Online shopping is one of my favorite activities.  Around the holidays, what I love most are the curated (to varying extents based on the retailer) Gift Guides and the end-of-year sales.  

Not to sound like a snob, but after working for years in corporate retail, there's almost nothing less desirable than the crap hawked in an end-of-year sale.  They're the dregs left over from Black Friday markdowns, which is saying quite a lot.  Retailers want that stuff out of their stores and off their books to avoid being forced to either: 1) beg vendors to take back (or cover the cost of, aka "dialing for dollars", as my old boss would say) stale inventory in order to meet margin targets, or 2) once it can't be marked down any lower, sell to a jobber (i.e. the middleman who helps stock your local Marshall's/TJ Maxx) for virtually pennies on the dollar.

TL;DR: I enjoy end-of-year sales not from the thrifty view as a potential consumer, but as someone who likes to make snarky jabs from behind the safety of a computer screen or Reddit sub.

If you happen to be shopping for me at any of these retailers, don't even think of buying any of these items, which online are either promoted as Great Gifts! or are ridiculously on sale (or worse, both!  Can you say DESPERATE?).

It boggles my mind that UO stores stay in business, given the enormous amount of floor space dedicated to $24.95 LPs that I've literally never seen anyone buy and shelf space heartily filled with nostalgia brands (CK, Starter, Nautica [not even the Lil Yachty collab], North Face, Champion...so much Champion...) that would only be purchased by the people who already purchased it when their Supreme collab dropped 5 years ago.

I'd posit that the classic UO standbys are keeping gross margins afloat and shareholders [somewhat] happy.  You know what I mean - the cheap crossbody bags; the chunky heels that instantly fall apart; the jewelry and sunglasses which instantly fall apart; and, more recently, I've noticed, an expanded 'beauty' section filled with face masks, candles in interesting scents like 'Lower East Side'; and serums, soaps, & scrubs of dubious quality sold in instagrammy packaging.

Anyway, here are some more things I don't want for Christmas:

Sub Urban Riot Fleekend Tee, $24.99 (from $39.00)

Can't you imagine that eighth grade math teacher who starts class on Monday by saying "Hope your fleekends were lit AF!" before telling everybody to put away their fidget spinners?

Fetty Wap – Fetty Wap LP, $19.99 (from $27.98)

No, thank you.

OneRepublic - Oh My My 2XLP, $24.99 (from $29.98)

It wasn't until I went to name the .png file that I realized this was OneRepublic, not One Direction, which is even more reason for me to not want it.  And why is this record offered in the "color" red, but Fetty Wap's is "black", huh?

And finally - the one redeeming aspect of this product page was the single album review, written by a delightful troll who should be hired by Urban Outfitters immediately:

Regal Rose Hair Spike Set, $19.99 (from $24.00)

There must have been some sort of articulated inspiration behind this medieval torture device-goth fairy contraption.  I just don't think it fully translated from concept to real life.

Crying Dawson Men's Tee, $14.99 (from $28.00)

Urban Outfitters Design Exec: "My team spent the past weeks designing something new, fresh, and exactly what our core market will be after this season: a five-year old irrelevant, stale meme from Dawson's Creek, beloved by BuzzFeed and printed on a plain cotton tee in a quality rivaling that of Cafepress and perhaps even Redbubble.  Does a $28 price point and 100,000-unit production run sound reasonable?"

The UO Home Gifts Section

I have fond memories of Urban Outfitters' Novelty Goods section (now called the more respectable "UO Home" department, perhaps because 'novelty goods' sounds a bit too much like the joke/gag shop it ultimately still is).  It was where I discovered things like frozen shot glass molds, coffee mugs covered in profanity, and glow-in-the-dark Lucite dominos.  

UO Home still carries these things (there's a neon acrylic chess set I've wanted very badly since last Christmas) and has increased their selection of practical furniture (i.e. apartment-size desks and colorful shelving units, not beanbag chairs and inflatable pool rafts) and bedding (whose quality, however, seems to be lacking - at best, in consistency). But there are still some questionable items that were inevitably headed straight to the holiday discount bin!

UO_TUNE_IN Bluetooth Cassette Boombox (????)

If you have an extra hour of your life that you don't care about at all and actually wish to toss in the trash, please take the time to read through the convoluted product description below describing this...widget that sounds like a gag item out of 'The Sims' inventory. Your (rightful) cause for alarm will be the announced launch of "UO_TUNE_IN" (whoever came up with that branding name is probably also the genius behind that Dawson meme shirt). 

UO_TUNE_IN's début is trumpeted in a manner which makes it painfully clear that UO is oblivious to both the sky-high cringe factor and the fact that the world does not need an "in-house tech line" from Urban Outfitters.  The description is correct by omission, however - by touting U_T_I (oh no! did no one catch that shortened version??) products as quintessentially U_T (Urban Outfiters Technology and frankly, most Urban Outfitters products in general) with the following: 

"...each piece designed with innovative function..."  Proper, consistent functionality, however, is secondary - as the single reviewer of this...contraption attests. 

"...signature soft-touch matte casing"  Apple: signature sleek, all-white design and user-friendly functionality; Bang & Olufsen: signature wood-and-metal Scandinavian design and superior sound engineering; U_T_I: signature...soft PVC outer and..."fresh colors"...?

Novel but unnecessary (or irrelevant) design, low-quality materials & manufacturing, and fresh colors (but stale memes!): perhaps a more accurate way to designate "signature" UO quality (and, probably, U_T_I).

PLEASE STOP WITH THE NEON LIGHTS!!!!!!

See what you've done, Dan Flavin and Tracey Emin?

"Gifts for the Eternal Optimist"

Let's see...t-shirt with BuzzSpeak (i.e. in the category of "SLAY", "ON FLEEK", "LIT AF", etc.), mug with googly eyes, a fucking fidget spinner...yes, this is someone I'd like to punch in the face.

"Gifts for the Romantic"

aka gifts for that girl lusting after style bloggers' identical white, fluffy, coffee table book-laden, tasteful art-filled, and exotic kitsch-embellished apartments, and therefore is in desperate need of a Diptyque Baies candle, an assortment of French perfume bottles, a collection of vintage jewelry, and delicate plates of maracons.

You won't find any of those things at Urban Outfitters, but you can get pretty damn close (and honestly, from a little square Instagram photo, no one will know the difference).  And you can get the full romantic effect by wearing a Nirvana 'Heart-Shaped Box' vintage-inspired oversized red t-shirt, which UO suggests would make a nice gift for a "Romantic" - a suggestion that's either obliviously unaware, perversely ironic, or done at the behest of Courtney Love.

(Read Michael Azerrad's 'definitive' (I think?) coverage of Nirvana-slash-unofficial-Kurt Cobain biography to fully understand the reference - or just listen to the lyrics closely, if you haven't already.  It happens to be my favorite Nirvana song.)

(By the way, I do have Diptyque candles (I don't like Baies and don't get what the big deal is; I prefer the Figuer candle) & a hearty collection of coffee table books and a few bits of exotic kitsch (mostly from other people's travels).  On the other hand, my apartment was cursed with dark wood floors, I don't like macarons or white fluffy anything, and my favorite recent artistic acquisition is a first-edition hand-drawn flyer for an underground Minutemen concert, purchased for $14 at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles.  Just saying - you can have the best of both worlds.)

Well, that was a delight (as always) and I'm glad I sacrificed precious hours of sleep to stay up and finish writing something that no one will read and which only I will find hilarious and well-written.

Which store should I do next?  It should be somewhere I would reasonably shop but which has known mine-bombs sprinkled throughout and therefore providing ripe fodder for snide remarks like what's been written above.  I have a few ideas brewing - both at the low- and high- ends of the retail spectrum, but I'll keep it a surprise for now.