Tag: history

This is the Zazzle.com store page for President William Henry Harrison Gifts. That exists! Give the gift of William Henry Harrison, today, with Zazzle.

Unlike the image resolution of the products I’m about to show you, let’s be clear. I want to make clear I am not hoodwinking Zazzle Dot Com into looking sillier than it is. I’m not pumping a wacky search term sequence into the Zazzle website. That page is an on-purpose, specific, unique URL for President William Henry Harrison Gifts. Google brought me there. But when you arrive at this alienating store, they gaslight you. They place the words “president william henry harrison gifts” in the search bar. As if to say this is not a store at all. As if this page is the grim progeny of you being weird. But no: Zazzle did this. Zazzle Dot Com delineated a permanent depot for William Henry Harrison-ania. The results are vile by 2020s commerce standards, 1800s moral standards, and any decade’s definition of sane shopping.

Do you know who William Henry Harrison is? Whatever you said, good answer. You either said “no who’s that”, or said “is that the President who died fast?” William Henry Harrison became President in 1841, and served 31 days in office, before dying. He’s American history’s number one Dead White Man, in the sense he’s iconically the “Dead” part. His brief term’s briefness is all anyone knows about him. Also, he’s lucky that’s all anyone knows about him. All other facts about William Henry Harrison are nightmares. He spent his brief life murdering Native people and maintaining slavery and being born rich thanks to slavery. He’s a leading, towering figure of every American history horror…but he’s Mr. Bean’d his way into the simpler/wackier legacy of “he died lol.” So for most people, William Henry Harrison is a howling void, as a topic. He’s the dullest trivia tidbit. He’s a factoid for middle schoolers to bandy about, in between hormones and discharges. No one has interest in this man. So tell me, Zazzle Dot Com, how/why/whatfor do you sell “what would william henry harrison do poker chips”?

My dear Hotdogger: you are right. These are random. William Henry Harrison’s life had no poker component. He was not some sort of Vegas President. He never bluffed it all on the turn card at the Tropicana. I associate poker players with big indoor sunglasses. William Henry Harrison lacked eyewear in general, let alone the signature specs of a Greg “Fossilman” Raymer.

I’m aghast at these poker chips. Every element baffles. For example: they’re sold in boxes of one color. Think that through. No one in the history of poker has used poker chips in just one color. That forces you to bet “one money” per chip. You regress to a toddler’s understanding of currency. You’re better off just using money from your wallet. Money has denominations. Zazzle Harrison Chips are useless unless you buy in color-diversified bulk. You need so many of these. Also, the text alignment of that hanging “do?” makes my eyes feel like they jumped off a cliff. Also, there’s a discount if you use checkout code “2024ZMOMENTS”. I’m repulsed by the implied concept of “celebrating a ZMOMENT”. That sounds like a Terminator proffering a children’s birthday party hat with its non-gun hand. These chips are so hideous, I’m just now getting around to complaining about its use of the phrase “what would [Person] do?” That phrase belongs to Jesus. Everyone knows Jesus coined that, or something. That belongs to Him. Only Zazzle is deranged enough to sell William Henry Harrison poker chips that jack The Risen Christ’s steez.

Why are we here, looking at these products? Why, besides capitalism? Curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know more about the ha-ha wacky President who died fast. I googled William Henry Harrison, looking for books and scholarship about William Henry Harrison. However, when you google anything, you often get served SHOPPING ADS at the top of the page. So when I googled a genocide enthusiast, I found an interesting book about him…but not before scrolling past a row of products like this.

That first shop listing led me to a smorgasbuhwhatnow of thirty-eight William Henry Harrison Zazzle Dot Com ZMOMENTS. 38 different z’mentoes, presented as gifts. Gifts for that special someone you wish to confuse and concern. Or perhaps implicate in wasteful tree murder.

You’re fine! Your monitor or phone is fine, and not glitching. That blurred visage is Zazzle’s fault. That’s the product image for William Henry Harrison Portrait Wood Wall Art. Finally, a portrait of “9th USA President” with only three-ish warped horrors in the image transfer. At last, the name “William Henry Harrison” as it was meant to be seen, in Almost The Nazi Font. With this portrait you’ll enjoy Willie Hanky Harry year-round! Gaze at his trademark “Abyss Orb” Necktie! If that’s what that is! What is on his neck! Oh well! Don’t forget to use code “MATRIXROBOTKISSESYOU” for 15% off this eight inch by eight inch wooden slab.

Have I described Zazzle.com yet? Zazzle is a marketplace website for anything anyone thinks of. They’ll print anything, on demand, on anything. You (yes, you) can submit up to 100,000 product ideas before Zazzle Dot Staff rolls out of bed and considers doin’ a li’l quality control. Until then, upload away. Upload for profit. For you! According to “SideHusl Dot Com”, ginning up a Zazzle store is a fantastic side husl. Your idea, printed on anything! Even if they’ll never sell that idea in a bajillion years! They don’t care and they’re not checking and that’s how William Henry Harrison likes it. If William Henry Harrison were alive today, he’d only have one objection to this store: the shirt models’ ethnicities.

That’s a t-shirt celebrating “Tippecanoe And Tyler Too”, the presidential campaign slogan of William Henry Harrison and his running mate John Tyler and their eventual one question on the A.P. U.S. History test. Why was “Tippecanoe” a lot of the slogan? “Tippecanoe” was William Henry Harrison’s nickname. He won that moniker by winning The Battle Of Tippecanoe. He “won the battle” in the sense that he attacked a small group of Native people with his larger army, did not run that attack very effectively, and had his troops desecrate Native graves after the Native folks retreated. Celebrate that event I just described with a painting of the event, printed on a Zazzle t-shirt.

As you can see, the shirt celebrates the battle between Zazzle’s garment printer and any average-shaped man’s pectorals. Your chest meat will Salvador Dali this massacre. Back to the slogan: Harrison ran for President on a slogan referencing these actions, because the white men of 1840 were rapacious land-grabbing maniacs. They liked that about him. They also liked the lack of other William Henry Harrison information. People in 1840 barely knew more about William Henry Harrison than you do. He ran one of the first American campaigns built on distractions, stunts, and vibes. Harrison ran on such a bogus non-platform of non-ideas, I found a scholarly write-up of it invoking the word “bogus”. His campaign makes scholars sound like Bill and Ted.

Harrison’s team even faked Harrison’s backstory. They claimed Harrison lived in a log cabin. Real Harrison came from a Virginia slaveowner aristocrat family. Harrison’s father was full-ass The Governor Of Virginia. And then Harrison’s chosen running mate, John “Tyler” Tyler, was another born-rich Virginia slaver. So “Tippecanoe And Tyler Too” describes a two-layer nesting doll of the same bastard. It’s like if a young Robert E. Lee ran for President, with Robert F. Lee as his running mate and Roberts G. And H. Lee as their Mafia-style underbosses while Robert Y. Lee brings them cocktails and Robert Z. Lee is on his knees being their couch. “Tippecanoe And Tyler Too” was a whimsical pitch for a crimes against humanity-doin’ duo. Zazzle offers a t-shirt celebrating that, modeled by an unsuspecting Black woman.

These models took a couple pictures in blank t-shirts one time. She has no idea what Zazzle would auto-photoshop in later! Do we…tell her? Maybe she can learn this, fight back, bring Zazzle down in a cyberpunk heroine type way? Shimmy into a data center and unplug servers? Because they also did this to her:

Let’s get a better look at the shirt and also show you the product description. Computer, enhance.

This is such a mousetrap for nerds. A pedant honeypot. Also, it might be inaccurate? I searched online resources a lot. None of them say this. I have no idea where ThenWearOnZazzlePro got this. Please share if you’ve got any sources. This seller sure doesn’t! If this is a joke: No, it’s not. If this is a fact, it’s the worst fact you could put on your body. If you wear this, you’re dressing in an arcane sub-fact, about a boring Prime Fact, concerning two monstrous slaverymen. Only one kind of person wants this. It’s for someone traipsing around town, chest first, quivering with anticipation of a fellow nerd asking why “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” is misprinted. That’s the one use case of this t-shirt: to inflict annoyance (and maybe misinformation!) on the rare other human being who’s even a little bit like you. Buying this shirt is like taking a correspondence course in Loneliness But Profounder. The only good thing about this shirt is you can wear it under a different, less infuriating shirt. Every shirt is an undershirt if you rank it low enough. Also, you mostly don’t have to look at your own shirt. It won’t look back at you. What will look at you? This kitchen magnet bearing a William Henry Harrison portrait so pallid and smeary, it makes me feel like he died in an asylum fire.

Moving on to cleaner, fresher art, Zazzle offers this bumper sticker, at a price point that suggests it’ll flop off in your next light rainfall.

No one wants this. Not just because it’s a bad product. Absolutely everyone disagrees with this. You see, we’ve had at least several U.S. Presidents. One (Lincoln) was good. The others (Roosevelt, Obama, I want to say “Johnsman”?) had funny mustaches or cool dogs. So if you think the objectively worse one, who died right away, is the best one, you are…a Presidential assassin? And/or anarchist? “The only good President is a dead President” is maybe too punk of an attitude. And you celebrate that punk-or-assassin attitude by celebrating no Presidents. A 31 day administration is 31 too many, if you’re the murderer I described.

This postcard is eerie as hell. It looks ordinary, but it’s a picture of William Henry Harrison’s tomb. Zazzle suggests you buy a postcard from that location, without visiting that location. William Henry Harrison rots in North Bend, Ohio, which is also the birthplace of President Benjamin Harrison. Benjamin Harrison was William Henry Harrison’s grandson. They’re the only Presidential grandfather/grandson duo. So, uh, you could write that on the back of the card? That’s all you can do with [checks Zazzle] Zazzle’s second-worst William Henry Harrison postcard.

This gift is the worst one, ish. It’s called William Henry Harrison Baseball Card. But it is objectively a postcard:

That’s a lazy stock image. But by Zazzle Dot Com standards, it achieves the tremendous success of not slapping Harrison’s image on an unsuspecting descendant of a Harrison victim. They didn’t photoshop it onto Tecumseh’s grandkid or whoever. So, mini-win. Oh no. Zazzle probably calls a mini-win a ZINIWIN or some garbage. Anyway: whoever made this doesn’t seem to have made other cards of the other Presidents. They made just one Presidential “baseball card”, for William Henry Harrison. And they’re even lazier about copying sports tropes. Look at the few letters on this card:

Why is there a random “W” in there? Is it a tribute to George W. Bush, and his 96 consecutive Harrison Terms (1 month) in office? Nope. It’s a “W” for the Whig Party. But it’s done in a faulty fashion. Baseball cards often feature a small initialism, representing the player’s position. “P” for pitcher, “C” for catcher, “1B” for the slow meathead. This card makes a vague gesture at that, but it does that letter for the political party. Not the position (President). The party, aka his team. “Whigs” should be written in a fun team logo, not a stamped positional afterthought. They also skip the good part of a baseball card, which is the back of the baseball card. Baseball card backs are pretty much the origin of sports statistics. William Henry Harrison is lucky this one doesn’t total his enslavements and murders. He’s lucky about that in general. He’s legitimately lucky he died. His all-time record for death immediacy is all anybody knows about him. It’s the root of the one William Henry Harrison joke online, which one Zazzle product manages to not garble:

Hardy-har-har-he-died-fast. He also deserved to die fast and everyone who bought this has no idea. Don’t buy these gifts for anyone. Remember to be better, and do better. Like an inspirational figure would do. “What would an inspirational figure do?” And to remind yourself of that timeless message…take it away, Poxco!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Gellaho. When times get difficult, remember: WWGD (Whoa, Wicked Gellaho Dunk!).