Groupon is too declasse! Get your ostrich sleeves here

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One of my fave April Fools' spoofs this week: Groupöupon, the high-end version of Groupon for the aesthetically pompous:

Make sure that your arms telegraph style and success with this indulgent line of Premium Sleeves designed by Fourth World, the designer brand renowned for combining the uncanny fashion sense of the first world's most impressive designers with the laser-like focus of third-world craftsmanship. Choose any of the extravagant materials from Fourth World's list, including ostrich neck, baleen, pressed toucan beak, snakeskin (heated), and mane. With each purchase, Fourth World makes a donation to the Progress Project, the charitable NGO which combats primitivism in the third world with assimilation lessons, bus rides to free-trade zones, the building of new ports, and more.

It's so nonsensical yet dead-on: the ostensible purpose of Groupoupon is to promote snobbish exclusivity, yet like Groupon, it depends on a peer-legitimization scheme wherein other people's buy-in drives the desirability of the "good" at issue. Which is pretty close to how real high-end art and design works. (I love funny-yet-not-funny April Fools jokes.)

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Okay, that was really funny...really funny...I don't just want to type a little capitalized text bit...very clever and funny....

By Mike Olson (not verified) on 02 Apr 2010 #permalink