we're not bailing you out again!
April 26, 2013 1:31 PM   Subscribe

Nathan Fielder of Nathan For You (where he helps real businesses by doing things like developing unique froyo flavors and unlikey-to-be-redeemed rebates), has posted the results of two Twitter "experiments": Text your parents "got 2 grams for $40" then right after "Sorry ignore that txt. Not for you" and a second one about dollar store condoms.
posted by blahblahblah (51 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
trying not to hyperventilate over someone reassuring their parent that gram meant "grammar books"
posted by Juliet Banana at 1:36 PM on April 26, 2013 [9 favorites]


He's also behind the rather amazing viral video where a pig rescues a goat [making of part 1 and part 2, which are very funny.]
posted by blahblahblah at 1:36 PM on April 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


trying not to hyperventilate over someone reassuring their parent that gram meant "grammar books"

When I was younger I convinced my dad that the burning smell he was smelling in my room was just a camp stove I had used the week before.
posted by bondcliff at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I like that the sucker parent then offers the grammar book kid more money.
posted by Area Man at 1:42 PM on April 26, 2013


Judging by the reactions, the "2 grams" texts seemed a bit cruel, but some of the condom ones were pretty funny. Impressive that someone's mom is nonchalant enough to recommend precautionary double-bagging.
posted by exogenous at 1:43 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Mom: Love you too. HAVE FUN.

Oh dear God now that I know this mother exists, I hate my own mother with the white-hot intensity of a million exploding suns.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:52 PM on April 26, 2013 [8 favorites]


You piece of shit. Do you want to go back to jail?
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:53 PM on April 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


Holy crap, the dad who is like, "Buy two good quality boxes, put 'em on the credit card and remember cheap sushi and cheap condoms are both terrible ideas," is my parenting hero.
posted by WidgetAlley at 1:53 PM on April 26, 2013 [28 favorites]


... I convinced my dad that the burning smell he was smelling in my room was just a camp stove...

A friend once let me know that he had told his parents that his hash knives were actually part of a science experiment of mine. Not sure why he used my name as I'd never even met his parents.
posted by ODiV at 1:54 PM on April 26, 2013


I would say the taxi 2 my friend Grams place was $40.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:55 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I liked the condom one better (accidental horrific racism!) because the drug one sounded a little meaner to inflict on your parents, but I did enjoy the parent that thought the kid was sending money to grandmas.
posted by mathowie at 1:56 PM on April 26, 2013


ahahaha I love this, I'm so glad it exists, especially after the crap from Jimmy Kimmel that was posted here a while back.
posted by rebent at 1:56 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


The drug dealer one is terrible and mean but I am really glad people did it and posted it.

The "Is Jeopardy on yet?" one is amazing.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 1:58 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


THis joke isn’t funny at all unless you consider "make people that probably care about you worry a shitload about you for lulz on the internet’" funny. Gross.
posted by ShawnStruck at 2:06 PM on April 26, 2013 [9 favorites]


Who are you, George Costanza?
posted by Beardman at 2:06 PM on April 26, 2013


I had to feign befuddlement when my mom went into the kitchen of my university apartment and asked why so many of the knives had burn marks on them.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:09 PM on April 26, 2013


The drugs one would have been a little less cruel if they had done, say, "I got $40 for an 1/8," instead of grams, which almost always means coke, heroin or meth. I think more parents would have been like, "I'll get the BBQ going!"
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:10 PM on April 26, 2013


As a dad, I couldn't find the drug one funny at all. Too scary and real. The condom one, however, made my day (especially the "have fun!" mom).
posted by jbickers at 2:13 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


...except good weed is commonly sold in grams

Well, I wouldn't know, of course.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:24 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


But seriously, the condom ones were so nice. Back in the day, my high school girlfriend and I had elaborate condom buying strategies, codes, hiding places, to keep our condom purchasing completely hidden from the parents for fear of wrath from hell.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:25 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I like the one where the mom is telling her college aged child "You're done. Come home." Do you think she'll send the helicopter she's been using to circle round him/her for the past 18 years?
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 2:32 PM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


I learned that the "Mezicans" use cheap condoms so you shouldn't.
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 2:35 PM on April 26, 2013


I saw the "grams" one last night and somehow knew it would show up here.
Some of them were funny, but I felt sorry for the parents who were pranked.

On the condom one, I love that the parent caught on to what the text really was. :)
posted by luckynerd at 2:48 PM on April 26, 2013


instead of grams, which almost always means coke, heroin or meth

People buy weed by the gram all the time here, and in fact it's usually $20 a gram. If you're a casual smoker who just wants to roll a blunt or 2, you don't need a whole eighth.
posted by DecemberBoy at 3:00 PM on April 26, 2013


My dad and I have always had what could charitably be called a cruddy relationship. It didn't rise to the level of criminal child abuse, but he can be a hellishly controlling, angry man, and it came damned close on a number of occasions.

Still, the time I called him from college and said, "Do you know a good way to tranquilize a chicken?" He took a deep breath, asked no questions, and carefully described Tellington Touch-esque technique that he, as a former farm boy, would use.

I really have to give him credit for that.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 3:06 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I just got done with three days serving on the jury for a meth trial. After the first day of trial, I was compelled to text my son and tell him I loved him and was proud of him. That "2 grams for $40" text isn't making me laugh tonight. Sorry.

Now, the condom one, is pretty funny, though. Especially the moms' responses.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:11 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


Plus, maybe it's because I'm in my 30s so my parents were around in the 70s disco heyday, but I'd expect they'd know that coke, heroin and speed don't cost $40 for 2 grams.
posted by DecemberBoy at 3:24 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


My takeaway: Android penetration among the young isn't all that.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:48 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I found the drug one hilarious and was tempted to try it on my mom but couldn't decide which idea would horrify me more: that she'd get mad or she'd want in on it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 4:20 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


...except good weed is commonly sold in grams, just as heroin/coke/meth being sold in eighths-of-a-gram (eightballs) is standard practice


I am sure you are all worldly and shit but an 8ball is 1/8 an oz.....3.5 grams.
posted by shockingbluamp at 4:38 PM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


My parents grew up smoking up on the lawn of their community college. They knew I was smoking up from very nearly the moment I started, and their response was a very simple "do not drive afterwards, and be careful not to get caught." I love my mom + dad.
posted by 1adam12 at 4:51 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


I came here to post this one thing: thin watermelon.
posted by destructive cactus at 5:16 PM on April 26, 2013 [5 favorites]


My parents would assume that I was talking about saffron if I did this to them.

...And sadly, they wouldn't be wrong.

I think I just failed at being a university undergraduate.
posted by Conspire at 5:32 PM on April 26, 2013 [7 favorites]


My 18 year old daughter texted me this from college yesterday. 20 minutes earlier we were texting about her lab practical so I assumed she was telling someone else about the results. I did respond by quoting Nickleback. She sent me to music prison for that. Heh.
posted by firelizard at 5:41 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


The 2 grams one might be funny if you're an otherwise respectable person, but if you're already on your last legs (Dad's nagging you to look for jobs, and saying that he's not going to support you any more, second one down), maybe that's not the time for that joke.
posted by Hatashran at 6:28 PM on April 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


This one is great.
posted by homunculus at 6:42 PM on April 26, 2013


I don't even have to do it, I can guarantee their responses.

MOM: oh grams ,im glad you learned the metric sytse m 44444444

DAD: Unless it's coke, you're getting ripped off. And if it's coke, I don't want to be having this conversation with you. #ilearneditfromwatchingyou #cokeheadson #imnotthatold
posted by Sphinx at 7:08 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I found the drug one hilarious because, stupid kids, on the advice of some internet jack ass they've never met, did something massively hurtful to people they love. And now, they will never, ever be trusted by those people again. Way to go.
posted by evilDoug at 8:03 PM on April 26, 2013 [6 favorites]


If it makes you guys feel better, these are probably all fake.
posted by cmonkey at 8:48 PM on April 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


The grams one just breaks my heart for those parents. Even if you later reveal that it was a joke, that moment has to be 18 kinds of Not Fun for the poor parents.

I'm guessing that the number of parents of college age children who would be freaked out upon learning that their child smoked pot must be vanishingly small.
posted by she's not there at 9:03 PM on April 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Impressive that someone's mom is nonchalant enough to recommend precautionary double-bagging

For the record, doubling up on condoms is a recipe for breakage and a bad idea.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 10:02 PM on April 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


Yup. The "Have Fun" Mom may be sex positive but she knows jack about safe sex.

I'm starting to find this brand of Internet lulz mean spirited pile-on comedy pretty asinine. Could we have a special holiday, one day out of the year, where we stop rewarding people for groupthink? I suppose some smart aleck would point out the irony in organizing everyone to do the same thing on the same day like that...
posted by Skwirl at 2:23 AM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm guessing that the number of parents of college age children who would be freaked out upon learning that their child smoked pot must be vanishingly small.

Your guess would be wrong. There are huge numbers of parents who have never smoked pot, and would be horrified to learn their kids smoke.

Additionally, selling pot in grams is a relatively recent development. Unless they're still actively buying the stuff, parents of college-age kids would be more likely to immediately relate the use of "grams" to things like meth, coke, and heroin, not pot.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]


As the child of two loving but EXTREMELY suspicious conservative parents, reading these gives me the same feeling as watching youtube videos of air-show disasters.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:59 AM on April 27, 2013 [2 favorites]


Plus, maybe it's because I'm in my 30s so my parents were around in the 70s disco heyday, but I'd expect they'd know that coke, heroin and speed don't cost $40 for 2 grams.

My Mom has like a billion photo albums. She has literally never thrown a photo away and was the vanguard of TAKE PICTURES OF EVERYTHING WE DO AT ALL TIMES school of social interactions, so on rainy days me and my brother would just dive in and try to find the oldest photo in a collection leading to many conversations like

"Oh this must be Aunt Whatever back in California .."
" Oh look there's mom ....and her man-sized bong."
posted by The Whelk at 2:44 PM on April 27, 2013 [3 favorites]


If either of my twentysomething sons texted me "got 2 grams for $40," I would be extremely pissed that he would be stupid enough to text something like that in the clear, even as a joke. But neither one is that stupid.
posted by ogooglebar at 3:52 PM on April 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


...something massively hurtful to people they love. And now, they will never, ever be trusted by those people again. Way to go.

If this is all it takes to lose someone's trust forever, then I'd posit that you never really had it in the first place. On the scale of stupid shit that teenagers get up to, this seems pretty tame to me.
posted by ODiV at 9:55 PM on April 27, 2013


...something massively hurtful to people they love. And now, they will never, ever be trusted by those people again. Way to go.

I'd say the kids are entitled to some payback for being lied to about Santa Claus.
posted by ogooglebar at 8:28 AM on April 28, 2013


Two grams for $40? That's highway robbery. Are you getting it from the shady dudes down by the Jack In The Box or something? God, lets go get you a "medical" authorization.
posted by egypturnash at 9:45 AM on April 28, 2013


Nathan's humorless, deadpan approach to improving "client" business on N4U is riveting. With its high squirm-ability – both for what he does/says and those he affects – you cant look away. The gram bit is a riot.
posted by pmaxwell at 1:55 PM on April 28, 2013


The episode of Nathan for You where he creates an elaborate, fake, Bachelor-style show (and the host doesn't know it's fake) called "The Hunk" is one of my favorite episodes of television ever.
posted by mean cheez at 5:54 AM on April 29, 2013


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