We’ve all had those nights where the brain says sleep but the thumb says add to cart. Amazon, Temu, TikTok shop—it doesn’t matter. One minute you’re watching cat videos, the next you’re convincing yourself that a $12 “self-stirring mug” is going to change your life. Two days later the package shows up, and you realize it’s basically a plastic cup with an anxiety problem.
And look, I’ve bought some dumb stuff in my day. I once ordered a “miracle posture corrector” that turned out to be two rubber bands and a piece of Velcro. Another time, Temu convinced me that what my kitchen really needed was a hotdog slicer shaped like a dachshund. I’m not proud, but at least I walked away only $15 poorer and with a wiener dog that only slices wieners.
Most of us know our limits. We hit a dumb-purchase ceiling somewhere between “novelty socks” and “slap chop.” Nobody’s selling the house to gamble on Alibaba. Or… so I thought.
Along comes this YouTuber, who decided $30,000 for a $5 million Bugatti on Alibaba sounded like a good deal. Alibaba. The same website where you can buy bulk dental floss, counterfeit Jordans, and probably an actual kidney if you type the right keywords. Four months later, the big day arrives. Cameras rolling. He peels back the cover and—drumroll please—it’s not a Bugatti. It’s not even a car. It’s a styrofoam shell the size of a queen bed with Bugatti stickers slapped on it. If you leaned on it too hard, you’d be picking foam confetti out of your driveway.
And here’s where it hits me: the real scam isn’t Alibaba, it’s us. We’re the ones who pay him. He drops $30k on styrofoam, we click to laugh, YouTube cuts him a check, and suddenly his “loss” becomes profit. He literally bought views with bubble wrap and stickers.
Which ties right back to TikTok. Stupidity isn’t a side effect anymore—it’s the business model. We fund it every time we hit play. And don’t worry, the sequel’s already loading: “I bought a Ferrari off Wish.”
We keep telling ourselves we’d never fall for something that dumb. But we do, every single time we click. The Bugatti wasn’t real, the Ferrari won’t be either, but the money leaving our pockets? That’s as real as it gets.
Expired Milk ’n Lies: stupidity, shrink-wrapped and sold back to us at full price.
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