Once in awhile an opportunity for ridicule so rich comes along that we HAVE to send it around to the kids in the office for a good old-fashioned cynical roundtable. We spend so much time promoting great arts that we gotta make sure "dope" "fresh" "fantastic" and "awesome" aren't the only words in our vocabulary. You can imagine our excitement when this lil coupon for TOMS' shoeless march through Manhattan popped up - the shallow mockery could hardly be contained.
On April 16th, TOMS will host their notorious "One Day Without Shoes" campaign. This Living Social coupon boasts the opportunity for do-gooders to meet in Madison Square Park at 6pm, toss off their shoes, and march across town to the Pourhouse for pizza and beer to fundraise for Save the Children - a $40 value for the reduced price of $19! Goodness.
A - LOL! layers, so many layers... You'd have to be a total sucker to participate. You're gonna PAY to walk through NYC streets barefoot?! - but don't worry, there's booze and pizza at the end! FUN! Wait, I mean CHARITY (with a coupon)!
Z - Please take your shoes off and walk through the garbage laden streets of Manhattan. If you make it to the Pourhouse without any STD's we'll give you pizza and get you drunk. If you do get STD's chock it up to sympathy for the little bastards we're trying to help out.
R - Yah it's dumb but I guess if it incentives donation then so what.
A - I can't imagine what kind of nerds will be at this thing. Predominantly white, middle class office dwellers who stalk Living Social for spa and brunch deals is my guess. FYI I too am a white office dweller, I'm way cooler tho.
D - This is pret-ty funny on several levels. But I gotta say I find shoelessness quite a funny thing to rally around (apart from when we're talking about jigger), especially when the lifestyle section of every newspaper is seemingly obsessed with barefoot running. Just yesterday this was from page of the Guardian.
G - Sorry, I'm busy that day - I've got this fast in solidarity with all the starving children in Ethiopia - because then I'll really know what it's like to starve - and then later I've got this "day without a home" party where we all sleep on the sidewalk next to the trash cans - sleeping bags and pillows are allowed of course - but then we'll really understand the plight of the homeless on a much deeper more connected level, and after that I'm doing a "dirty water" day where you are only allowed to drink sewer water from the dirty gutters of the Brooklyn streets in order to raise money for Charity Water wells in Africa which they'll build and then abandon 5 years after the fact.
B -
E - Before purchasing this coupon you should be aware that in the year 2000 Michael Franti did some shit like this AND THE MF (<--no pun intended) HAS NOT WORN SHOES SINCE THEN. Just saying. It's a slippery slope. Please consider how you will look wearing shitlocks before you sign up. (Unless you already have 'em…in which case, dumb out).
N - Fire the marketing department, this idea is horrible... aaannndddd they've sold a total of 16 tickets sooo #fail
