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Upsetting Day: Baggage
Author: Lydia Bugg
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Nerding Day: GORGO!
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Nerding Day: DressX đźŚ
I’ve always felt the problem with clothing is that it’s a real, tangible product I can purchase and not a ghostly apparition floating over the general area of my body. I want ghost clothes. Luckily, digital fashion companies were briefly in style when we were all excited about the Metaverse, and a few are still hanging in there, so for only ninety dollars, (a picture of) you too can look like you’ve hunted and killed Grimace and are wearing his intestines as a trophy.
There are quite a few digital fashion companies out there now, but I’m going to focus on one that I think is the most egregious. They charge a ton of money for almost no product, they way overpromise on what they can deliver, and they’ve collaborated with a ton of legitimate brands like Coca-Cola, American Eagle, and Gucci, but I trust them about as much as a guy selling Hefty bags of blood from inside his trench coat.
This look from their Coca-Cola collaboration really displays the level of craft DressX is offering to their biggest brand partners. Their slogan should be, “You too can maybe look like fancy clothing is glitching into existence sort of near your body as long as you don’t move too fast!
DressX likes to talk a lot about how sustainable digital fashion is. Sure, if we could all be naked all the time, that would save a ton of energy and material; unfortunately, since these clothes don’t actually exist, they’re not saving jack shit. Also, in addition to selling digital assets, DressX sells NFTs, Mother Nature’s favorite garrote. So, if you wear a regular outfit with an NFT dress over it, you’re able to spend twice as much money and really kick the planet in the dick. As one TikTok comment said, “Yes, destroy the environment shawty. Go crypto!”
You really have to dig into DressX to figure out what they’re actually selling right now. If you look very, very, hard you can find a teeny, tiny print explanation about DressX’s actual products. It’s, in their own words, close to nothing, but don’t worry– it won’t stop them from selling it to you for sometimes hundreds of dollars.
DressX makes it seem as if what you’re purchasing from them is this amazing piece of clothing you can slap on for live streams, video chats, Metaverse avatars, Instagram pictures, or dating profiles. In reality, it sort of works for two of those things. I’ve seen a few pictures of people standing perfectly still on Instagram where they almost look like their clothes aren’t a cartoon. Since there’s no explanation on the site of how this digital asset will be applied, the only way I could figure it out was to pay DressX a dollar to Photoshop an extremely ugly bucket hat onto my head.
So, that’s where the technology is at right now. You’re paying real money to pretend to wear a make-believe hat. If you pay even more money, you can pretend to wear a diamond-encrusted lizard skin pope hat. However, if you want to wear your diamond-encrusted lizard skin pope hat to a Skype meeting with your boss, you’re out of luck.
One of the DressX applications they advertise is how you can wear the clothing on video streams, but imagine going to a Zoom meeting about the quarterly budget, and your blouse keeps popping off, or your business suit glitches away to reveal your novelty World’s Horniest Christian Grandpa t-shirt. As long as nudity and radical T-shirts are frowned upon in the workplace, digital clothing is worthless for video chat. The technology is currently on par with an episode of the 1999 children’s television program Reboot.
To be clear, this isn’t one guy in a basement running a scam. According to Forbes, DressX got fifteen million in series A funding in March of 2023. They’re the largest platform for digital-only fashion, and I think it’s because they employed a pretty ingenious strategy of making a terrible product that so enraged people they had to scream about it in the comments of their TikTok videos. As we know, the algorithm is stupid and just sees this as engagement, which means they could show investors TikToks of their product with five million views. Sure, all of these views were driven by people commenting, “This looks like shit,” but who cares! Five million people saw this shit.
They often respond to comments about how the clothes look terrible with an overly confident “Oh yeah, does this look terrible?” and then a photo of a woman in another awful dress with a hand twice the size of her head. Then a hundred thousand people respond, “Bestie, it’s giving if Pepto-Bismal didn’t fuck” and another venture capitalist firm FedEx’s them eight million dollars.
Things really took off when they started making TikToks with the headline, “Can you even tell this is a digital dress?” Of course you can. The dress looks like it was pulled off of a character from the creepy CGI Polar Express movie, and it’s blinking in and out of existence every three seconds, but that’s the point.
DressX designers include big names like Crosty, R3N3GADES, Bonko, Spark +Rebel, and if you’re trying to guess which one I made up, it’s none of them. Those are all real DressX designers. I know you assumed R3N3GADES must be fake; why two 3s instead of E, but the third E is just a regular E? I DON’T KNOW, but someone does because they really named their design company that.
They’re now holding design contests where people can use AI to make clothing inspired by famous brands, and then DressX will put them into digital production. However, even the most advanced AI still doesn’t really get the human body, so the clothing these monsters spit out end up looking like the alien from The Thing impersonating a mocap suit. DressX is the best purveyor of digital herpes jackets on the market today.
DressX assured me that the girlies love the vibe, but to me, the vibe is a robot trying to infiltrate my life like a Terminator and doing a terrible job. Can you imagine a scenario where the Nigerian prince asking you for money sent this as proof that they’re a real person? This is the most suspicious outfit I’ve ever seen. How is it possible to make digital clothing that doesn’t fit? I don’t know, but somehow DressX has accomplished it.
Remember earlier in the article when I said I paid DressX a dollar to photoshop an ugly hat on my head? What ended up happening instead was DressX stole a dollar from me. They sent me an email saying my picture was attached and it was not. When I pointed that out, I got no response. I don’t know why I expected just slightly more than that, but honestly, I’m having trouble feeling bad about not having to see what I look like in that ugly ass hat. I would rather have a dollar stolen from me, honestly. Thank you, DressX, for doing me the kindness of not delivering a product.
If you’re one of the millions of people DressX believes are out there waiting to be haunted by the ghost of pants, maybe try another company. It seems like if we can make a random person look exactly like Tom Cruise with the magic of computers we could also fake a decent jumpsuit but the technology somehow isn’t there yet.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Sean Chase, who has bulk plasma for sale if you’re chill.
As we all know, Muppets are the only acceptable puppets. They are our soft friends who are genuinely funny and would never touch us with their weird little felt hands without our permission. That’s right, I don’t want to get felt up by a Muppet, waka waka! (Note to editor: if you cut this joke I will quit the website on principle). When a human enters the world of The Muppets, they typically play the role of a straight man, confused, enraged, or overjoyed by the Muppets’ silly antics. There is one person who refused to be relegated to that boring role in a Muppet movie– Muppet made living flesh, Timothy James Curry.
In my opinion, there are two standout performances by humans in the Muppet universe. First was, of course, Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol, giving a completely straight Oscar-worthy performance alongside his co-star, a talking rat. But second, and moreso, was Tim Curry out Muppeting every other Muppet in Muppet Treasure Island. This man was deeper inside the Muppets than any puppeteer. He was out there asking Kermit what he felt his character motives were, and when his puppeteer tried to answer, he said, “Shut the fuck up. I’m talking to KERMIT.”
I firmly believe that Tim Curry method acted this role, not as Long John Silver, the pirate, but as a member of the Muppets portraying Long John Silver, only eating food prepared by the Swedish Chef, playing triangle for Dr. Teeth And The Electric Mayhem on the weekends, having a tawdry on-set affair with Camilla the chicken right in front of Gonzo. It’s the only way he could have possibly achieved the level of human-to-Muppet transformation we see in this film. Tell me, could a normal human make this face? I rate it five out of five Tim Curry’s.
Don’t worry he’s not unhinging his jaw like an anaconda to attempt to eat Jim Hawkins. This is just a throwaway moment in a song about how fun it is to be a pirate where he gives a hearty Tim Curry “HA HA!”. It looks like the director said to pretend to be a baby bird waiting for food. No one was directing him, though! They couldn’t; he would never allow that. This is just Tim Curry being Tim Curry.
I don’t know if any actor has ever been better cast in any film. Only Tim Curry could bring the manic energy necessary to this role. Long John Silver is a father figure, but he’s insane. He’s a pirate but kind of a chill guy, but he’s also got a big knife. There are so many layers. His very first line in this Muppet movie is, “What have we here? Stowaways? I’m afraid we SHISHKABOB and BARBECUE stowaways on this ship!” Then he brandishes a knife at a child and a puppet named Rizzo. It’s terrifying. The first time I saw it I was certain he was going to eat that puppet! “Oh no, is this a movie about a man cannibalizing the Muppets?” I asked my Father—a solid Four Tim Currys.
The intensity of Long John Silver, the bloodthirsty pirate, is evident even when Curry is masquerading as a friendly ship cook. When Kermit orders Long John Silver to get rid of all of the alcohol on the ship, he agrees right away, but for half a second, Tim Curry makes the exact face of a drag queen holding back something really mean she wants to say about your outfit. It’s subtle but painful. In real life, Kermit would never recover from this face. It would haunt him on his deathbed. Three and a half Currys.
Once Long John Silver is outed as a pirate, he adds a pirate hat to his outfit, and his faces become as elaborate as his gold embossed costume. When he smiles at Jim Hawkins, it looks like he’s trying to show us every single tooth in his mouth. Of course, Tim Curry is a noted graduate of the wide-eyes-open-mouth school of acting. It’s the number one acting school for people who own multiple capes. I give this joyous man four Tim Currys.
Now, I’m sure your number one question about working with the Muppets is whether or not it’s difficult to do stunts alongside a co-star with no bones. Tim Curry sword fights Kermit The Frog in this movie, and when Kermit whips out that sword, he looks like he’s never seen anything more impressive in his entire life. And he probably saw Kermit ride a bike in The Muppet Movie. His look of shock, betrayal, and awe gets a full five Tim Currys. No man has ever been more mesmerized by a Muppet.
Another thing Tim Curry brings to this movie that I don’t think any other actor could is his ability to turn a murder threat into a silly, fun time. Treasure Island is probably the most murder-filled story the Muppets have ever covered. While I would love to see a Reservoir Muppets or a Great Muppet Hellraiser, Treasure Island is probably the only Muppet movie we’re going to get where someone pulls a gun on Miss Piggy.
Luckily, it’s our good friend Tim Curry holding that gun, so it’s not that upsetting. He knows how to make the perfect face that says I’m super cranky but not cranky enough to murder America’s most beloved karate pig. That’s a five out of five Tim Curry face if I’ve ever seen one.
Does he have more muscles in his face than the average person? They say some actors can express so much with so little, but Tim Curry somehow expresses so much with so much. You might be wondering if this entire movie is just close ups of Tim Curry’s face, and yeah, that’s a lot of it, and also, it rules. If you’ve got a problem with that, you can take it up with this surprised Tim Curry face, which I give six out of five Tim Currys.
There may not even be any other Muppets in this movie. They were all so upstaged by our Muppet king, nay, Muppet god, Tim Curry, that they all quit. The movie is just Tim Curry now. The article is just Tim Curry now, and that’s all it needs to be. HA HA! Twelve out of five Tim Currys because who’s going to stop me?
The fact that this man won no awards at all for this movie is frankly as insane as the character he plays in it. When Muppet Treasure Island debuted, Roger Ebert said, “It isn’t easy, co-starring with a Muppet, as actors as talented as Orson Welles and Michael Caine have discovered over the years, but Curry’s strategy is to out-act and out-bluster them, and mostly he succeeds.” Ebert only gave the movie two and a half stars overall, but he called out Tim Curry’s performance specifically because he saw it for the work of genius it was. It’s not Tim Curry’s fault he couldn’t elevate the other Muppets to his level. Forty-four Tim Currys out of five.
How is it this man can play a character I mainly associate with a fast food restaurant that always upsets my tummy and yet I go there once a year as if I’ve been cursed by an evil fishstick, and I still love that character so much? That’s the power of the ultimate Muppet. Infinite Tim Currys.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Bim Talzer, who is the mouth slightly ajar eyes wide Tim Curry face of people.
