This is pure speculation, but I’d believe this was originally designed as an adult Halloween toy–admittedly a poorly thought-out one.
I still find the store owner’s defense indefensible, even though I think dollar stores are pretty much immune to bad publicity. Their very nature says, “get cheap crap here”. Still, since it’s a dollar store, it’s not as though they have a lot to lose by pulling these.
I actually want one!
Depends… would you like a bottle of wine?
so, i’m confused.
is the mom nuts or does the evil stick really depict someone getting cut by a knife? if so, we really need pics to see if it’s cartoony funny or gory or what.
OK, found it.
how in the fuck is this OK for kids? other than the word “evil”, the rest of the toy and package looks like My Little Pony. I think these are for grown folks, didn’t sell, dumped to Dollar General, and the buyer [for DG, that is–edit] didn’t bother to vet the product. siding with the mom, here.
EDIT: gee, it would have been nice to know there was a video on the main page before I looked all this stuff up and made a redundant post @frauenfelder
Not gonna lie, that picture creeps me the fuck out.
I think you sum up the issue(s) nicely.
There have been many cases of dumbfucks charmingly naive people thinking something genuinely innocuous was a sign of impending takeover by dark forces. (Like the unexpectedly Spanish-speaking baby doll whose lo-fidelity cries of “Aqui momma?” where interpreted as “KILLY MOMMY!”)
This . . . this is weird.
The store owner’s protests notwithstanding, I don’t think “Evilstick” is sufficient labeling. If it were a gag item or Halloween item it should not have been placed amidst the Disney Princess knock-offs.
On the other hand, I kind of doubt the owner KNEW about the item; it was just another piece of cheap crap he got a chain-level determined shipment of.
Does it vibrate?
The CIA and NSA are up to some crazy shit these days…
You’re looking for HAPPY STICK.
Of course . . . would you really stick something electronic into your body that was purchased at Dollar Tree?
And again I’m reminded why I don’t watch local news. Also, I have to think the store owner didn’t know about the image underneath the shiny shiny star stuff. Maybe he did, but the annoying non-regional diction news-speak forced me out of the video too early.
Frankly it seems a bit like a prank. That photo of the girl cutting herself is a bit much. Somewhere overseas, an exporter is sinking into his recently purchased hot tub with a fresh margarita and thinking to himself, “Those stupid fucking American consumers!”
I’m thinking Sailor Moon. And is that the Coca-Cola typeface? But yeah, super weird disconnect between the visual message being sent by both package and product design and the toy’s actual function.
Not to overly defend local news scare mom, but is the word ‘evil’ really enough to make one guess the deep expectation-busting weirdness of this toy? Considering the “I can send out the luster of the beauty” blurb and cutesy everything else I’d guess ‘translation error’ before ‘dire warning’, myself.
Deeply weird, isn’t it. And looks randomly stolen from google image search. I’m guessing more of a “sloppy reuse of existing plastic molds and packaging to make a ‘new’ product” meets “bargain-bin research and development standards” meets “China-US culture shock” regarding halloween or scary manga fads or something.
If you think this shit is weird, try watching some of Ashens’ videos on the you tubes
I loved that store owner. He couldn’t resist getting into the debate despite not having a leg to stand on. Practiced nonplused expression. “What do you expect from something called ‘evil’.”
But… Would this be a Keter, or a Euclid? I’m pretty sure this doesn’t count as “safe”.
And for globsakes, don’t let SCP-682 get a peek at it. He’ll kill us all with the power of general creepiness he absorbs from it.
The character on the box is the heroine of “Card Captor Sakura”, which was maybe a generation or so after Sailor Moon and basically the same type of show. (The stick isn’t actually from the series, though.) I hesitate to call it completely kid-friendly, as it portrayed as cool a romance between a ten-year-old girl and her teacher (which is plenty scary), but it was overall fairly brainless fluff and it definitely didn’t have any demon ladies. Safe to say that this is an unauthorized use of the character, of course.
OK, people: The character on the packaging is not a ‘Disney fairy princess knockoff’, it’s Cardcaptor Sakura, which is actually pretty fun and well-made manga/anime about a girl who must gather all the cards from some magical tarot deck gone rogue to save the world. End pedantic rant. (ETA: earthisthering beat me to it)
That said, what the hell happened here? It looks so deliberate. Did some factory somewhere decided to troll everyone?
Only if you take the building.
Ah, Japanese. Now it makes sense. I’m surprised she’s not sucking on a tentacle.
I bought one of these at my local grot shop for one of the neighbor’s kids.
