Reading National Geographic last night (see? I do read things apart from health and fitness!), I came across an ad for “gravity defyer” shoes. Clearly, this is a joke. I mean first of all there’s the word “defyer.” I’m guessing it’s supposed to mean that the shoes defy gravity and the spelling is a word play on “defier”, as in “one who defies.” But then I realized that I’m reading National Geographic and what passes for humor in that magazine usually involves a pit, a wild animal and a misunderstood foreign language. As in, “There I was photographing the bewildered wildebeest when all of a sudden I stumbled into a 12-foot aboriginal pit! Guess I should have paid attention to the ‘caution, wet floor’ sign!” You would laugh at this because you would realize that wildebeests, while innately comical, are native to Africa and modern Aborigines (as opposed to the more general usage of aborigine meaning first or indigenous peoples) live in Australia and do not have written languages. Yeah, it’s that bad. Which is why this first mystified me and then made me laugh so loudly I woke up my husband:
image from gravitydefyer.com, naturally
Updated to add: Fiona Picklebottom (awesome) pointed out in the comments that the arrow in the ad points to the logo and says “the slick seed of life (because it’s cool)”!! So it IS totally intentional. And I have to agree with Fiona: it only makes it worse.
Question #1: How did someone come up with the concept for this, uh, little swimmer? You know somewhere there was a meeting around a big table where some (hipster) genius sketched this out on a napkin. Question #2: How did anyone decide that this was the exact image that best represented trampoline shoes? Question #3: How much money does it take to place an ad in National Geographic with a picture of inseminated shoes?
Now, I have never tried these shoes. For all I know they could be the miraculous scientific wonder of athleticism that the fine print claims they are (sure hope so as these suckers are pricey!) but even if they are all that and a bag of nuvarings, I don’t think I could ever wear them in public. At the very least I’d have to wear thick socks – can’t be too careful, it only takes one you know. You?