Last Irk
11Meh You’ve drove Me away. Second Irk in a row with not 1 useful item. Irk bag ain’t worth $11. Seven year old shit that doesn’t work and same yellow paint You sent Me last time. Going to Woot and gona stay there. Should have stayed one site but NO You had to expand Your garbage.
- 26 comments, 42 replies
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/giphy “bless your heart”
@f00l You win!
Okay, hear me out. You obviously get something out of Meh because you’ve placed 200 orders in 8 years, and you don’t make a dramatic exit announcement for a site that you’re indifferent about, so here’s a thought: maybe stop buying IRKs if they anger you so much. It’s like buying a lottery ticket & expecting something useful to come from it after you’ve lost. The value comes in the anticipation of “winning” (getting something good) when the odds are stacked WAY against you. It’s not like Meh doesn’t warn you many times over every time they offer an IRK, it’s just that you refuse to believe them. Take Maya Angelou’s sage advice, BELIEVE THEM!!
@ircon96 However lottery tickets are cheaper… just sayin’
@ircon96 @Kidsandliz …and if they pay out, it may be life-changing, in one way or another. But the point was I think, “after you’ve lost”- so then there is no value-
…unless you hit it big on a future one, and then you can deduct the cost of the losing tickets on your taxes… just sayin’
@ircon96 for me, the value came from being able to score an IRK when there were only 100-200 people getting one. Buying them outright isn’t really fun.
@hanxiety @ircon96 true that. there’s no thrill of the hunt
Normal IRKs were so great.
Then I made a mistake and somehow bought a $75 IRK. It was the worst I ever had.
Bought a $30 IRK recently. Got a huge box of TrackR thingies from 2017.
@Ark_kun My most recent IRK had a Bee’s Knees 2-pack [Hot Honey, Hot Maple Syrup, and some unspellable/unpronounceable chili paste-modified Sriracha], a teapot w/ ss-steeper, and 2-packs of hand sanitizer- not the best things ever, but we’ll make use of it all.
The prior one had 2 p;d TrackRs- not useful at all for us, 2 usb car power point adapters- actually useful for us, a Fukuoka handbag- always cool, and a battery-powered Shark Steam Mop- of which we already have a more-powerful corded version, so we’re trying to figure out who we know that could benefit from it.
So, what I guess I’m trying to say is we go into buying our IRKs knowing that the outcomes will be variable, and we just make the best of whatever comes out of it. If it was a really crucial thing, we’d never risk the $$. See EAP’s comments below for more.
This past IRK I got a bunch of crap and a new Cuisinart mini chopper and whatever. I won’t use it but will give it to someone who thought I spent $70 on them. I’ve never NOT gotten something worth the money I spent except when I missed the deadline on a $100 one and didn’t buy anything else to bring down the cost. Like the person said above it’s like buying a lottery ticket.
@EdgarAllenPope You’ve been lucky then that you have never had an irk where nothing in there was worth money. One time I got a handful of returned and marked broken items. That was it. Well and the fuko bag. Another time I got spare parts to unknown items and googling didn’t help me find them, a cup with a broken off handle, and something else that wasn’t a return but didn’t charge nor turn on. Most have had something that was sellable. And I hit the jackpot twice, I think it was, with an expensive item that actually worked in the one case despite the trashed bag and the other item’s value was pretty high.
@EdgarAllenPope Ugh, I managed that with one. Fell asleep on the job…
That is the reason I stopped trying for IRK’s when they stopped selling them for $5us. A bunch of useless junk that I don’t even need!
@mycya4me YOU my friend, hit the nail on the head!
NOBODY “tries” for an IRK these days, you buy one if you want one (sometimes at an outrageous price) or you don’t! It’s really THAT simple!
What I miss is ALL of the anticipation of trying to get the IRK in the first place! The staying up all night and the fun chatter of everyone griping about how they just missed it, or bitching about the slow Internet, or the members only hour instead of it being only for VMPs, and of course whatever else has their panties in a wad.
YUP, it’s the meh-rathon anxiety that I miss the most, along with all that fun!
@mycya4me I’ve been around since the beginning and got some very cool things in earlier free IRK’s and even the $5 ones. When they stopped doing that and went to charging crazy prices for them, for me that took the fun out of it and I stopped. I liked trying to get one before they sold out, even if many times I didn’t. Then it was a surprise of what you actually get but along with the junk, there were usually at least one or two items that you could say were definitely more than just Meh!
Got a box full of Trackrs that are useless without a valid app. Got 2 ring thing you put on your phone. And finally, a Cuisinart immersion blender! For $10 (ultimately), I am not mad at all. I love the chaos of IRKs.
@Gamblam are the trackrs useless? I also got a box of them. I was going to give them as stocking stuffers
@jmruru yes if you look them up for the app or anything, they closed everything in 2021 and there is NO WAY to use them.
@Gamblam @jmruru If you have an android device, they can be used. I successfully connected on my phone using the SwiftFinder app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details/SwiftFinder?id=com.snappwish.swiftfindernetwork
Batteries are likely dead but are replaceable
YMMV
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I already posted this over in the reveal thread, but it might be even more relevant here…
A thought occurred to me this morning, and I have to wonder just how relevant it really is.
Woot! is an expression of joy.
Meh is an expression of resignation.
How much has this fundamental difference eroded the sense of enthusiasm that I infer was once present?
@werehatrack I remember some really angry Wooters though
@jmruru @werehatrack Maybe they weren’t getting their joy?
@jmruru @werehatrack So business as usual?
I definitely feel there’s a much bigger sense of expectations and entitlement with some folks, though. It’s advertised as a “bag of crap” for a reason! Just as iRKs are advertised as an “instant regret kit”.
But hey, when a 1 star review says “I bought the wrong item and it doesn’t work.”, somehow it’s the product and the retailer’s fault.
@jmruru @narfcake @werehatrack Sending people crap and regret works at the $5-10 price point, not at $30+ though. If you pay $5-10 and the company sends you $20 worth of stuff at retail in a way that they still break even, save on disposal costs, and clear up shelf space for better business opportunities, that’s reasonable. If you pay $30 and the company sends you $5 worth of hand sanitizer under the guise of “mystery box,” that’s more like fraud. Or how about the people who bought IRKs at upwards of $100 and their best item was a generic iPhone case from 2012?
@jmruru @ShotgunX @werehatrack So again with my prior 1 star review comment, this is along the lines of how an IRK is advertised:
Mercatalyst is not forcing anyone to spend $30+ on these things! If someone buys it at that price without following the instructions on how it’ll be discounted, it’s all on the buyer! A previous IRK was $99, with up to $98 refunded with qualifying purchases. It’s not meh’s fault if an IRK buyer didn’t make any other purchases – and the aspect that it would have net out to $1 … well, even Dollar Tree isn’t $1 anymore.
@narfcake An item that is priced at $X is valued at $X, even if it has conditional contingencies attached.
But that’s beside the point.
The point is that these things used to be good (good value on average, relatively unique contents between boxes, sold via interesting events like games of skill on the forums, etc.); they aren’t now. Regardless of the wording used in the store copy, it can be perceived by many customers that quality, in all of its various aspects, has gone down. It could very well be a conscious business decision, I don’t know. Maybe this aspect of their business is an afterthought now compared to the other things they have going on.
@narfcake @ShotgunX I can’t discount the observable fact that they are clearly sitting on several tons of utterly unsellable crap like the hand sanitizer and the too-weak car charger plugs, and will continue to use the IRKs to dispose of them because of hazmat and ewaste concerns. (This doesn’t explain the unending stream of Casery stuff, though. The Mac and iPhone cases in particular are little more than dumpster food, and shouldn’t trip anyone’s hazard-o-meters.)
@narfcake @ShotgunX Damned countertop. Before, it didn’t hurt too much. But now it hurts my head EVERY time I bang against it. Guess I should quit?
@jmruru @narfcake @ShotgunX @werehatrack I rarely find anything I want to buy during the Mehrathon to offset the price of the IRK.
@werehatrack
It’s a bag of crap vs instant regret.
Buying something literally called an Instant Regret Kit, and then regretting it, and getting mad at anyone other than yourself. chef’s kiss.
I’ve gotten a few underwhelming irks recently, but I’ve also gotten some really epic ones. A freaking ice cream maker in an IRK?? I was very happy. Though I can’t always afford to do the “buy $100 worth of items to get a free irk”, I’ll always think it is fun receiving a box and opening it up not knowing what might be inside.
@sstaver to be fair, it’s been a long time since I got a GOOD Irk… Like years. That said, despite some being terrible, I think I’m still ahead on value for Irks over the years.
@sstaver I think what some people are reacting to is that getting an irk was more than getting an irk by beating everyone else out. It was a day long event with fun things we did online, some people got them as prizes for that… I think part of what some of us miss is everything/events that surrounded the irk that helped make the irk (and fuko and fuku) special not just because of what was in them but that this was an event an online party… a gathering of online friends to have fun.
For some reason this post got the Wham Christmas song stuck in my head. “Last Irkmas, I gave you an IRk…”
As a an Inked IRK receiver, the last box I got was the worst IRK I’ve received I believe. And yes, I was a tad disappointed. Because I love the mystery of the IRKs. But I also pay $0 to get my IRKs, unless you include my monthly membership fee
I guess it’s just mildly irritating to have the throw away a whole box of stuff right from the mail - they’re like junk packages rather than just junk mail.
Then again, my mother once mailed me a box of stuff and told me if I didn’t want any of it, to just toss it. I told her she didn’t need to pay to mail me her garbage and it’s ok to throw it away.
So has it to come to this? Meh is now just acting like a 70+ year old woman?
@mbersiam not nearly enough cats on meh. Maybe that’s coming next.
@mbersiam @OnionSoup Not enough cats, you say?!?!
This last one was nothing but junk for me. They didn’t even throw in the bag!
I think things have hit rock bottom like with the last IRK when everyone (and I mean everyone me included) got either hand sanitizer, trackers or glitter paint and very few got anything of value.
Think it was much more fun when they popped up randomly during a mehrathon and they only cost $ 5 and you weren’t forced to buy something you really didn’t need or want in the first place.
@Felton10 I’m not trying to negate your frustration, but “forced to buy something you really didn’t need or want” is a wildly inaccurate statement. We don’t now, nor have we ever, forced anyone to buy IRKs nor is anyone forced to reduce the costs of their IRK purchases. As always, every purchase is a choice made by the customer. We’ve long advocated for the path of least frustration by advising everyone to NOT buy IRKs, but for the life of our writing staff, they can’t seem to convince anyone to stop.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@ExtraMedium Since only once recently did you offer an IRK with no strings attached so for those of us addicted to “IRK”, I stand by my previous statement for “forcing us to buy” as it was necessary to feed my habit.
But I have to thank meh because in your efforts to extort more and more money from us for “stuff we really don’t need or want” increases, it has forced me to go cold turkey when I see an IRK. With the totally worthless to me or anyone else stuff I got in the last IRK fresh in my mind, it turned out to be an amazing turn off when I saw the IRK today for more money than I paid for the last one.
/showme 70 year old meh woman with cats
@mbersiam, @onionsoup - checks out!
The best part of my last IRK was an old Fuko bag. brings back memories. The 31 TrackRs not so much, I ready have a couple dozen in a drawer.
maybe the future IRKs will have the leftovers from today
@norman maybe. I think the only items I’ve received in irks that were previously for sale on Meh were trackrs and poo pouri (broken bottles of it). I might be forgetting some things, (memory damage from inhaling broken bottles of poo pouri) but most things I’ve received haven’t been for sale on meh before going in an irk.
I purchased an Instant Regret Kit and I was instantly regretful about it when received. I’m angry that I got what I paid for and I keep doing it, help.
@TacoKnight so you like being forced to buy $20 in other items on meh to get the irk for $10? I think $10 with no strings attached would be much better for the value of the items received.
@medz I don’t like this model either, but since there were some items in the Meh-rathon that I was interested in, I gambled my additional $10 in an IRK (for the second time in this model). I would also be more motivated to purchase it if it was $10 with no strings attached, I think it’s a win-win, we get more value of the purchase and Meh gets rid of unsold inventory for which I’m pretty sure they still make some dollars on.
Well, it DOES say “throw it in the trash”. That’s what I was forced to do.
I ordered an IRK In the Thanksgiving Side Deal / Meh Mehrathon deal. I don’t know if this was in shipping, packing, or the product was this way from the beginning, but the entire IRK was practically destroyed when I opened the box. There was a box of Simple Things essential oils in my IRK, but the glass vials had broken/cracked and the essential oils coated EVERYTHING in the box, from the IRK bag to the TrackR case to the hand sanitizer, and it left small glass chips all around the box, embedded everywhere.
I had to throw it all away because just reaching in to pluck out the hand sanitizer embedded a glass shard in my thumb.
So, mission accomplished!
Oh yeah, contents from what I could see:
IRK bag
2 pkgs hand santizer
case of 12 TrackRs
broken 3-vial set of essential oils that soaked everything
Fuku/IRK used to be a Christmas surprise, you might get something completely broken or some weird stuff that got returned or couldn’t be sold. Each one was unique and different and some got the even weirder stories of having a truck dump a pallet of something on the driveway. Now these things are mass produced from the “give us the stuff of which you can’t dispose and we’ll mail it out in small chunks to suckers” type of stuff.
(For what it’s worth, if you can ever get a BoC, they still have that sense of wonder, although it’s a lot of Amazon small stuff dumped into a box. At least there’s variety there.)
@chuegen ehhh… I get BOCs pretty regularly and they’re just as meh as the IRKs.
I totally agree and have passed on the IRK for a while now. It isn’t fun anymore. While it was always a possibility I’d get total crap it didn’t happen. There was always something useful. And it was $5 so all good. Now it’s more expensive and you get nothing of any value to anyone. It’s also boring now. I no longer have to win it. I don’t understand why they made the change and broke the best thing they did.
@cinoclav I didn’t post to bitch and leave. I posted in an attempt to let Meh know the changes were not beneficial. It is an attempt to have them return to a process that worked. I am still a Meh member and have no plans to leave. I just sleep better now as the IRK no longer interests me.
@cinoclav @kcface But if you stop buying them, how will you know when we improve them again?
@ExtraMedium Sadly, I think we have passed the point where the crowd wondered when the IRKs would improve, and we’re fast approaching the next checkpoint, where a majority have stopped wondering if they will improve. So now it’s coming down to the items and the writing.
@kcface So uh… this grievance was posted by @Sidstone. You know there’s professional help for dissociative identity disorder, right? (I’m speaking to both of you.) Also, one of you actually said:
and
I mean, that pretty much sounds like you’re leaving and not coming back. I guess that’s only one of you speaking though, so welcome back to the other personality. There will be more Irks for you.
@cinoclav This just makes me think about all the sassy things I will get to do with my new IRK and the irk that went along with it.
/giphy “regrets, I’ve had the flu”
/giphy “my way Sinatra”
My last IRK had a bunch of useful things such as a set of steak knives. I don’t regret it at all, so honestly it failed at the one thing it was supposed to do providing instant regret.
@aethermancer Fear not!! Regret is coming…
(But also….that’s great! I’ve had a nice balance of both good and….meh.)
My most recent IRK was a pleasant surprise! Yes, I did get a bunch of TrackRs, like 51 of them, and some hand sanitizer…not exciting but still useful. Also a nice pair of pink leggings…size medium, and I’m a 6 foot woman that could never wear them…but my best friend sure can. Also got two pop socket type phone handle things. However, I also got a really nice Cuisinart stick blender with a chopping attachment, variable speed with 400 watts of power! I was thrilled with this! And of course, I got the requisite IRK bag. All in all, I’m really pleased. Yes…it’s a bit of a gamble, but that’s the fun. If you don’t want to risk it, DON’T BUY IT. Simple solution. Thanks, meh!
Been buying irk/fuku/foku/boc since the beginning, what part don’t you understand, it’s a joke and chance all rolled up into one glorious let down. I Had a truck roll up to my house years ago with 200 pairs of wearable glasses that made you feel like you were on drugs, I got a roomba I sold on ebay for 400 bucks, I have a huge movie projector I have never used, along with one leather glove and a coozie and a foam hockey puck, along with 30 air tags. It is what it is, if you do not like it, stop buying, go back to woot when they give 1500 BOCs and you get a sock and a bar of soap and then you have Amazon laughing at you. I’ve been giving @snapster my money for years, I like it and I’ll do it again when something I like pops up.
I’ve had a few laughs out of a couple, one was a display model for a $150 bluetooth speaker that you would see setup at BestBuy and had no value as the innards were removed and only played the 3 audio clips to an entire box of “Superman” (Man of Steel version) HAPPY BIRTHDAY bags coupled with more than a dozen “instant trash”. I’ve also received a couple nice Cuisinart kitchen appliances (toaster, stock pot, air fryer) and other nice nic-nacs that I end up giving away at White Elephants. True the recent >$30 have been more trash than anything. The best is when “random shirts” are on sale cause its easy to justify buying 4 t-shirts at $20 to get that refund on the IRK.
I’m glad the “don’t buy useless crap” part of me decided not to buy the irk stuffy the other day so I could then turn right around and let the “BUY ALL THE USELESS CRAP” part of me come through today. Also, I forgot to buy something from the mehrathon.