A lot of people can post funny pictures and write amusing captions like I do here. Only a rare few come up with a theme for a humor blog that is both original and captivating.
I've just run across a site that definitely fits that latter category: jackassletters.com.
The premise is simple, but brilliantly executed. Jackassletters writes complaint or suggestion letters to established big companies, like Cracker Barrel and Toys 'R' Us. The letters are always teetering on the edge of over the top, but never quite step over to be obvious hoaxes.
The fun comes when the companies reply. Some are predictably form letters, and the humor comes from how wide they miss the mark of whatever was requested. Some are sincere but bumbling or baffling attempts to answer the query. And occasionally, there is a response that reflects a company that is truly committed to engaging with its customers, no matter how weird they may come across.
Aside from the humor of all this, anyone who works in or is interested in the field of public and consumer relations could learn a lot by browsing jackassletters.com.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
PublicLens is a never ending parade of the bizarre, the beautiful, and the befuddling from that most ubiquitous of spies: the cell phone camera. All photos & images were publicly posted on Twitter or other public social media sites.
Big fan of JackAssLetters. I read them with glee.
ReplyDeleteI love JackassLetters. It's brilliant, and often hilarious. Christopher's delivery ranges from creepy to too strange to be real, and it's hard to believe more people don't catch on, or play along. Like David Thorne, who is fabulous for getting the joke. (read the letter). I've read everything on the site (yes, I am great at avoiding work) and look forward to every new letter.
ReplyDeleteMe, too.
ReplyDeleteI love that Christopher is from Iowa. I am too, I actually live in a near-by city. So when he talks about a certain place or city, I know exactly where it is and what he's talking about. It's a very dry sense of humor, but he plays it well, it's very funny.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments, all. And thanks for the love to Chris. His site deserves it. More letters, Chris!
ReplyDeleteRVPaul says: The website rocks and you can also follow him on Twitter - @jackassletters, which is just as good :)
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I wanted to pop over and leave a comment as soon as I was alerted by goggle that you'd written this, but I wanted to wait for others to have a chance to respond, since I didn't want to come off like a narcissistic bastard (even though I am one).
ReplyDeleteI feel obligated to point out my site isn't exactly original. There are a lot of people out there that have been doing this for a few hundred years before me (there are even books and stuff and some people actually made money doing it!). I'm not aware of any blogs dedicated to doing this, but there are a lot of sites that have done this for a short time (little projects). I'd listed a bunch of them on wikipedia, but some asshole decided the world didn't need to know about these hoaxes and deleted the references (effectively turning an informative article into something quite lacking in balls, but that's just my opinion and personal vendetta!). Sorry, I digress.
I also write a lot of love letters. I mean, who doesn't love Philadelphia Cream Cheese or Hobby Lobby? Ha!
I am always amazed that so many people find the site funny. I refuse to spend more than 10 minutes on a letter, since I only get back about 25%. Spending hours crafting the perfect joke would be a lot of my life wasted. A 10-minute letter is like a fart in an elevator. I also insist on real honest-to-gog stamped letters. In this day of instant gratification there is something special about a real letter on real paper.
Anyway, wanted to stop by an say I'm glad you found me so charming, and handsome, and witty, and funny, and wanted to spend time writing about me. It means something to me when people do this. They should do it more often!
Thanks.
A humble narcissist. How confusing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the humbly narcissistic comment, Chris.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the reason I fell so in love with your blog is that, unlike too many other humor sites, you were obviously not trying too hard. Wait, that didn't sound right. What I mean is that you come off as a genuine guy just exploring the curious quirks of this world where we have the illusion of access to and communication with the High and Mighty. You're Dorothy saying you just want to get home to Kansas (or in your case, get a coupon or a few stickers), but so often you get a great floating head that doesn't seem to listen but demands that you bring it the broom of the wicked witch (or at least, please do shop again at their store and your comments are valued and will be passed on to the "appropriate department").
I do not want to know if you actually wear ruby slippers. You can keep that to yourself.