Sunday night is Oscars night, and maybe you can’t summon up a single heck to give about that. Fair, I say — by what rubric do Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, and yeah, A Star Is Born deserve all this trouble? — but maybe you’d still like to know what kind of luxury crap the already mega-wealthy nominees will receive in their swag bags. Also fair: This year, a private company dedicated to celebrity product promotion will honor achievements in acting and directing with toilet scrubbers shaped like emoji poos, according to the Guardian. Other freebies include: 15 sets of false eyelashes, a grip-less dog leash (???), a “wearable, silent breast pump,” a spy pen, assorted weed lotions, and an expensive vacation.
But let’s talk about the poop brush, because that’s the whole reason you clicked. Its name is Mr. Poop and its smiling turd face sprouts a glow-in-the-dark handle, sure why not, and boasts anti-microbial, Power Stripe bristles, whatever that means. Exploring the site, I see no price listed, so: If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford Mr. Poop. Only the most refined of toilet accouterments for Hollywood’s finest.
“Who decided this?” you might reasonably be wondering. According to Vox, gift bags in their current iteration come courtesy of the self-appointed (I assume) “Sultan of Swag”: one Lash Fary, founder of Distinctive Assets, “a Los Angeles–based niche marketing company offering celebrity placement, product introduction, and branding opportunities within the entertainment company and beyond.” If those words — strung together in that particular sequence — make no sense to you, allow me to simplify. Distinctive Assets would appear to be a promotional vehicle that primarily traffics in Oscars gift baskets, having cornered that market when, under pressure from the IRS, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences itself stopped handing out goodie bags in 2001.
Given Distinctive Assets’ eclectic choices, the Academy has attempted to distance itself from the bags, going so far as to sue Fary’s company in 2016. That year, the haul (valued at $232,000, incidentally) included coupons for a “vampire breast lift,” a vibrator, and a “marijuana vaporizer” — a literal embarrassment of riches. Why not throw in a poop brush?
