Remember ‘Ship Your Enemies Glitter’? Now There’s ‘Ship Your Friends Nothing’
Surprise! There’s nothing inside! (Via Thinkstock)
Nowadays you can get a “curated collection” of almost anything— clothes, makeup, dog toys, pot-smoking accessories — delivered to you monthly. But do you actually need any of that stuff?
This is the question posed by the week-old website Ship Your Friends Nothing, whose tagline is “Because Things Are Overrated.” The website allows you to send anyone a standard envelope for $3.99 or a document envelope for $8.99 — with nothing in it.
As the website’s creator explains on its homepage, “Nothing is MORE EXCITING than walking to the mailbox and pulling out an envelope with your name and address HANDWRITTEN on it! And nothing is more disappointing, confusing, frustrating, and possibly scary (in that order) than opening that envelope to find … absolutely nothing.”
The concept is reminiscent of the accidentally viral and indisputably cruel site Ship Your Enemies Glitter, which was sold by its original creator, Matthew Carpenter, after he became disillusioned with the project. The owner of SYFN, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Daily Dot that he was directly inspired by his sparkly predecessor.
“I created SYFN after thinking how awful it would be to get sent glitter,” he said. “I ultimately wanted to create something that would have a longer-lasting effect than a quick glitter bomb, that being nothing. Nothing has the power to linger in the recipient’s mind for days, weeks, or even months.”
On the surface, it sounds pretty evil. Why would you ship your friends nothing? Wouldn’t you more realistically ship your enemies nothing? Also: Why would you pay 10 times more to a company to ship your friends nothing, rather than ship them nothing yourself? Anyway, maybe you signed up for your subscription service only because you wanted the rush of a mysterious gift, Christmas all year long. But, in the end, as long as a package with your name on it comes to your door, does it even matter what comes inside?
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