LUV & HAT

LUV - I love Groupon for the same reason anyone loves Groupon - because, simply by clicking an email link within twenty-four hours of receiving the email, I can score nice things for between 50% and 90% of the original price.

It’s like a prize for being lazy.

Curious about vajazzling, but don’t want to pay full price in case it’s a bit like pebble-dashing your vagina? Groupon has a deal for you. Want a two-night stay in Berlin for under £100? Groupon has a deal for you. Want some cheap theatre tickets, a cut-price Brazilian, a full-body hot oil massage, six sessions of Pilates, a safari, tea for two at a top London hotel, sushi and cocktails, acupuncture sessions, a stint in a flotation tank, colonic hydrotherapy, laser eye treatment, a luxury manicure and pedicure, 50% off gym membership, a trip to Morocco or a wine tasting weekend? CHECK YOUR FUCKING EMAIL BECAUSE GROUPON HAS A DEAL FOR YOU.

The only downside is that I now expect some perks from all my email based comms. I replied to this email about a trip to the pub in a timely manner, so where’s my free drink? After a recent Groupon facial, if I arrange to go home over email I will fully expect my mother to grumpily hand me a lukewarm coffee on my arrival, speak to me in extravagantly broken English with some disdain and, as I leave, attempt to sell me an exorbitant serum promising that it will “make your face fall off so your new face can grow”.

Which, to be fair, is most times I visit her.

The very best thing about Groupon, though, is its US style guide. UK Groupon emails are written in an unremarkable house style, but the US editorial brand - recently leaked here - had a lot of thought behind it:

Humor Devices that work well in Groupon Voice

1.     Absurd images. Sweeping, dramatic nonsense. The absurd narrator.

Humankind has been playing with fire for years; now we can harness the bronzing essence of the fiery sun in a gentle mist, proving once and for all our dominance over the weak, inanimate solar system.

2.     Hypothetical worlds / outcomes

Without goals, no one would unicycle the Appalachian Trail or train a flock of carrier pidgins to deliver meat pies to unsuspecting haberdashers.

8.     Illogical comparisons and lists:

Detoxification is more than drinking herbs, wearing cucumbers, and painting Russian nesting dolls.

Groupon. Unsuspecting haberdashers. LUV.
- Robyn Wilder

HAT - Everyone loves a bargain, don’t they? Everyone loves to buy things for a fraction of the price that everyone else does. Even when it’s something you never really wanted. Even when it’s being sold to you by a shrieking dick in horrible clothes who doesn’t understand why everyone thinks he’s such a catastrophic wanker and refuses to shut up even after you’ve bought anything from him. So, basically, even when it comes from Groupon.

Oh, you know, Groupon. The company accused of almost running a cafe out of business. The company that traded on the plight of an entire nation during the Super Bowl, just to promote some discount food. Groupon, you know? The company with all the fucking emails? Remember?

There’s plenty to hate about Groupon. The way that actually purchasing a coupon from them is so prolonged and tortuous that it may as well make up one of the set-pieces in the next Saw movie. The way that whatever you buy will invariably be so massively oversubscribed that you won’t get to redeem it until several years after you’ve died. The way that nobody is sure if Groupon is a portmanteau of ‘group’ and ‘coupon’ or ‘grouse’ and ‘tampon’.

But the worst thing about Groupon is obviously - obviously! - the emails that it sends out. Sign up to any of Groupon’s offers and you’re basically signing yourself up to a lifetime of pointless, woeful, badly-targeted daily emails carping on about mud facials and pedicures and - in one memorably harrowing episode - a vajazzle. The other day, I received an email from Groupon offering:

Six Sessions of Laser Hair Removal on either One Large Area such as Half Leg and Two Small Areas OR Two Medium Areas such as Underarms and Two Small Areas for £119 at Atelier-M (Value up to £1100)

What does that mean? What does that even mean? Half Leg? Underarms and Two Small Areas? None of these words belong together. I’m not sure that many of them are even words at all. And Groupon sends out these emails at six o’clock in the morning when I’m not even properly awake. It’s almost like it wants to deliberately cripple my mind. Yes, that’s right, DELIBERATELY.

In short: bad Groupon, no! No dinner for Groupon!
- Stuart Heritage