Pet Rock

 

The pet rock has to be the best example of "what the fuck were you thinking?" that I've ever seen.

In a combination of "absolute genius" and "total lunacy", and an iffy combination at that, Pet Rock is one of the weirdest "toys" to ever grace the market. In fact, it wasn't even invented by a toy maker or anyone in the industry whatsoever. The Pet Rock was invented by a man named Gary Dahl, an advertising executive, and you know what, that makes total sense. Pet Rock is the exact kind of thing I'd imagine an advertising executive would come up with. It's interesting yet it's also a complete and total insult to the people who like it, because it's so ridiculously lame. I like things like that. Thumbing your nose at the industry while raking in millions participating in it. And yes, I did say millions, because that's what the Pet Rock wound up making. Oh, no at first of course, no. At first it was merely a joke, and only lasted 6 months, but in February 1976, they were discounted due to lower sales. This inevitably wound up moving over 1 million units for 4 dollars a pop, resulting in Dahl becoming a millionaire.

Imagine that. Selling enough rocks to make millions of dollars, and not being the owner of a quarry to do it. Goddamned impressive, honestly. But, the actual genius lies in the fact that this man was smart enough to recognize that if we anthropomorphize anything, even on a super basic level, we will care about it. People have favorite pencils, give names to their clothes and overall get very emotionally attached to their things, myself included. So really he was just, whether he knew it or not, feeding on that pre-existing attachment to non sentient items that we all have.

Turns out Dahl was just having some drinks with friends in a bar, and when his friends complained about their pets, he casually remarked that he had the perfect pet...a rock. It didn't need to be walked, bathed or fed, and was absolutely no trouble at all to take care of. And what started out as a joke he wound up taking seriously, eventually creating the toy. The rocks only cost him one cent each, with the biggest financial burden being the case they came in. It also came with a booklet for how to care for your Pet Rock, full of puns and gags. I do appreciate that, at no stage during this "toys" development, did he ever take it even remotely seriously. From the proceeds of his Pet Rock, he opened his own bar called Carrie Nations, after a famous prohibitionists woman who smashed bars, which I appreciate the smarmy rudeness of, personally. But he wasn't done with the toy industry. He tried a few followups to his Pet Rock.

These included "Sand Breeding Kits", which just sounds fucking hilarious, and "Red China Dirt", wherein his plan was to smuggle mainland China into the US, one cubic centimeter at a time. Also hilarious. The man had a real knack for being outright funny with his concepts, which I whole heartedly appreciate. Unfortunately both of these failed to attract the same novelty that the Pet Rock had, so. The man essentially became a millionaire in half a year by selling goddamned rocks. What a true American hero, honestly. You think the Beanie Baby guy is brilliant cause he duped a bunch of dumb kids into thinking that not only were these necessary to own but also would be valuable one day? Puh-lease. Ty had nothing on this mother fucker. He made us buy ROCKS, dude. Something we could get for FREE outside. THAT'S a genius.

I sadly was born in 89 so I never had a Pet Rock, though I know they were made available again in 2012 and I'm sure I could easily find one now if I really wanted to. Dahl, unfortunately died in 2015, but his legacy will forever live on. There's plenty of toys out there to question the success of, because of how strange or downright dumb they might be. Whether it's the Rubics Cube, the Slinky, or the Furby, but nothing, NOTHING, will ever compare to the Pet Rock. It's like someone saying, "I bet I could get people to pay for a stick" and then actually following through with it. It's a true testament to not only how dumb the public is, and how we'll make someone a millionaire for the absolute weirdest reasons, but also just how effective a joke can be. A joke. That's what the Pet Rock was. And the man died with a net worth of 2 million dollars.

I think the joke was on US, you guys.