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The Creepy Ikea Baby Web Craze
Can’t afford $18,000 for a “trait-selected” child? A viral internet parody shows how the Swedish retailer Ikea would design a kid that goes great with a rattan ottoman and a spiffy halogen lamp.
Shortly after the unsavory news broke that Fertility Institutes, a California clinic, was proposing to offer “trait-selected” babies—for an estimated $18,000—plans for a more affordable, if sadly generic, designer infant hit the web.
“The Ikea Baby,” a hilarious, spot-on parody of the Swedish retailer’s baffling assembly instructions, was created by Aubrey Clayton, a New York mathematician. It has quickly become an underground Internet phenomenon, celebrated by sites like Boing Boing. (See unnerving sample images below.) Sending up parents who treat children as accessories, as well as our susceptibility to Ikea’s uncanny “birch effect,” this newborn, christened BÅB, seems to have struck a chord.
“I designed it as a joke for a friend who’s expecting this June,” says Clayton, 29, a wry statistics wonk who’s also given to baking geometrical 20-sided pecan pies. “She was wondering aloud what caring for an infant was going to be like, and I said, ‘Make sure you get replacement parts.’ I was going to create a deadpan baby-care instruction manual, but I just thought this grotesque, dismembered kid was funnier.”
I see only two flaws in this satirical product’s viability. First, parents who attempt to co-construct Ikea products have a notoriously high divorce rate. (Clayton’s friend and her partner are an exception, he says: “They actually like assembling the furniture. It’s weirdly brought them closer together. They have that Ikea temperament: a spirit of adventure mixed with a certain, crazed intensity.”) The other problem is that, like the ubiquitous BILLY shelf or the rudely named ASPUDDEN wall cabinet, BÅB is not distinctive or superior enough to satisfy the sort of ubiquitous, ultracompetitive couples who inspired my new humor book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents.
Then again, now that Fertility Institutes has bowed to public revulsion and called off its production of customized Hitler Youthish, blue-eyed tots, Clayton’s more populist model might stand a chance. Let’s take a closer look.
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Dale Hrabi has analyzed culture and trends as a writer and editor for Details, Elle, Radar, and The New York Times. His new humor book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents (Harper Collins), will be published this March.
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Dale Hrabi has analyzed culture and trends as a writer and editor for Details, Elle, Radar, and the New York Times. His new humor book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents was recently published by Harper Collins.
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Dale Hrabi has analyzed culture and trends as a writer and editor for Details, Elle, Radar, and the New York Times. His new humor book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents was recently published by Harper Collins.
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Dale Hrabi has analyzed culture and trends as a writer and editor for Details, Elle, Radar, and the New York Times. His new humor book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents was recently published by Harper Collins.
So funny! Thank god the Hitler youthish cult has been stopped in it's tracks too. Can't wait for the book..:)
Thank you Aubrey, thank you Dale. What a hoot!! Ingvar Kamprar would be so proud! Ikea's founder has often spoken of the personal growth workshop-type experience he's wanted for his customers through the enforced self-assembly process... What better transformational workshop encounter than co-constructing a beautiful BÅB with a very special someone? Which makes one ponder - would that need to be a church-sanctioned relationship or just committed, would it extend to same sex couples and the "companion challenged"? All these questions...
Overpopulation...? At least our minds can rest easy that no BÅB will go hungry through this, although the inexpensive egg/bacon/chippolata/hashbrown/bean/tomato and meatball diet might become a tad same-y rather quickly!
God help us if we lose sight of the really important Life Schtuff. I get the sense there are enough out there who already feel screwed!
Personally, I feel a sweat lodge coming on...
I laughed. I cried. I almost vomited. This is the most offensive thing I've seen on the internet all week.
Dunno why, but any things, other than the real thing, that resembles a baby scares the shit out of me. Dont invite me to your house with this sitting on your sofa.
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http://alexius-locker.blogspot.com/
Maybe this is why some people are afraid of clowns.
Thank you.
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