Greater Fools (Blogophilia 33.10_

This is a post about fads and to what extent a fad market can explode. 
 
There is a show on Cartoon Network called “Rick and Morty, that involves a scientist and his grandson time traveling through history.” I’ve only seen a couple of episodes, but my sons think it is the most brilliant thing ever. Especially my younger one. He is also the entrepreneurial one, always on the latest trend. 
 
In a recent episode of the show, Rick and Morty transported back to 1998 to attend to a family matter. When he landed, he immediately went to McDonald’s. You see, this is when the movie Mulan was first released and Disney had a merchandising license with the company that included a Szechuan chicken dipping sauce (that also is tasty with duck). Rick called it the best sauce ever made. 
 
He took a huge number of packets back to his time machine to enjoy in the present time.
 
The fans of the show took notice. There was already a small collector market for the sauce and prices on Ebay went wild. So wild that McDonald’s re-released a very small batch to take advantage of the interest. My son tried get some to resell for a profit (he needs new tires on his truck), but it had all been spoken for. The company then released this status update: 
 
 
It is for the the best. Like all fad markets, the price of Szechuan sauce will continue to rise until the new batch gets released, or the fools find some other shiny bling to spend money on. The ones left holding the hot potato then get burned. It is a disaster that repeats itself over and over again. 
 
It is our choices that show us who we are. When a food condiment is more important than the victims of [insert your choice of disasters from the last three weeks], we need to take a long look in the mirror.
 
The image doesn’t look good.
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Pic guesses: Duck, An obscene term not involving a duck, Dinner Guest, Gilbert Gottfried, Plucked, Roasted, Daffy in retirement, Marvin’s revenge, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, She doesn’t look Chinese, Pre Paté, Mallard’s rest. Gander,

Comments

  1. The market is already starting to weaken for the sauce. Got a email notifying me of a couple cut rate listings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. But, then some people can work the market...

    http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/rachel-marie-szechuan-sauce-mcdonalds-car_us_59e11f43e4b0a52aca17f9af?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

    ReplyDelete

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