So, here’s we are again! The sock-hop of spite, the hoe-down of hatred, the blowout of bile, the shin-dig of scorn, the celebration of detestation across the nation… um… situation… transportation… deforestation… uh…
*beat*
…The WORST motherfuckin’ FLYERS of the year, c’mon, let’s get more high.
Join us, once again, as SmartShanghai.com raises two jaunty middle fingers to the events flyers of 2015 that did the same to our eyeballs. Join us, dear reader, once again, as we punch resolutely downwards on a bunch of poor, hardworking party planners and promoters, just trying, as they are, to make a quick RMB-buck out there in the Shanghai nightlife game. Join us, once again, as we ridicule a bunch of sad DJs, bands, and club managers, who are -- man, I dunno, this is just my theory here -- probably using photoshop by slamming their faces repeatedly into their keyboards or something?
The name of the game is simple. But let’s go over the rules once again because every damn year I get some damn “Gordan92” or some damn shit in the comments acting like it’s their first damn day on the GAT DAMNED planet.
1) SmartShanghai assembled a team of scientists to put together this list of “worst events flyers”, drawing from the pool of our submitted events database from January 1, 2015 until December 31, 2015. These are the worst promotional images out of over 3,000 submissions.
2) Said scientists were looking for bad-bad flyers, good-bad flyers, bad-good flyers, apocalypse-bad flyers, and basically anything at all we could be mean spirited about to keep this giant wheel called internet journalism turning.
3) All this is in good, clean fun, and we don’t mean any ill will to any of the clubs, bands, promoters, DJs who appear herein. We're just kiddin'. (Except we kinda really do and we're kinda really not.)
The hate shall set you free, the HATE shall set you free.
GETCHA HANDS UP.
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Jesus, look at this dead eyes on this poor girl. Man, when did ISIS take over the management at Windows? Can’t tell whether she’s going to take a bite out of that thing or strap a bunch of them to her chest and throw herself at a tank.
(Oooof. ISIS in the first one, this is going to be a rough year.)
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Wait, what? They’re still selling that plant food shite in Shanghai?
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From the flags on their shirts, the two guys book-ending this happy little gang of language learners are from Quebec, which means they’re exchanging with everyone here the skill of literally not being able to speak neither English nor French for jack shit.
(“Tabernaque! It eees ‘ow you say… ze “burn”, non!?!? Ho! Ho! Ho!”)
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This flyer is so dirty, hot, and exploitative, I want to write a short story about getting a handjob from it, and submit it to an anthology about expat writing.
Who the fuck is “The Busy Gang”? Is it as good as it looks?
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This party is totally going to be the jam for people who look like they got bounced out first round of a reality show about partying hosted by Dave Navarro.
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Look at this smooth as silk thing. 10 stars. Who did this thing? Leisure Suit Larry? Duke Nukem? The helpful paperclip from Microsoft Word ’95? This flyer is just humming along on Geocities-level graphics technology, like whatever, man. Surprised they didn’t have an “under construction” sign on it with a guy digging into a never-ending pile of dirt, and a bunch of yellow and black caution tape all over it.
Guess then they’d need this at the bottom:
People Going to This Concert Counter: 0000.
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Haha!
Sisqo at Arkham.
That's the joke: Sisqo at Arkham.
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This is like "All the People You Don't Want To Be in a WeChat Group With: The Musical".
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Man, Germany, no one is saying you can’t do Germany, just dial it down notch, maybe. Christ.
Now that I’m thinking about it, Germans just love the shit out of their big goofy-ass hats, eh. It’s like they put so much damn energy into these giant, goofy-ass hats. Germany -- they have to be up to something, no one likes these giant floppy hats this much.
Feel like one day all the Germans in the house are going to rise up, tear off their giant, goofy-ass novelty hats like FOOLED YOU, ZE DAY IST OWAZ and the whole world’s going to be force-marched into these rooms where they tape your eyelids back and make you watch 99 Luftballoons over and over and over again, jam delicious pastries and sausages down your throat, and it’s like mandatory goofy-ass hats Oktoberfest every day for 3000 glorious years.
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All it would take is for just one of those girls to have had a bit of an off lunch this guy's life would conclude in the most firey and righteous way imaginable.
Ka-BOOM. Sweet justice.
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In case there was any question -- just to make it absolutely clear beyond any shadow of a doubt -- the fedora aspect of this consume confirms that yes -- yes, this man is a totally tedious fucking dickhead.
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Pictured above is a very pretty girl and the inter-dimensional vortex one has to travel through for this party concept to make sense.
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My God, once I'm done scooping the shit out of my pants, I'm still not going to this party.
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Oh sweet, some dude thought “Step Brothers” was an instructional video.
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I’m almost 100% positive I had this for original Nintendo in 1991 and it fucking sucked.
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Check this out, this is the ultimate “Jesus, my co-worker is doing this fucking thing on Saturday night and I have to go. Just for like 15 minutes to stick my head in and credit for showing up. We can go somewhere else afterwards, but I just gotta say hi and prove I was there. I know, I know, it's real lame.”
This is that to the power of a million. You can just feel it’s that. It’s so powerfully that. This is the ULTIMATE that.
I bet on the morning of Dave’s big night, every single English teacher in Shanghai felt this unsettling tingling feeling like they had something they had to do that night -- somewhere they had to be. Even if they didn’t know what or where. Even if they’d never met this guy nor seen this image. That’s how powerful this flyer is.
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Okay everyone! See ya next year! Love you! Peas!
This article is part of our 2015 In Rewind series. Check out the rest:
Shanghai's Favorite Eats & Drinks (Coming Soon)
Best Flyers
Worst Flyers
Best & Worst Shows
Shanghai's Best & Worst Art
China's Best Albums
China's Worst Music
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