As someone who works with wood on occasion (albeit I am using reclaimed wood from pallets to make a small fence, and don't have any pics of any of my previous work so my opinion probably means squat) yours looks better then the Beyonce one
The fact that it’s to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of B’Day’s release and doesn’t even include the commemorative record is so funny to me. Gotta buy that separately!
It’s so weird to make that much money as a business and cut corners like this, like you easily could have found some extremely talented artist to make these, and done really high quality work to justify the cost. And be content selling to your celebrity level fans or your wealthiest, you’re already alienating your poorer fans, but you aren’t even appealing to your rich fans with the quality. It’s mainly going to be bought by people who can’t afford it but are super fans or people who just buy it for a status symbol, so I guess for them does it even matter. And also she makes so much money what the fuck is the point of making this an income stream. Without a sort of quality control to it. Your brand is so big protecting it as high quality should be the most
Important thing. Sometimes I wish I still did music industry work and artist management.
Makes me sad when exclusive deluxe versions come out that I get priced out of, never anything celebrity related, I'm talking about Faber Castell limited edition sets that cost over 2000.
But it made me appreciate that this piece of crap can't make anyone sad for having missed out on.
They only made 500? Of course they did its like fake hype and i hate how much it works. Folks, Class has officially left the building, time to usher in the era of Mediocrity.
In the times of enshitification, skimpflation, and shrinkflation , I’m not surprised . Also, McCartney is not a billionaire . She didn’t become a billionaire ethically by not scamming her fans lol
my entire queen size bed that was made of pine (that was actually finished & painted) only cost around $600 lol. $948.01 for an empty pine box is crazy
That's how conspicuous consumption works. Buy expensive stuff, be seen buying or using expensive stuff, gain a degree of social status as a result. See also Andrew Tate and most "lifestyle influencers."
Which is how a lot of lifestyle influencers do it. It's all rentals and returns but as long as you keep the look up, you still gain that social status. It's insidious.
Even predates the formal concept of an “influencer”. Lots of folks in pop music in the 90s and 2000s were already renting palatal houses solely for TV specials and what not. I seem to remember there was one hip hop guy on Cribs who brought the production crew to his low rent home because he refused to go that route.
I asked my cousin who is a woodworker. I said what if we found some of the most expensive wood materials and metal for the hinges and you made it by hand and engraved it with his tools or burning it on. He said even with the most expensive materials, with charging for making it by hand vs mass produced there is no way that box would sell for more than $500. He said as it is right now, the box probably cost between $3-10 to make if that. Edit he actually called me today funny enough he saw a news article about the box and one of his friends was talking to him about it. He thinks the box would never exceed 75 cents to $1 for everything including packaging. Shipping would add maybe 50-75cents. So basically he is pretty certain (guy has done woodworking 15 years longer than my cousin), that there is no chance in hell this box even costs more than $2 shipped and ready to sell. Utterly disgusting both because of the grift and because of the fans who will defend the box and buy it. Her fans are old now have to be all over 30+. They should have the fucking intelligence and maturity at this point to call out grifts but certain artists can murder someone on the street and they would stand in support at the trial. Did anyone expect anything different from Beyonce and her abusive disgusting husband Jay-Z? Both had the guts to talk about awards and who gets them this and that. Next thing you know their 9 year old daughter has a Grammy. Tupac doesnt have a Grammy, lol
Yes exactly, and a lot bigger. Like a cedar chest type, or something.
I could maybe see justification for that price as a bespoke item from a woodworker (but more involved than a simple dovetail box) but this mass produced thing? With the vague shou sugi ban finish? 😬 I can't help but laugh.
I get that, but they could have made it better. Especially if they're demanding $900 for it. Stylize the outsides w/ a honeycomb pattern, use a better quality wood that has a gold/honey tone, etc.
I could go to Home Depot, buy some cheap-ass pine, and build this. There's nothing special about it.
Some, but a box joint jig makes those corners easier than they look. Plus a router template to carve out the handles, and edge banding glued onto the lid. A first year woodworker could make this, no problem.
I'll be honest, I think i could make one of those with no woodworking experience, if i had access to the right tools. Which is probably how they were made.
https://giphy.com/gifs/qdLNCsFzn9zgUf8pba
Filthy rich greedy capitalist who typically sings songs about being a greedy capitalist makes greedy capitalist move to bilk much poorer materialists out of their hard earned money; story at 11.
So many songs in that genre are like 'im so rich and you just jealous. You see me with my gold chains and fancy car and you wish you were half as rich as me'
It’s got a velvet interior some apparently fake alligator strap with gold hardware - but per anyone it’s overpriced by $900 - and doesn’t even include any vinyls unlike Jay-Z who did include all of his discography when he did it- so maybe she can save face by blaming the vendor if she cares enough.
Its a limited edition box made by a famous person('s hired contractor) specifically labeled as a special holding case for some new albums or something new.
You underestimate how bad whales can be, it’s a huge problem with every form of media right now. It plays into their fomo and their compulsive need to have something.
I knew a guy, totally normal guy, who it was eventually revealed had spent over $120,000 on Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, which is a mobile game. A mobile game. Yeah, his wife divorced him. Whaling is essentially no better than compulsive gambling, it's ruinous.
Yep, looks similar to the wooden boxes you'd find at the dollar store for a few bucks but bigger. Probably worth a whole $20 bucks retail, if that. Grifters gonna grift and suckers are gonna get suckered
My father is a wood worker. He makes similar things to that and sells them for $25. It takes him all of maybe 1 hour to make but he makes like 20 of them at a time. In our garage.
To be fair he doesn't put a little green fake leather handle on it because it would just snap off if you put anything at all in the box and tried to lift it, but it's entirely possible that it's made of real dragon leather. It would make sense since it's green and the box is almost a thousand dollars.
These kind of situations would happen less frequently if people stopped idolizing celebrities like if they’re otherworldly beings. Which happens a lot with her fan base. Shes wrong for playing her fans like that. She’s not hurting for money in any way.
Celebrity culture is toxic. They're just people, with high profile jobs that happen to have lots of public exposure. But they're just people, no better or worse than any of the rest of us. The more people realize that, and stop treating celebrities like they're anything special just because they're famous, the better off we all are.
Im really curious about what psychological or neurological things or factors are responsible for so many people being Stans for singers, actors, even athletes.
Its totally alien to me and just makes me wonder what im missing or what theyre missing, that we can have such different attachments or worldviews, or whatever it is.
well written response! I'd like to add that we must always remember that the word "fan" is just the shortened term for fanatic, a word used to describe someone with an extreme or unreasoned zeal for something.
Some kind of object relation/ ego issue. Lack of sense of self, identifying objects as representation of self worth, amorphous personalities…. You know, the psychological byproducts of exceptionalism and capitalism. Working as intended, fwiw.
I read about this recently. It’s all about religion. For thousands of years, religion used to be the center of people’s lives. It’s what people believed in, prayed to, it infiltrated every part of their lives, what they had faith in, and what they turned to in bad times. They idolized & worshipped their god(s), whomever that may be. Fellowship was practiced and celebrated with other people who were in the same religion as you. The decline in religious belief and practice around the world created a hole & vacuum; as humans its still innate in us to want to believe in & worship something; to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Thus, stan’s and the stan communities were created to fill that hole and vacuum.
Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, & Michael Jackson…those are people’s gods now.
Man, Jesus's dad is gonna be PISSED. That was like rule number 1 on the instructions he put on the fridge before he went out for smokes and scratchers.
Not only that but if people understood these celebs are not personally making these decisions.
lol stop idolizing them and stop buying anything with their name behind it because they sell their brand/brand power to companies and others who enrich themselves off it because idiots will consume with no thought.
Beyoncé aint out there figuring out what type of wood to use. lol she probably had a 15 minute conversation about this and let someone else run with it.
Yea but if the fans want to pay it…at some point, people need to be responsible for spending the money. They create the whole problem with the demand. It’s still supply and demand.
The Stan / cult culture astonishes me . Like how out of touch can you be to worship someone who manipulates you and couldn’t give a rats ass about you . It’s embarrassing
It’s especially embarrassing when it’s over a certain age. I’m a huge Beyonce fan and love to see her live, but I’m almost 37 and I know people my age or older who actually treat her like some type of religious figure or something.
It is how you know the item cost next to nothing to produce. They are purely putting the price where conversion drops off because people don't like paying prices with 4 numbers vs 3.
She tops the celebrity jet usage list by magnitudes more than others, she performs for Saudi elite who write and uphold homophobic laws and yet people call her a gay icon.
Everyone unanimously decided to solely blame Taylor Swift for all the private jets usage in the world, and completely ignoring all the people much higher than her on the list.
any billionaire who doesn't think "man, i could probably live just fine with $100 million, I'm going to use the rest of my unimaginable wealth to fund charities, schools, museums, etc". is a bad billionaire. which just so happens to be all of them.
Beyoncé is a real POS, what was it a few years ago they were selling listening only spots at her shows where you couldn’t even see the performance, she signed off on it with flying colors
I’ll never forgive her for by not allowing any other performers to play during her set at the ten other stages at Coachella while she played. I watched five minutes of her and bounced
Im not defending this by any means, but are you telling me that Beyonce went out her own way to perform single ladies at coachella as the single lady allowed to perform at all? Because thats actually kind of funny.
Apparently it was limited to 500 sales so I do struggle to care. If I thought I could make nearly half a million dollars on 500 idiots that clearly have more money than they need I would probably do it too.
I kind of agree with this. celebs only set exorbitant prices like this because they know people are dumb enough to buy it. if nobody bought it then they’d stop doing this
well, yeah, it’s a deliberate and obvious display of greed and excess to us plebs. and people still bought it, i’m sure. they hardly even have to make it obvious when they’re rubbing their wealth and influence in our faces bc sheeple will fall for it anyway. the carter’s have been plagues on society for a loooong time now lol
It's almost like the most dumbest things at someone's behest to get you to talk about this instead of the real issues that are pressing in the planet at the very moment is almost a thing. And your rich celebrities are almost to happy to oblige them.
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u/GoodIntroduction6344 Sep 05 '26
Pass.