while the awkwardly looped music from the original logo plays. It's such blatant theft that it defies intelligent description. |
| 164 | * An Aizawl, India-based film company named '''FADYO''' (short for "Film and Drama Youth Organization") used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjghY9FeOIQ this masterpiece]]. Stolen here are Creator/{{Universal}}'s 1990 logo and two [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] songs[[note]]"All You Need Is Love" and "Free as a Bird", respectively[[/note]], a copyright infringement worth thousands of dollars for one of these items alone. Poor editing and odd sound design abounds, exemplifying all the other issues present. And all that without even mentioning that the logo itself is rendered in such a way that it looks less like an opening logo and more like a GIF. |
| 165 | * From 2013 to 2018, Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox's music division '''Fox Music''' used [[https://youtu.be/vHGOxtQVTNo this cheap logo]] at the beginning of its music videos. It blatantly uses a fanmade template of the 20th Century Fox logo created by Matt Hoecker. That's not all, either: the text is too big, the left searchlight spins when it's not supposed to, the bottoms of the searchlights' shines are too small (the left searchlight's shine can even be seen clipping through the searchlight itself, as well as the "FOX" letters), and the right searchlight ''actually rotates 360 degrees''. For a then-major studio, this is embarrassing. |
| 166 | * '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSZ8LTBHqqg Golumbia Video]]'''[='s=] logo looks like it was made with a very primitive form of Adobe Flash. Visually, the logo looks on par with VHS (this logo is said to be from around 2010), and the stock guitar music sounds both out-of-place and compressed. In context, it almost checks out (Golumbia Video is a video store in Brampton, Ontario), but this one is still an odd duck. |
| 167 | * The South Korean logo for '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbqS3eUQ1pU&t=1m22s Home Game]]''' is yet another copyright violation plastered onto already-infringing bootleg tapes. It takes an old commercial bumper for Showtime ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i12GjSarxvs&feature=youtu.be&t=18m12s here at 18:12]]) and [[SpecialEffectsFailure awkwardly]] uses an image of VideoGame/PacMan to cover up the original bumper's blue ball. At the end, it shows Pac-Man and the text "HOME GAME" next to each other, but despite there being room for both translations, the English text changes into a Korean version of itself. Perhaps they tried to show-off with the materials they were given? |
| 168 | * Greece has many awful home video logos, most of them relying on subpar CGI effects and/or scanimation and stolen music. However, the logos of '''Photo Video''', a Super-8-to-VHS transfer service based in Rhodes, are trainwrecks even for the standard: |
| 169 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnbuCfQ8Jgw The first logo]] has no order, and mostly consists of random effects. The fireworks BRoll is unnecessary, the animation is very primitive, and the end result looks more like a twisted arcade game than anything else. The music, an excerpt of "Equinoxe, Pt. 5" by Music/JeanMichelJarre, is of ''very'' bad quality, though this may be due to the age of the tape itself. |
| 170 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVM0zeBsXZ4 The second logo]] actually manages to be even worse than the first. The presentation is extremely dated for the time period (about 1993), there's a clear jumpcut between the black background and space background, and the logomark backing away from the background does so very slowly, lasting 20 seconds (moving back once every second) when it could have been much quicker. The harbor stock footage used in the final quarter looks severely wavy on the sides (possibly due to generation loss or tape deterioration), and the text plastered over it is in a very basic font. The only redeeming quality is that "Equinoxe, Pt. 5" sample sounds a lot better. |
| 171 | * The '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcc5oSnblQQ Pioneer Films]]''' logo used for the film ''Manilla Boy'' is merely just the 1987 Motion Picture Corporation of America logo, and while they were generous enough to use new sound effects, it still is blatantly unoriginal. Amusingly, you can still see the trademark sign of the original logo! |
| 172 | * '''Producciones Video Home''' has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeHyVzI0CuE logo born out of pure laziness]]. It's simply a slideshow set against a rainbow background with the company name sliding down as if it were paper. [[UsefulNotes/{{Plagiarism}} Making matters worse is that the logo uses the music from the 1970s Gaumont logo]], almost certainly without permission. |
| 173 | * "Slog" would be a good description of the logo used by '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C44ueKuMhqs Selena Studios]]''', a 2 minute and 23 second 4 FPS slideshow of nothing. It's so long that WebVideo/LazyGameReviews - who uploaded the capture of the logo and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4pKbrWITgk reviewed the edutainment games it came from]] - reported that ''the screensaver triggered during the logo''. And nothing even warrants it being that long - the initial animation lasts 45 seconds, followed by the world's slowest shooting star a minute in, then nothing for the last minute, as if it was rendered at the wrong speed. Even more bafflingly, the music--widely considered the [[TheOneThingIDontHateAboutYou only redeeming quality of the logo]]--is actually 2 minutes and 23 seconds long, which means at least one person actually saw the animation and thought "this is acceptable to put in a commercially-sold product". |
| 174 | * It's a wonder that '''UNC-TV''' (aka University of North Carolina Television, now known as simply PBS North Carolina as of 2021) managed to get [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpSsILHTUdQ their third logo]] onto a Creator/{{PBS}} affiliate, and it's particularly baffling that the logo lasted for the better part of the [=1970s=], for the simple reason that it's eye-searingly ugly. The font is horrendous and nearly illegible,[[note]]It's supposed to say "''UNC-TV'' Presents", but it instead looks like "''UNC-JV'' Prcscnjs".[[/note]] and the green and yellow shadows don't complement the purple letters at all.[[labelnote:*]]When used as a station ident, the letters were instead [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeLLU1u98hk sky-blue/navy-blue]], which is slightly less garish, but the font still makes the logo look very ugly.[[/labelnote]] As for the jingle, the weird medieval-sounding synth-harpsichord and bassoon is at least tolerable, but still nothing special. |
| 175 | * The vanity plate for the bootleg VHS company '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQZLW3lP78 The Video Bancorp]]''', a company most known for [[https://www.deseret.com/1993/4/15/19042240/popeye-videotape-is-a-real-eye-popper forgetting to erase a porno]] from tape stock they used for a ''ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}'' release, is an off-the-screen photo of the logo as drawn on MS Paint, complete with the CRT computer monitor bulge [[SpecialEffectsFailure and the program's interface clearly visible on the sides]]. Interestingly, the Closing Logo Group (now Audiovisual Identity Database) initially misinterpreted the "thanks you for using our product" text as a grammatically incorrect sentence due to poorly thought-out formatting. |
| 176 | [[/folder]] |
| 177 | |
| 178 | [[folder:Miscellaneous]] |
| 179 | * '''Disc Film''' was a film format developed by Kodak in the 1980s and discontinued less than a decade after its launch. Proposed as a cheaper and easy-to-use alternative to 35mm film and medium format, what was a good idea in theory instead landed as a gimmicky, poor quality alternative that became the laughing stock of film formats, even unfavorably compared to 110 (which came in 16mm cassettes) and Polaroid i-Zone. It consisted in 15 10x8mm film frames revolving inside a square cassette, however cameras that took this format normally had poor quality plastic lens, and even the best of those couldn't save this film from producing extremely grainy, poorly lit stills which translated into horrible prints; film shops found it painful to develop due to being pieces of film on plastic spokes. Analog Resurgence talks about it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EmdDSUnrQg here]]. |
| 180 | * '''[=McKamey=] Manor''', at first, was a fairly typical haunted house experience that was popular in its neighborhood for many years, with a dog food entry fee to be donated to a dog shelter. In 2013, after the success of ''Blackout Haunted House'' due to its RefugeInAudacity and expansion to Los Angeles, the man running it, Russ [=McKamey=], retooled it with a focus for patrons to "experience a real horror movie". Like ''Blackout'', guests signed a waiver releasing them of legal liability-except there was a huge difference. Whereas ''Blackout'', while being physical and having themes of sexual assault, took the patrons' safety seriously, ''[=McKamey=] Manor'' hyper-focused on extremity to the point where ''very few people have experienced the whole haunt'', especially when it's [[MarathonLevel 4-7 hours long]]. They are also not allowed to leave freely. [[note]]By contrast, those at ''Blackout'' can shout "SAFETY!" if they want to leave, at which time the attraction stops immediately and they get escorted out of the maze by a guide.[[/note]] This retool was divisive, but also gained a cult following. However, it only got [[SerialEscalation more and more extreme]], with its 2016 iteration '''''The Chamber''''' being where it went too far. It took everything to downright unethical extremes, such as [[WaterTorture waterboarding]], forced haircuts, legit punching and choking, and '''''much''''' worse. Severe injuries, up to bone fractures and one person getting knocked unconcious, were reported. Several people accused it of "legal torture", and its reputation was worsened with Russ going on the warpath against its detractors, losing almost all supporters left as a result. In 2017, Russ moved to Tennessee and used [=GoFundMe=] to move the manor with him, and announced it with a twist, a $20,000 dollar reward for whoever makes it through the entire thing. [[note]]Despite asking for help with moving through a gofundme and also owing the city of San Diego over a quarter million in taxes.[[/note]] However, due to a combination of the State of Tennessee [[ScrewedByTheLawyers severely restricting the new version]] and seemingly being [[NoBudget out of money]], this version was so pathetic that Russ [=McKamey=] resorted to a "You're not fit to continue" excuse to not pay anyone. Primink made an in depth retrospective on its rise and fall [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFbjglH-vrU here]], J Aubrey [[https://youtu.be/Ozf3zpYTC7s unfavorably compares it]] to ''Series/SquidGame'', and Wendigoon also goes in depth on its history, as well as read out (what was likely) the actual 40-page waiver being (mostly) read out with very strange, contradictory clauses being noted out [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFjUMezv2bE here.]] |
| 181 | * The Italian ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''-themed magazine '''''Pokémon World''''' over the years passed many iterations, many name changes, and an AudienceAlienatingEra that spanned for four years, but had issues twice: |
| 182 | ** First, the last issue of the original iteration, renamed ''Pokémon Mania'' at the time. While the actual last issue of the magazine is the March 2014 issue, after that the entire team behind it was fired for no reason from the publisher which made a final "issue" with no experience on the matter whatsoever: All the multi-parter articles that were still going on from last issue were stopped and replaced with stuff blatantly copy-pasted from the web (including an article leaving in a "click here and wait for the image to load" line), the belief that "Flash Fire" is not the name of an ability but the new name for the Fire Pokémon type (as in, "Vulpix is a Flashfire-type Pokémon"), a third of the magazine being occupied by a bunch of super-easy trivia questions written in a large font in order to fill more pages than it should, and generally half-assed everything. |
| 183 | ** After this accident, they made a two-issue comeback from a different publisher named ''Pokémon Mag'' in 2015, and later they came back in full strength as ''Pika Mania'' in 2016 under yet another publisher. But then, the ''Pokémon Mag'' publisher decided to revive its iteration of the magazine... and it's ''very bad''. They give news that are already old like they were the latest thing (the September 2016 issue explained how Pokéstops work two months after ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''[='s=] release and talked about [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Solgaleo and Lunala]] as a brand-new thing shown here for the first time, four months after they were unveiled) and the magazine also suffers of GISSyndrome (many pictures found in the magazine either don't match the article - such as DVD covers in articles about the Trading Card Game - or are thumbnail previews taken from [=YouTube=] videos. They also constantly use stolen fanart from [=DeviantArt=], including [[https://smiley-fakemon.deviantart.com/art/Mega-Exeggutor-459617017 fanmade]] [[http://smiley-fakemon.deviantart.com/art/Mega-Sandslash-475360228 Mega Evolutions]] [[http://dpghoastmaniac2.deviantart.com/art/Hula-Form-Meloetta-628289637 and alternate forms]] being used in every issue, passing them off as real stuff). They also keep giving aids on how to cheat at ''Pokémon Go'', helping kids to get banned from the game as soon as possible. |
| 184 | * '''[=Tele1st=]''' was an attempt by [[Creator/AmericanBroadcastingCompany ABC]], through Chicago affiliate WLS-TV, to launch a pay TV service built around recording the programming overnight on a 4-hour VHS tape, trialling it in Chicago with plans to eventually roll it out nationwide. However, the gimmick meant you couldn't watch programming live because the ''tape itself'' was scrambled and the decoder was to descramble the tape, and also meant the tape was useless when the codes changed. If you fast-forwarded or rewound the tape, the decoder had to catch up with itself, causing the descrambling to temporarily fail and you to miss what you wanted to return to. You also had to fine-tune the decoder yourself. So there must have been amazing content that made this hassle worth it for the average Chicagoan, right? Nope. For $25.95 a month -- $77.51 in 2024 dollars -- plus the cost of multiple blank tapes that could record four hours, you could only watch four movies a month, that you picked in advance, and these were often {{box office bomb}}s the studios were trying to recover from. Not every night had movies, either, and even when there was a movie, movies don't tend to run for the four hours a [=Tele1st=] broadcast lasted, meaning the runtime was padded out with miscellaneous crap like children's programming and cheap cooking shows. And before you say "surely you could see when the movie was supposed to start and just record that", important information was in the countdown that started each broadcast, meaning you had to record the entire broadcast -- ''Titus Chan's Flavors of China'' and all. A ridiculous, utterly impractical idea with insufficient content to compensate for the inherent hassle, and which only 4000 Chicago households subscribed to, the service never expanded beyond the Windy City before being discontinued on June 30, 1984, less than six months after its launch. The only part of the whole mess that's even somewhat decent is the countdown music ("Cyclotron" by Keith Mansfield), even if it does sound a bit like a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong rip-off]] of "Radioactivity" by Music/{{Kraftwerk}}. WebVideo/OddityArchive looks at it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbCHpO9UR0 here]]. |
| 185 | * Creator/WarnerHomeVideo's '''Rental Library''' program seemed like a good idea at the time it was conceived, but when it was formally announced, it became quite clear how tone-deaf it really was. In its first incarnation, which was essentially an extreme, more restrictive version of Creator/WaltDisneyHomeVideo's already divisive rental policy and is unanimously considered its worst in retrospect, Warner recalled all unsold product by October 12, 1981, to be repackaged and sent back out for a six-month period, after which the tapes would be permanently recalled regardless of any revenue the rentals had generated. Plus, you had to pay high fees and fill out massive amounts of paperwork to access any of their titles in the first place. Dealers were outraged immediately--John Vinwoodie of Video Specialties in Houston voiced his disenchantment based on both previously-mentioned flaws--and two notable defectors were Nickelodeon, based in Los Angeles, and Video Station, owned by George Atkinson, who is considered the father of video rental, which further drives home how bad an idea it turned out to be. Music/{{Queen}} notably began a [[ChannelHop label switch]] in the United States because of it, as their ''Greatest Flix'' release would go out through market newcomer [[Creator/{{EMI}} Thorn EMI Video]] instead. While the newer titles were successful rentals according to the charts, the reality was that the program as a whole was, in the long run, a failure, doomed from the start based on initial dealer reactions. Even revisions to the program in early 1982 to be less restrictive in its presentation failed to do much, if anything, to mollify the detractors, and the Warner program ultimately collapsed at the end of the year and became a RoleEndingMisdemeanor for president Mort Fink--he resigned near the start of 1983, just after the last rental titles had been converted to sale titles. Today, all surviving stock involved in the fiasco, especially ''Film/SupermanII'', have become highly-prized collector's items, but the program itself has been rightly relegated to the ash heap of history and, when mentioned, is almost always held up as the reason why [[GenreKiller rental-only failed in the United States]]--though, as the mere existence of our Media Formats/Storage Media folder is more than happy to demonstrate, some later companies evidently didn't take the Warner lesson to heart, [[HistoryRepeats capsulizing the policy into entire home video formats that themselves failed for their own reasons]]. |
| 186 | * Landry's Downtown Aquariums are heavily polarizing among zoo fanatics and tourists alike for their mediocre exhibits, high price, for profit touristy nature compared to other Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) facilities, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick possible ties to the mafia]]. Not even fans of the aquariums however would defend the Houston location's '''[[https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/white-tiger-exhibit.301164/ White Tigers of the Maharaja's Temple exhibit]]''', widely considered the nadir of AZA-accredited zoo and aquarium exhibits. Themed to the style of a temple, the tigers were permanently kept indoors in a hideous concrete enclosure, with more effort spent on widely-considered-ugly theming than creating a natural home for the tigers. Not only that, but a sign [[https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/white-tiger-exhibit-sign.301163/ claims]] that white tigers occur in the wild, a [[BlatantLies blatant lie]], as they are obtained through incestuous breeding between different tiger subspecies. Animal activists and zoo enthusiasts alike were ''enraged'', with animal activists upset with the horrendous conditions and threatening to sue Landry's, and zoo enthusiasts hating the ugly theming in addition to the sad husbandry. Fortunately, the enclosure broke a husbandry rule with the AZA stating that tigers be preferably kept outside, forcing the facility to relocate the tigers to an outdoor exhibit. |
| 187 | * '''[[http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/tv/article/100-cable-channels-we-dont-want Maxim's 100 Cable Channels We Don't Want]]'''. Each channel's passage about it is completely uninformative and nondescript: for example, The CW's passage reads "Name five CW shows. (This is a trick question. [[FanHater Your ability to answer will greatly affect your chances of being invited to our basketball picnic]].)". Not only that, but it goes even further on its qualifications for being Horrible, as the passages are uninformative and nondescript if ''the channel has a passage at all''; none of the channels between Creator/{{TBS}} ("Good for ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' reruns. That's it.") and [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] America ("''Series/DoctorWho'' isn’t very good. [[FanHater Everyone is lying to you]]. Trust us.") have any passage whatsoever, not even elitist nonsense. The last passage is for the entry after BBC America, Creator/{{Showtime}} 2. Since these were the only ones after the 30th entry, that leaves ''67'' entries - approximately '''two-thirds of the list''' - without a passage. The worst is that one entry near the end reading "Those strange channels that air foreign shows and have non-English subtitles", which fans of those channels and natives of foreign areas could argue are ''anything but unwanted''; with this entry, the author comes off as ignorant at best and xenophobic at worst. There are also numerous other flaws, such as how lazy the list is and how the "jokes" sometimes come off as [[FanHater elitist remarks]] (like [=SoapNet=]'s passage, which says "Soap operas are perfect for people who don’t know the Internet exists and/or can’t afford a hobby."). What's more, a few of the channels listed here ''aren't even cable channels''. For example, The CW[[labelnote:*]]in most markets[[/labelnote]], ABC, and PBS are all over-the-air networks...which you would get ''for free without cable'' anyway! |
| 188 | [[/folder]] |
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