Walmart pulls children's toy that swears and sings in Polish about doing cocaine
toronto.ctvnews.ca
toronto.ctvnews.ca
That's really the essence of the story here. Walmart, Amazon, and others sell almost anything via their 3rd party seller functionality. With little oversight on product safety, counterfeits, issues like this one, etc. And not really enough visual cues and explanation to the buyer about what a 3rd party marketplace is. People seem to understand, for example, that their eBay purchase is something of a crapshoot. They don't always get that idea on Amazon and WalMart.
I cannot blame them, since retail profit margins are so low. But as a buyer, I try to direct my purchases to the retailers that make it easy for me to not deal with resellers. So I try to use Home Depot/Lowes/staples/Best Buy more often. Target is decent, but they also have more and more third party sellers now and do the same thing as Walmart.
If it's gonna take over a month to deliver and it's not a car, it better damn well be free shipping.
Now I solve the problem by only ordering from more local companies; Best Buy is surely not local, but the local best buy is a lot more local than Chinese third-party sellers of counterfeit goods.
Oh, and let's not forget that Amazon allows you to ship counterfeits and claim they're real, and then Amazon will mix them all together and sell your counterfeits to their customers and their legitimate products to your customers.
Who’s liable? I’m sure the store’s lawyers have pretty strong opinions but how would a jury view that if the brand of the store is plastered all over the checkout page?
(Has this ever happened/been tested in court?)
As of this year, there are even stricter requirements to have an in-region Authorized Representative to back up any claims of compliance: https://blog.clevercompliance.io/ce-marking/responsibilities...
[1] https://smile.amazon.com/Red-Iron-Oxide-Natural-Pounds/dp/B0...
But you probably should check your local legislation, as there are a lot of (most?) places where messing with explosives is indeed very illegal.
They seem to be more concerned with selling the third-party stuff online than getting me into their store to pick something up today. My guess is, they've calculated that they can make more money off of third-party stuff online than impulse extras from in-store pickup. I'm certainly no ecommerce expert though.
These people don’t realize that commingling is a thing and that shipped and sold by amazon just means that the same random third party seller simply paid amazon a bit more and sent their items to an amazon warehouse to use their logistics. It doesn’t guarantee anything. And except amazon basics items, amazon doesn’t sell or source any of the items directly. Nor do they feel like they’re responsible for them in any way.
There are kinda popular video(s) called "Polish Cow" which's basically animated cow dancing with this "hard song" in the background that people are not familiar with.
I bet it has something to do with this.
Probably those chinese manufacturers weren't aware or didn't care what does this song actually mean, but they just wanted to use something popular (maybe at that time)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=polish+cow
even top comment on youtube says
>guy: puts his heart into a song about addiction and depression
>the internet: hehe funny cow go brrr
edit:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tylko-jedno-w-glowie-mam-poli...
That song went viral during lockdowns, as it was a part of the deepfake video with the Minister of Health of that time, who had eyes with dark rings around them at the tv conferences (probably makeup), indicating he is working day and night to fight the pandemic. The healthcare quality decreased and the successes were only visible in state-controlled media, while multiple accusations of corruption in buying the medical equipment. Before he resigned, he complained that he can't stop himself reading multiple jokes and memes about him appearing online every day.
The lyrics translation: "It's the only thing in my mind, 5g of cocaine..."
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COzSF-7_6Dc
Does Poland still have state-controlled media? I'm Polish (living in the US, though have visited 2x) but wasn't aware that still existed there.
The problem is that the current government took over prosecutors, judges, media oversight institutions, constitutional court, basically all institutions that were supposed to protect media neutrality and rule of law - and openly ignores the rules. Since 2015 it goes worse and worse and by now it's basically North Korea level.
I'm not joking, this was in the state media before presidential elections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9O3tc21cU0
Whenever they show Donald Tusk (one of leaders of opposition) in TVP they put his voice through distortion so he sounds like Darth Vader. And they cut to him saying stuff in German every few minutes as it has bad associations in Polish :)
From my observations supporters of current government was saying exactly the same thing before this government was elected.
At any rate I was stating falsifiable facts. For example the law says that all political parties should have time on state TV according to their percentage of votes from previous elections. Here is the charts of TV time when previous government (PO) were controlling media and when current government (PIS) does:
https://www.wykop.pl/cdn/c3201142/comment_KV0oMf1z6dv7AywTSa...
PIS had about 37% support in 2018, PO had about 30% support in 2014. This is not cherry-picked btw, the percentage gets worse with time, here's data from 2019: https://twitter.com/szczesniak__a/status/1228076766998278144...
Regarding breaking the rule of law - EU courts ruled that the changes PIS made were breaking the rule of law. Even PIS lawyers agree with that (for example Krystyna Pawłowicz admited the changes were "obviously unconstitutional, but we agreed with President Duda that we will vote for them"). She got nominated by President Duda for the next judge at constutitional tribunal after that. You can find video of the quote, it's not manipulated.
They basically changed the law shortening the retirement age for judges so that judges older than X were immediately fired so they can replace all of them at once - making the highest Polish court fully staffed with their people. Constitution says the judges cannot be replaced before term and PIS doesn't have 66% required to change the constitution, but they just introduce the law anyway and as they have their people in courts - whatever they say goes. And their people got to the courts by breaking the constitution in the first place. So now we have 2 legal systems in Poland - the government one and the legal one. And we pay fines to EU because of that.
It's a mess.
You have 6 comments on hn, 5 of them defending Polish government.
Yet I am the one fixated on "political theater" :)
>And people who don't vote because there is no political option with sensible program
You say that as if not voting was some virtue, it's not, and one of the reasons for the situation we are currently in.
This is not a contest for perfect politician where opposing sides have different loud opinions but ultimately all would do acceptable job governing the country. PiS is not playing by the democratic rules, they are consistently taking over all the institutions and filling them with own pawns, and it's of critical importance to stop them.
It absolutely can be.
Every politician desperately wants you to vote. It’s, obviously, what gives them power and either an implicit or explicit endorsement of their policies and behaviors.
If you hate politicians, don’t do what they desperately want you to do.
Not true. Depending on the voters demographics politicians want you to vote or to stay at home. You can see this clearly in USA where one side wants immigrants to have voting rights and easy way to vote and the other side wants to make it as hard as possible for them to vote, preferably to ban it altogether.
In Poland it's the same, but the divisions are different - mostly city vs countryside and old vs young. So for example PIS moved the presidential elections to holidays (when most young people from cities are away from home and have to deal with more bureaoucracy to vote) and sponsored special prizes for villages with the highest voting percentage.
Other examples is voting abroad - when PIS had majority there - it made it easier to vote from abroad; now that most people abroad vote opposition - PIS made it very hard to vote from abroad and hundreds of thousands of votes from abroad weren't counted for formal reasons.
Another thing is - in a very polarized society it's almost impossible to make person switch voting from one side to the other. But it's possible to persuade your opponent voters to stay at home. Hence targeted PR campaigns in social media.
Politicians want to get and keep power, that's universal, but some politicians will break the rules to achieve that goal and others won't. It's counterproductive to treat them all the same just because you think being cynical is cool.
[1] and they increase the amount of money put there - https://www.nik.gov.pl/aktualnosci/gospodarka-majatkowa-i-fi...
One seller from beijing even uses the same Polish song in its ads:
https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=637694403248&ali_refid=...
And in the cactus playlist there goes a song titled "Dancing Polish Cow" =)
https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i1/2207287191893/O1CN01ve29V...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqYv9A170XE
They used this platform:
Edit: This one is my favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYLSGbzF6CY
- they got all popular (=hated) Polish politicians and even the late Polish pope.
*According to a "friend"
Definitely. It's a catchy song for sure. That's how Gangnam Style ended up in quite a few toys too (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYSD9XWzfH4 ). Before that, it seems various EDM was popular.
"This year's hit toy was late in coming, and the few remaining are going fast, some for incredible prices."
I've never heard of Cypis, and now I absolutely want this toy. Learning to swear in Polish is a form of education. The happy accidents coming from Asian production can be really awesome. There are lots of negatives from this kind of production; we should be happy for the few positive ones. This is almost as great as getting a Barbie Liberation Army GI Joe or Barbie.
Highly recommend Furious Pete's educational video about Kurwa! (nsfw): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdWlspF3B2M
His entire Polish language lessons series is pretty fun and tongue-in-cheek yet educational. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=furious+pete+po...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny
From the article:
The cactus was sold on Walmart’s website as an educational toy for about $26 and sings songs in English, Spanish and Polish.
But Tanner, who is Polish, said when she listened to the Polish lyrics, the cactus was singing about doing cocaine, drug abuse, suicide, depression and used profanities.
"It just so happens that I am Polish and when I started to listen to the songs and I heard the words," she said. "I was in shock. I thought what is this some kind of joke?"
The song is by Polish Rapper Cypis, who is reportedly unaware his song was used by the Chinese manufacturer of the children's toy.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/business/hasbro-removes-troll...
And it's definitely curious placement for a button that makes the doll giggle and gasp.
BOTH LINKS NSFW!
[1] https://themorningnews.org/article/behind-the-scenes-the-har...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/why-d...
But my favorite bit is the product Q&A here: https://www.amazon.com/GOBOOMAN-Dancing-Childhood-Education-...
It's full of would be scam accomplices who bought the product on the promise of getting the money refunded if they gave a 5-star review. E.g.:
Q: Is this product easy to use?
A: No, the seller is a liar and deceived me. Let me buy it and give it a five-star review and give me a refund. Then the fact is that I did not receive a refund from the seller.
Delicious. More scamming of scammers, please!
It has pretty good entertainment value.
Here is the cactus playing the song in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54MxIrPvFME
Though, i think it all boils down to fee Chinese being proficient in Polish, or any foreign languages to begin with https://external-preview.redd.it/Axh-na6HlrKEKyLjRONPMrQZQNn...
All serious issues aside, that is true globalization, lol. Copyright issues, quality control issues, ignorance (willful?) ...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL01DA7137241FC16D
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8256VJ4hkJU [2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwbDtBfx5bnPEgadOHQYE...
While there is a reference to the Polish language problem, most of the negative reviews are about the low quality, lack of volume control, and general failures.
I know a Polish language learner who would really “benefit” from this item but I’d like the right one.
Though searching for "dancing cactus toy" shows lots of other sellers.
I'm dying here. And to think I was worried that things like Google Translate would kill all the good Engrish.
"On a comfortable weekend afternoon, sinking into the red-and white check chair to watch others pass by, you can relish on the leisure time, relaxing with freshly brewed coffee by using the commercial coffee maker and the gentle humming of a girl singer."
While reviewing the story ( and listening to the song ) my first thought was of Krusty from the Simpsons and how little he cared about the stuff he records on dolls bearing his likeness. In an odd way, it sounds exactly what happened here.
'This is how pros do it' - prolly Krusty
edit: I know that the actual rapper may actually go legally after the company using his song.
I'm guessing the news story will make this toy the must-buy item for Polish (and others) meme followers this Christmas.
Many times I just want to know if this is in stock 30 mins from me. Any longer and I will just have it shipped on Amazon.
But instead Walmart is a shitty Amazon and I never use it.
In fact, thinking about it - we have a signing toy for our kid, it has several songs in English, Polish and Chinese. The songs in Chinese definitely sound nice, they have a good rhythm to them, but they could be about literally anything. The Polish songs are good though(I speak Polish).
I have seen the toy many months ago, if not the previous year. It has been internet sensation for a long time.
I fail to understand how this is any news.
My younger son (4 1/2) has learned this by accident (yeah, a moment of unrestricted youtube access) and now I am trying to get him to unlearn the song.