Yes, you read that right. I’ll let them explain because they really do have a way with copy:

“You’ve got an ex, a grudge and a valid credit card with matching billing & shipping addresses, and we’ve got crabs.  If you want a way to get back that doesn’t involve permanent damage or risk of personal injury or jail time, you now have a place to turn.”

“It’s an idea so horrible, regrettable and insulting that you could never directly endorse or request it, and we won’t ask you to. All we do is ask you for your billing and shipping addresses, and mail you out a tidy package of peculiar material with tiny, purple dots in it… those are live crabs, and they need only be sprinkled on the bedding or clothing of the one you once loved the most to ensure he/she sufferers the fullest wrath of those genital lice.”

Haha. What? I’m sorry….It’s just so dastardly. It makes you question the mindset of the person that dreamt this idea up! And, beyond that, the kind of person that actually follows through and makes a business out of it.

I’m blogging about this because I think it’s the same kind of mindset you should have when you go into an ideation session…don’t be afraid to “get crazy.”  It always easier to pull an idea back than it is to make the mundane interesting.

As Urlesque says: “Just as expected, the Internet was super excited about KFC’s newest gross-out creation: the Double Down Sandwich. Just today, brave food bloggers have checked out their local KFCs to give the sandwich a taste test”

The “Blogstorm” is so far a fairly resounding “BLECH” but maybe that’s not even the point.

Is this the “Sandwich that the Internet Built”?

The rise of Food Porn has really paved the way for this kind of over-the-top indulgence.  The success of This Is Why You Are Fat can be attributed to the  “can you believe this exists?” viral effect.  And that’s what is going on here.  I have already had several Facebook friends post links to the Double Down saying: “OMG check this out!!”

When food fits the Barely Legal™ Wave it’s usually because it’s “stepping over the line” of good taste or indulging a “taboo.”  Hardee’s has unapologetically  offered gross out options for ages. They have The Monster Thickburger and the Country Breakfast Burrito with it’s 60 grams of fat while other QSR’s have been pushing salads and light options.  Hardee’s and plenty of other chains are catering to a certain mindset: when some people choose to eat fast food, they are already committing to “being bad” so why not go all the way!!

Okay…back to the Double Down.

Slashfood has declared “We can foresee this becoming the new “hangover food” of choice.”

Twitter is ABLAZE right now:

gizmogladstone: “I’d love to see the Venn diagriam of how many people hit the KFC double down today and the sales of Pepto Bismol. How much crossover? Lots.”

henecessiteas: “Get me one too RT @CoutureKitchen: What would my followers do if I told them I was craving a Double Down from KFC?”

brentw: “so the double down was good, but when do we get the triple down? chicken, bacon, cheese, chicken, bacon, cheese, chicken FTW”

pinksugacupcake: “I want my ex to die.. I’m going to convince him to eat a double down. He will be dead before the last bite”

So there it is: The Double Down…just daring you to try it.  If the success of a product is ever measured by it’s buzz…the Colonel has come up trumps!

The WSJ did this fairly thorough piece on this prison themed QSR so I will just top line it.

James Andrews has drawn some community critisizm over his hot-dog stand on this city’s rough West Side.  He feels he’s doing a noble thing by hiring ex-convicts and giving people a second chance but some say it’s more like exploitation.

“Customers enter a cramped space framed by cinder-block walls, with no tables or chairs. Servers standing behind bulletproof plastic — standard for stores in the neighborhood — ask customers, “Are you ready to plead your case?” Among other dishes, the menu lists the Misdemeanor Wiener and the Chain Gang Chili Dog. Side orders, such as fries, coleslaw and garlic bread, are dubbed “accomplices.”

The restaurant’s slogan is, “Food so good it’s criminal.” – GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK ….RIGHT?

Well, what James Andrews is unknowingly doing is building a business based on the Barely Legal™ Wave.  He is most definitely “Celebrating Societal Taboos” with his cheesy prison theme and the local councils “boundaries” are most certainly being “stretched”.

The reason this quirky biz will probably be successful is because of the most basic human (or as Abraham Maslow would say physiological) urge of being a little naughty now and then:

“I like to step over the line, but only in short bursts.”™

Sales are strong and he plans to franchise. As far as the moral police go why don’t they ask the ex-cons themselves how they feel about it:

“Kevin Jones, 42, who works at Felony Franks, says he doesn’t feel exploited. “Working here allows me to provide for myself and my family,” says Mr. Jones, who says he used to sell crack and served two years’ probation for possession of a controlled substance. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 15 years and there’s gunfire every other day and you never hear anything about that, but all of a sudden there’s all this hoopla about a hot-dog stand?”

“This new trend of ‘cocaine tourism’ can be put down to a combination of Bolivia’s notoriously corrupt public officials, the chaotic “anything goes” attitude of La Paz, and the national example of President Evo Morales, himself a coca grower. (Coca is the leaf, and cocaine is the highly manufactured and refined powder.) Morales has diligently fought for the rights of coca growers and tossed the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) out of Bolivia.”

Barely Legal is about indulging in taboos… and vacation is usually the time people do things they would NEVER do at home.  Now getting coked up in South America might be an extreme version of this Human Behavior but the success of the “What Happens in Vegas…” Campaign and the popularity of movies like The Hangover, The Beach or even Waiting to Exhale are a little more mainstream.  I’m sure at a “well lubricated” dinner party you will hear some wild travel stories from people you would never thought capable of “eating a hash cookie in Amsterdam” or “getting whacked out on Kava in Fiji”…. But this is the point.  MOST decent, law abiding, upstanding citizens will want to cut loose and get crazy every once in a while and if they’ve travel to a place where they are not really breaking the laws then: no harm, no foul!

Generally people want to “step over the line- but only in short bursts” and there are many products and services out there that capitalize on our naughty little urges.

But in all fairness and commercialism, there is an alternate way out. The dreaded album censor, you know, the guy that was responsible for every album you bought in the 90’s that had magic spaces in chorus verses and key lines. I won’t even go into how insanely irritated I became as a teenager back in the days before the gateway of internet shopping was around, and all I had was one record store and they sold censored material, but failed to say it was censored.

Now, here comes the question, does the censored material even matter? Well, that depends on what side of the fence you fall on, or if you even just dangle in the middle of it all and don’t care. But some artists are firm in their Chuck Taylors with censorship, which is why Green Day isn’t budging on their new album. And this, is also why Wal-Mart won’t be selling it.

What I find more interesting than anything is how we’ve managed to cling to a few words being too strong to say, but we’ve allowed nearly naked people on broadcast cable, torture porn runs wild and extreme violence is commonplace.  Granted, the blood and violence and torture porn all came from the gateway that the Saw series gave us, a two-hour desensitization of gore. Maybe we need a two hour movie of swear words, and no, I don’t mean another Jay and Silent Bob film (although I’d pay to see it).  But maybe it’s one of the old things that we’re just not ready to give up yet.

The contributing artists for an art exhibition sponsored by Powerhouse Magazines titled “Busted” are no exception.

From The Website: Remember when you got grounded in 10th grade for coming home drunk and vomiting on the dog? Or the time you got caught selling fake ecstasy and were escorted out of that after-hours dive? Or how about the time your girlfriend got your password and broke into your Gmail account, only to discover you had an online honey? Man, if you had a dollar for every time you got busted, you’d be able to post bail right about now.

Come join us to point and laugh at all the failures, fiascos, and hilariously embarrassing situations captured by these talented artists. Busted promises the most eclectic mix of nogoodniks, anarchists, and frisky kids ever caught between two covers.

Personally, I wouldn’t be caught anywhere else…I’m sorry…couldn’t resist

“Boffery.com is a place for you to document your sexual history and map [spiderweb-style] your sexual connections. You can share this information with trusted friends, and you have full control over who sees what.” -via

Why would anyone want to post the sex life online? We’re sure there’s as many reasons as there are STD’s, however, no judgments made, we’re betting it has something to do with wanting to step over the line a tad, or a jump over the line, you’re call. Boffery writes,

“This is a place for you to talk about your sex life in as much detail as you feel comfortable sharing. It can be your own private diary, or a conversation with friends and lovers, or some combination of both”.

Barely legal is about pushing the boundaries and celebrating societal taboos that leave others in astonishment, maybe in admiration, maybe in disgust. It doesn’t matter, because for those involved it ends in the same result:

“You did what!”

Bingo.

And whether users of this site will choose to disclose their partners out of well being and health risk factors, or for mere entertainment and humor amongst friends, or even as an actual dating tool to find romance, there’s something to be said for those who dare to use the site at all.  Barely Legal never fails to surprise us with the things people do in order to satisfy their more…experimental side.

Today all that changed. Pictures probably speak a thousand words so I don’t have to go into why mommy is staring absent mindedly at the juicer, do I?

OK…

Shiny Shiny Blog told us that Designer Raffaele Iannello has created a range of kitchenette kinkiness with sex toys that double as washing up brushes and towel stands etc  The innocuous neon coloured kitchen implements have a secret -most of them are battery powered.  The Human Truth for this life evidence is “I like to step over the line but only in short burts….a quick rinse, then it’s back to making dinner.”

A child being forced to labor, prostitution, fight in wars, or suffer from hunger and preventable diseases is not an image that many of us are comfortable with, but there it is, as the ad ominously states  “ Children are fast learners”.  The unfortunate truth is that these scenarios are simply a fact for too many children in poverty stricken areas of the world.

But, the ad is not all gloom and doom as we see smiling faces with a laptop then continues, “let’s give them the right tools.”

The stark contrast of images showing children shooting machine guns juxtaposed against images of children learning and creating with the help of the World Wide Web is convincing; even if it is a little unsettling.  The power of a learning tool, like a laptop, is not obvious until you have a perspective into what life is really like for these children.

A laptop not only gives impoverished children a chance to learn and blaze the path to social advancement, it may be their only chance to catch a glimpse of what life without poverty might look like. As UNICEF states:

“Children experience poverty with their hands, minds and hearts”

Opinion:

The video may be hard to swallow but we think it serves as a reminder that to fill a child’s stomach is not enough, if we truly want to end poverty we must feed their hearts and minds as well.

Watch the video and decide for yourself .

http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/statistics.html