Some Facts About Meh Birthday Week
43Some of you had asked, so I thought it might be nice to share some of the behind the scenes details about the birthday week from a Mediocre Staffer Viewpoint. That staffer being me.
We knew going into the birthday that this would be the final Fuko. The first time that I caught wind of that was the first week of June. Those early talks started as a way to figure just how many Fukos would be available.
Our hope, based on previous events, was that we could get fukos out the door much faster, which meant that we actually prebuilt a large percentage of them. There was also some early talk that giving Fukos away through various extra sales and events would be a big part of the event.
Fast forward a few weeks and we had settled on basically what you saw play out. Fuko on Monday, Meh merch sale, Fuko bag/shirt sale, plus a series of games and contests to give away as many bags as we can.
I think I mentioned it in the contest, but the Shirt Design contest was the idea that kicked off the game planning. While I’d like to take as much credit as y’all gave me last week, in reality, it was a team effort to develop all of the game ideas. The CS team came up with a lot of great ideas, and we settled on the schedule as it played out. It took about a week to get everything figured out, and we were still changing game rules minutes before posting them. Go us.
We had right around 500 Fukos that we could give away, and it was actually super challenging to do so. There was some planning in the weeks before the birthday about just having a post where we would give away fukos for nearly every post, and we did that a couple times, which was fun. We also had everyone in the posts giving out fukos to anything they like and thought deserving. I think for the most part things went off without a hitch.
Interested in some aspect of the birthday week? AMA! If I know the answer and can share it, I’ll try to answer as much as possible.
Thanks so much for all the love last week. We had a blast. It was a ton of work. Especially while still trying to maintain a good customer support response time. But hey, that’s why we’re here or something. So yeah. Thanks for a fun week. And thanks for being Meh.
- 30 comments, 72 replies
- Comment
How would you reconcile the meaning of life with the birthday celebrations for Me?
@PlacidPenguin
/giphy “meaning of life”
If you made a Fuko from your own personal belongings and send it to @placidpenguin, what might that bag contain?
@Cythwulf
I’d actually be more fearful of something from @denboy.
Something about crickets….
@Cythwulf @PlacidPenguin
/giphy bark worse than bite
@Kidsandliz
I found the unwilling Mediocre employee!
@Cythwulf So you going to send a super duper extra “special” one to @placidpenguin? Hmm I will have to think on that.
What did @snapster and @dave say about the tattoos?
@PlacidPenguin “Holy Shit!”
Also - @matthew (aka Irk creator) was out of town while that happened, so he came back and was like “What’d I miss? Oh. Wow.”
@matthew probably feels accomplished
now. After all, his creation has such a following that people would get tattoos of it.@dave @matthew @PlacidPenguin Won’t be the first time someone has tattooed a creation from their workplace.
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/grim-optimism
Grim Optimism
Price: $19.00
Condition: Probably New
Also from Ramy shirt designs:
https://www.teeturtle.com/blogs/news/115935429-teeturtle-tat
Could have been worse.
@medz
I don’t believe I’m familiar with that.
@PlacidPenguin
@PlacidPenguin @ChapP My tattoo is healing quite nicely! It’s got a little more peeling left and then I’m good!
You guys did a really awesome job. I think it’s the most fun I’ve had without alcohol my entire adult life.
OMG!
How didn’t I post this sooner?!? (I blame @Pooltoywolf.)
@ChadP - Did you make the video which you pretty much promised on Nov 11, 2015?
I even reminded you in Nov 2016, as well as earlier this year in April.
@PlacidPenguin I did make that video, but it wasn’t very good or even a little bit interesting and the process had already changed, so I trashed the footage.
Really glad that it was fun for you too!
This was truly an extravagant bounty of fun and gifts for mehniacs. Huge thanks!!
Now on to the future- will there be a plushie to celebrate the first IRKs?
How much ‘blind rage’ has meh’s support team received from this?
@narfcake
At least 1
“Blind Rage Happy Fucking Birthday, Fuckers”
From a @f00l.
What was the real reason for the random box name change? (I always though the Japanese characters didn’t really fit the brand, but whatevs)
Will the TIRKs be vastly different or just a different bag design?
Will the “pink” marker ever come off of my arm?
Nice work everyone, really enjoyed the celebration.
@Barney
“outlook not so good”
@stardate820926 Damn, I shoulda gotten a real tattoo.
Edit: Never mind, I don’t like pain.
@Barney
Indubitably.
@Barney
So… You’re afraid of my wielding a knife, but you wouldn’t mind a needle.
That’s Oz logic I guess.
@Barney
/image Brillo scour pads
@PlacidPenguin I just afraid of you, no matter what.
@Barney
/image penguin repellent spray
@Barney
You might be the first person to actually say that.
@narfcake I’ll take a case of it!
@Barney
But who will mow your lawn and paint your shed then?
@PlacidPenguin The same damn idiot who is doing it now.
@Barney
Huh? I don’t recall doing either of those things.
@Barney
/giphy “pink marker”
@Barney The thought crossed my mind about removal before I colored on my skin. I considered looking for washable markers but that sounded hard. My drawing skills are poor on paper so not sure how it might have turned out anyway.
Maybe you have the outlines drawn for your permanent tattoo. Isn’t it a thing to sketch it out to see how it will look?
@speediedelivery Ha! My sketches look like those of a first grader’s.
@Barney At least you made it to school. I can’t draw a straight line unless I am trying for a curvy one.
@Barney It’ll probably come off before mine, unless I’m really bad at aftercare.
@TheMeerkat You were either brave or crazy to get a tattoo. I’m still trying to decide which.
Mine is fading more and more each day. It no longer looks like I have poison ivy.
@Barney May all your coats be waterproofed. From all that I’ve seen, it does not repel penguins themselves.
Have all the contests been judged now?
@rm9116 still a few things to be announced.
@ChadP When are the announcements?
@therealjrn HA! You expected an answer to that? LOL
That must have been a lot of work to plan and execute. Kudos to you and the Meh team.
What are some of your favorite submissions (across all contests)?
You mentioned daily bonuses, time limits, points, and specific prizes for things like “Best in Show”. What’s that all about? Is there going to be follow up on that stuff?
When are we going to hear more about the Shirt design?
What was the most challenging part of executing this?
How many times did I refresh the forums during the celebrations?
When everything dies down, are you going to be sad? Because I’m gonna be sad.
What is the process of making/filling fukos?
@lichme thanks!
It’s hard to express the joy we got from the middle finger posts. It really did turn into a guessing game of how we would see middle fingers related to each game.
The bonuses and extra prizes were always Fukos. We tried to give them out whenever needed. There are still a few things coming, but for the most part we’re caught up.
Next week I think for the shirts.
Most interesting is always just community reaction. Love seeing people react to each other.
No clue how many times your refreshed.
Don’t be sad.
We keep a running stock of Fuko items at all times. When the time comes we bring in bags, and start combining different things from Fuko stock and throwing in bags. It’s work. Especially in 100 degree heat.
@ChadP Is your warehouse like ours:
Way cooler & more comfortable than outdoors, but way warmer & less comfortable than the air-conditioned office space?
You guys did a fantastic job with Birthday Week. I really had fun participating, and watching the games I didn’t play in. Already looking forward to next year!
I just want to say thank you again for the fun week. This was a huge undertaking and your work and generosity is much appreciated.
/giphy we appreciate you
@tnhillbillygal just gonna leave this here for irony purposes (link may be for mature audiences)
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/dj-khaled-the-breakfast-club-oral-sex-interview-2015-a8337276.html
@djslack @tnhillbillygal OMG
@djslack he sounds like a jerk. Even if your wife is ok with that, the whole world doesn’t need to know.
I had (am having) fun watching and following Birthday Week. I participated in a few, had a few ideas I didn’t follow up on for others.
Do you think the Do You Deserve thread will ever stop getting requests?
Did someone organize a spreadsheet or something to keep track of who, which thread and how many?
What is the most emails in one day you have received? Was it Birthday Week?
Do you have notifications from the forum turned on?
Great fun! Thanks. I would have participated more but I was at my mom’s who has no internet except in her lobby and even then that didn’t work all the time. (
for the no internet so couldn’t play as much, not for being at my mom’s).
Y’all rock!
Thank you for a fun week!
Did we finally clear the warehouse out?
If you had so many Fukos to give away, how could someone who paid full price plus shipping receive such a crappy one with just the bag, a zmodo diode that cannot be used by itself, and a jar for a blender that wasn’t included? The bag is the only useable thing.
You would have thought the distribution would have been better planned. At least put one useable item in each box (besides the bag of course). But in this case, there wasn’t anything useable and other people received huge boxes with more than one useable item.
It’s okay to have some “jackpot” boxes where it has more stuff than a usual box but you shouldn’t have a ton of stuff lying around where you are having trouble deciding who to give it to while sending a practically empty box to a paying customer.
It is very hard to buy one — probably harder than winning one. You have to be awake at midnight and click the buy button at the right time then pass the captcha questions all before everyone else who is trying to get one too.
@support It’s five bucks and a little lost sleep. You’ll get over it. And it’s all the luck of the draw when it comes to the Fuko distribution in the warehouse.
@support But winning one means you put in the effort and supported our little community. I appreciate the ones I was gifted far more than if I had pushed a button.
But I am still sorry your box wasn’t more usable.
@Barney I wish I could give you 10 stars for this. I’ve had horrible ones between the 2 sites. I’ve also had passable ones. This time was my first truly good one. You spend the money knowing you will probably throw almost everything away. It’s like the lotto, you’re most likely wasting your money. But we buy anyway.
@evilstan60 Yep, we love that Fuko chase, don’t we?
@Barney secretly I think we’re all hoping for a pallet of broken TVs, really — besides if the fukos were all too good, what would we have to gripe about in the forums?
@Barney @nolrak
I can usually find something. It’s what I do best!
@evilstan60 yes, this — they’re difficult enough to purchase that if you’ve actually managed to buy one, you really should already be aware of what you’re getting into.
That being said, I managed to get my first fuku way back without really trying, I was up late one night and it clicked over to 12:00, I said “hm I wonder what Meh had today?” and that was that.
@mfladd Ha, I lurked in the forums for years without posting much … then I finally decided that I could probably pretty effectively contribute to the snark that goes on around here
@Barney no, it was $9.99. Not all of us were VMPs at the time of purchase.
But you’re also not getting the point. If they have so much crap lying around that they have 500 extra boxes that they have to just give away to people for no reason at all, it should never happen where a box is virtually empty for a paying customer.
These Fukos are hard to purchase and then you look at the reveal thread and get so excited about the possibilities of what you could be receiving. Everyone is getting either a vacuum robot, an air fryer, or the actual blender. There are some other big items being posted so the excitement is getting better. Then finally you receive your 3 pound tiny box and it contains nothing useful except the Fuko bag itself.
I shouldn’t have this emotional response over a $9.99 purchase but it does because of the anticipation only to be let down. I need to be up at midnight every day just in case the Fuko is being offered and I finally scored one which is a hard thing to do. All those months of anticipation and finally winning and then this.
This is my last post about this. If I keep posting, it makes me more anxious and gives me stomach problems. I cannot deal with that.
Hopefully Meh will sell razor blades soon.
@Barney @support
The consummate Fuko experience! Congratulations!
@Barney @support @therealjrn
That goes along well with this, the consummate Meh experience!
@support Alrighty then, I’ll wrap this up so that you can take your Pepto Bismol.
First of all, the Fuko is $5. The additional $4.99 was for becoming a shipping member. I pay $5 a month to be a member, so you get a penny break over me. See, you are already a lucky winner.
You should feel proud that you managed to snag a bag. Yay, you! And good hunting in the future. Maybe you will get a non-crappy IRK bag.
@support
Morningsave:
I stocked up on both sites.
@support the fact that only 500 boxes were given away (versus what, 1000 sold?) and that seems like so many just clued me in to how many people buy a Fuko and never come say anything about it in the forum. The people who come post are usually either community regulars or people who got something that blew then away and wanted to come brag.
In other words, there may have been a lot of underwhelming boxes that we just don’t know about. I’m sorry that yours was a dud, but it really is in line with what a Fuko is advertised as. The batch this time did seem way above average as a whole, but there are always some shining stars and some duds.
I don’t know that there was a delineation between paid fukos and prize fukos as far as fulfillment goes.
Better luck next time, I hope. I mean that in the best and most positive way possible.
/giphy cheer up sucker
@narfcake @support - Hey, I’d like to complain about something myself, but I’m hesitant to do it in a thread of its own. I’m talking about the quality of Woot t-shirts. To say the quality sucks is an understatement - I’ve encountered stronger toilet paper. I mean, I love the designs, but I will never buy another Woot shirt, and I don’t think anyone else should either, at least until they get a better fabric supplier. I’ve upvoted complaints about this AT Woot, of course, but I’m thinking someone should really say something about this here too. Waddaya think?
@aetris How long ago were these complaints? The community hasn’t been able to upvote (or downvote) since deals.woot.
FWIW, they dropped Anvil earlier this year:
A New Year, A New Shirt.Woot.
@narfcake - I clicked the little square next to quality post - isn’t that an upvote? Anyway I just bought during that two-fer deal they had a couple weeks ago, and both shirts were crap - even if they’re just clearing out inventory, I’d say AVOID.
@Barney @support
WTF? Was that an allusion to suicide? Over $9.99?
Please, please tell me I’m reading that wrong.
Also, was this your first Fuko?
If so, you should be glad that you learned your lesson after only buying one.
It took me 3 BoCs from Woot before I realized I was buying lottery tickets where, even when you won, you lost.
I never tried for another Bag of Crap, but I guess the lesson faded, because I successfully purchased Fuko
19 and it was full of useless junk - of course.
I gave it all away and kept the bag as a souvenir.
I snagged a prize Fuko and am struggling to keep myself from being excited about it because I know the more excited I get, the more disappointed I’ll be.
Maybe there should be a warning posted somewhere on the Fuko (now IRK) sales that these things are for people for whom the thrill of the chase is reward enough.
If you’re going to chase down and buy one, and then be crushed to the point of anxiety attacks and suicidal ideations when you open it to find out that it contains absolutely nothing of value, then you should not be attempting to buy one in the first place.
Who got the most prize Fukos? Anyone get more than 10?
Meh’s birthday week was WAY more fun than some others occurring around the same time. Had a blast, got a couple of Fukos, and enjoyed reading a tremendous amount of entertaining posts. Sincere thanks for all the efforts that were put into it.
Thanks Meh for all the hours of entertainment.
Having failed every time to score a fuko, I was kind of pessimistic going into the games; I figured my chances of winning were pretty slim given the likely competition. So I was floored and thrilled to discover I had won (in games where I’m pretty certain EVRYONE won). I wish now that I’d been paying more attention and tried more games (like drawing Irk blindfolded ON A CAKE. I could do it. It surely wouldn’t be frosted disaster). But it really made my day to get my first Fuko. And it was a pretty awesome box, so thank you!
Hey Meh staff. @snapster should be upset with all of you. You are usually decidedly not mediocre and in the last week or so have gone from way above medicore to so far above medicore that you do not deserve the name meh staffers. You should be spectacular staffers. Totally failing to stay on brand.
i still cant believe i got a fuko just from posting a cookie emoji
@communist
@communist I don’t even know how I ‘earned’ mine. I was just merrily making snarky comments (you’re not the only one @mfladd) among all the birthday & normal forum threads when somebody dropped a hint about ‘check your order’. There it was: Final Fuko $0.
@Barney
I wish I was more attentive about all of the Fukos being given out. I even drew an Irk blindfolded but didn’t submit it. I got busy I guess and didn’t pay enough attention. Meh.
@Stumpy91 theres always next time, in like 3 months or so
Which thread did you give a Fuko away almost every post? I’m so clueless.
@Stumpy91 Do you deserve a fuko? thread
https://meh.com/forum/topics/do-you-deserve-a-fuko
@mfladd @Stumpy91 and the entertain me thread
@Ignorant @mfladd @Stumpy91 and the art thread
@Ignorant @mfladd @therealjrn I did purchase a Final Fuko but I didn’t realize they were giving them away like popcorn. I would’ve likely participated more had I known.
@mfladd @Stumpy91 @therealjrn
/giphy the more you know
So, erm. If I was “fuko’d” in a contest, but no corresponding order has manifested… That means I can expect a pallet of Martian watches, right? Because I’m trying to decide what to wear when I roll around on them all slow-mo.
Also, will they be in those snazzy but sharp edges boxes? Because that will rule out “naked”.
Do you feel more like Bob Barker or Oprah?
Are there certain items placed in Fukos that are so hilarious or incredible that you hope to see them posted in the reveal thread?
Do you have a rough idea of what percentage of recipients post in the reveal thread?
@jksquared he said they had 500 to give out. Look up how many they sold and do the math. Then go count in the reveal thread and figure up the percentage
@capguncowboy Actually there are 1,500. 1,000 sold and 500 gifted. Was just wondering if it was a stat that someone kept as I’m way to lazy to do the work myself.
@capguncowboy @jksquared There are 252 comments in the reveal thread. I know that’s not exact but let’s assume each comment is a reveal because I’m not counting either. That’s just shy of a 17% reveal rate, which seems pretty low. Actually, it might not be low as far as a metric of online purchases versus community participation–most of the industry does not have a community behind it.
This goes into what I was saying earlier, 500 gifted fukos seems like a whole shitload of them, because the majority of fukos go out into the world never to be heard from again. So many trip glasses that will never be seen again here, I hope they have a great life.
@capguncowboy @jksquared this reveal rate is also probably slightly higher than previous ones, as 1/3 of fukos were given to people proven to participate in the community as opposed to random purchasers.
A stats nerd who is not lazy may come along and do some numbers for us on that one, it’s just out of my reach on a Sunday afternoon when I should be off my phone and in the world.
You said that y’all put together a lot of fukos beforehand this time. Do y’all not normally make fukos before putting them on sale? If you don’t, how do you know how many you’ll be able to build? They seem to have a variable number of items included.
@ChadP
Right back at ya, bud!
Thanks for all your hard work, for keeping us all entertained, and for the free stuff! (no matter what it turns out to be)