Taco Locks and Other Delights From the Internet's Weirdest Etsy Store
So many bizarre things are for sale on the online arts-and-crafts fair Etsy that spotting them has become a business in its own right. Most of these are accidental monstrosities, but artist Brad Troemel is selling a line of purposely demented pieces, in what we feel comfortable labeling the weirdest Etsy store ever.
The Etsy paradox is that every Etsy seller advertises their products as "unique." Most sellers' wares are unique because they're handmade, or have an animal drawn on them or something. But Troemel haphazardly combines mass-produced items in ways that render them uniquely useless. For example his Whole Foods organic scented lawn torch (Unique, Lightly Used.) is a bunch of organic peppers skewered with a lawn torch that looks like something that would keep away the bugs at a surrealist's 4th of July barbecue.
Troemel, a New York-based artist who teaches at NYU, created the store as part of a group blog Jogging. In an email, he said he wanted to highlight the unlikely juxtapositions that come about in the whirl of online commerce, "pitting Viagra ads next to Children's books," for example.
The items in Troemel's Etsy store are typically over-priced ($45 will get you a "pineapple holder" made out of a knee pad and a bungee cord). But maybe it's an investment. "Sometimes people post my store's products on other parts of the internet and call them art," Troemel writes. "This is good because art is a conceptual way of making something that already exists more valuable and culturally relevant. I take pride in providing some of the most significantly organic, inscrutably rare, and immeasurably valuable products on Etsy."
Click through to see some more items and Troemel's descriptions. And be sure to check out the whole store, which currently has 33 items for sale, here.
MIKES classic HARDMARGARITA and Twisted Trojans
New six pack of *empty* MIKES CLASSIC HARD MARGARITAs w/ Trojans already on them.
To learn more about condoms visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condom ($35.00)
PERFECT chair decoration for two chairs very close together that no one can sit in SLIMJIM threaded through two pink SNOWBALLS coconut
Yummy the perfect two chair decoration can finally be yours for a historically low price of $25.
You're going to want to educate your grandchildren and give this to them when you enter your twilight years so that they too may one day give the gift of chair decor to their offspring. ($25.00)
FML Hat (HOT TOPIC) with Levi's Denim Trim Attached Around Front (Exceptionally Relevant and Wearable) Great Slimepunk Gift / Unique
This "Fuck My Life" hat is perfect for showing your sense of humour and style.
Comes with the cut off bottom of a pair of Levis above the bill of the hat. ($45.00)
EASTBOUND And DOWN Stoner Crab Kit :) Very Rare D.I.Y. Fun For Friends (Just don't smoke while plastic crab is in there haha) Great Birthday
New from Jogging's Brad Troemel comes the D.I.Y. hermit crab kit, where you are shipped a used bowl and a plastic hermit crab in a box.
NO GUARANTEES THE CRAB WILL ACCEPT THE BOWL AS ITS HOME, but if it does you know you have a true match. ($50.00)
DORITOSLOCOS taco MASTER LOCKED shut (Key Sold Separately) Highly Significant
DORITOSLOCOS taco from Taco Bell MASTER LOCKED shut (Key Sold Separately for $5).
Not organic, sorry! ($45.00)
