If you’re a fan of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, or the 2000 film adaptation starring Christian Bale, you certainly remember the business card scene. Mentally deranged protagonist Patrick Bateman is humiliated by his rival, Paul Allen, when Allen slams Bateman’s card with a heavy metal coin, knocking it loose from Bateman’s stack and adding it to his collection. Or at least, that’s how the scene would have gone if the geniuses at Business Pogs had been around back in the ‘80s.
The Business Pogs site, located, amazingly, at http://www.businesspogs.com/BusinessPogs.com/BusinessPogs.com.html, allows you to wow your superiors and co-workers by printing your contact information, not on a boring old business card, but on the back of a cardboard facsimile of a milk bottle cap, with a ying-yang symbol or a holographic dolphin on the front.
There are so many amazing things going on with this site that it’s hard to list them all. The insistence on QR codes as a way to “go viral,” the eye-searing page background, the gratuitous Saved By The Bell references, and all of the wonderful Comic Sans—the site has a specificity and a devotion to being a particular kind of terrible that’s reminiscent of Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
It’s hard to tell whether the entire thing is just a joke, or whether there’s an actual product being sold via some remarkably savvy nostalgic irony. The site originally went live back in 2012, so if you do feel a desperate need to represent yourself with the cast-off detritus of the ‘90s, you’d better act fast. $100 will apparently get you 150 pogs, as wells as two slammers and a copy of Cap Attack by possibly-fictitious pog world champion Pepper Lawson. If you’re still not convinced, check out the trailer below, in all of its ‘90s CGI glory.
