Finding a holiday gift for the Internet geeks in your life is nothing short of a Herculean task. Whereas you can get away with giving your dad a tie and your mom … whatever it is you give moms, finding the right present for those who live, breathe, and eat memes on a daily basis can be a real pain.
That’s where we come in. At the Daily Dot, we pride ourselves in being on top of the latest Internet sensation, whether it’s the unholy mashup of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and Psy’s “Gangnam Style” or a dashingly dressed monkey tormenting an IKEA parking lot.
Our holiday gift guide is no exception. We’ve combed through some of our favorite stories of 2012 to bring you a detailed and unique list of presents that will surely make the geeks in your life happy.
1) Daym Drops Suuuuuuper Official T-shirt
Price: $22
Where to buy: Rodeo Arcade
There’s no question that Daymon Patterson, better known as Daym Drops, is the most entertaining food reviewer on YouTube. The Hartford, Conn. resident has built a tremendous following on the site—71,127 subscribers and 6,832,813 views as of this writing—by providing passionate, spontaneous reviews from his four-door Sedan of items found across America’s fast food chains.
Now you, like Daym Drop’s reviews, you can be super official by rocking this limited edition T-shirt depicting the affable YouTube star’s very popular review of a Five Guys Burgers and Fries meal. The clip has been watched over 2.75 million times and was songified by the Gregory Brothers.
2) Ecce Homo Custom-made Kidrobot Mini Munny
Price: €50.00 (approximately $66.45)
Where to buy: Etsy
Cecilia Gimenez became an instant Internet celebrity in September 2012 after the 80-year-old churchgoer “restored” Elias Garcia Martinez’s “Ecce Homo,” a fresco found at the Santuario de la Misericordia in Zaragoza ,Spain. Tired of seeing the deteriorated work of art, Gimenez took it upon herself to give the Jesus in the painting a much needed facelift.
The modified painting— which looks more like a monkey than Christianity’s savior— became online fodder, inspiring several Canvas posts, gifs, and the custom-made Kidrobot Mini Munny toy you see above. The 5-inch figurine, created by London designer Joanna Zhou, is a perfect, hand-painted gift that commemorates 2012’s most famous piece of art.
3) Breaking Bad Blue Raspberry Rock Candy Crystals
Price: $5.80
Where to buy: Amazon
Chances are that you have a friend or family member who’s obsessed with the critically acclaimed AMC drama Breaking Bad. You could shell out serious cash getting that person the entire series on DVD or Blu-ray, or you can get them a pound of Blue Ice.
We are, of course, talking about the Blue Raspberry Rock Candy Crystals, which look a whole lot like the quality meth cooked by Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. Earlier this year, Amazon reviewers had a field day touting the candy, penning hilarious reviews that assumed the personality of the show’s various characters. Below is note left by none other than Jesse Pinkman himself:
“This stuf [sic] is, like, over 99% pure, yo. I bought some a few weeks ago and I could’t [sic] believe how good it was! By far the sweetest on the market. Can’t go wrong with the blue, yo.”
Yeah, bitch!
4) No Experiences
Price: $10
Where to buy: Big Cartel
The spambot Twitter account @Horse_ebooks has become an online cultural phenomenon by tweeting nonsensical tidbits of texts lifted from books in between spam links.
@Horse_ebooks’ tweets are meant to throw off Twitter’s spam filter. But for its more than 136,000 followers, they’re pensive and esoteric. Poetic, even.
That’s the idea behind No Experience, a chapbook compilation of 24 poems inspired by the bot’s tweets. In September 2012, Chicagoan Erin Watson successfully funded the publication of her book via Kickstarter, raising $4,685 (her initial goal was $1,700) via the crowdfunding site from 302 backers.
If you missed out on the Kickstarter action, fear not. Watson is selling the remaining copies of her book for just $10.
5) Accoutrements Horse Head Mask
Price: $36.95
Where to buy: Amazon
Have a redditor in your life and don’t know what to get them for the holidays? The safe bet would be Reddit Gold, the social news site’ premium service.
Or, if you don’t want to be boring and instead want to give a truly unique gift that’s not only awesome but will also allow them to participate in one of Reddit’s most bizarre and burgeoning communities: r/Horsemask.
For just under $40, your favorite redditor can join the ranks of close to 8,000 people who like to take pictures of themselves wearing a creepy horse mask while doing seemingly mundane events. The joy it will bring them will only be rivaled by how much it will creep you out.
6) Mars Rover Curiosity Hot Wheels
Price: $17.15
Where to buy: Amazon
Americans started caring about space exploration for the first time since the Apollo missions when NASA successfully landed the Mars Rover Curiosity inside the Red Planet’s Gale Crater on Aug. 6, 2012.
The Mars Rover Curiosity became an Internet darling too, thanks to its Twitter feed, which broadcasted amusing and heartwarming comments to more than 1.24 million followers. Amongst @MarsCuriosity’s best tweets was the following:
“I’m safely on the surface of Mars. Gale CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL”
Unsurprisingly, the comment was retweeted more than 70,000 times.
Get this Hot Wheels toy car to those on your list who still follow the rover on Twitter or for anyone who still dreams of one day becoming an astronaut.
7) Hutzler 571 banana slicer
Price: $4.88
Where to buy: Amazon
If Amazon reviewers are to be believed, the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer is the best thing since sliced, um, bananas. To the casual observer this plastic kitchen utensil does nothing more than evenly cut the potassium-rich fruit into pieces. But for the Amazon community, it has the power to change lives.
The Hutzler Banana Slicer has received over 500 reviews on its Amazon product page, the lot of them five stars. What makes it so special? How about the power to feed evil monkeys, save lives and marriages, and even end wars? That do anything for ya?
8) Jason Heuser’s presidential portraits
Price: $25-$80
Where to buy: Etsy
No history book will ever confirm this, but did you know that Abraham Lincoln— he of vampire-slayer fame— signed and announced the Emancipation Proclamation while riding a grizzly bear and holding an automatic weapon in one hand? What about the fact that it was John F. Kennedy, not Neil Armstrong, who first set on the moon? And he did it while riding a robot unicorn, too.
Such examples of presidential badassery are the basis of Jason Heuser’s paintings. A poster artist from San Francisco, Heuser makes makes killer prints depicting some of America’s most important historical figures accomplishing some pretty heroic stuff. His art makes a perfect gift for anyone who’s a historical buff or for anyone who wants to have Theodore Roosevelt shooting down Sasquatch hanging from their wall.
9) Anything from Guy Fieri
Price: $0.25- $55
Where to buy: Ebay
The Internet let out a collective LOL following Pete Well’s scathing New York Times review of Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar located in Times Square.
Wells used nothing but rhetorical questions— 34 of them— to ridicule the restaurant owned by the Food Network star, asking things like, “Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste?”
Well’s takedown became so popular that it led to the creation of a Twitter account that solely tweets out segment from his review. It even inspired a Saturday Night Live skit that would eventually be cut from that week’s show.
For the foodies on your list, or for anyone who watches Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, we suggest an item listed in the Daily Dot’s own Guy Fieri gift guide. From a spatula that looks like something Ed Hardy vomited out ($7.95) to a two-piece carving set apparently inspired by the Houston Texans cow skull logo ($55), there’s something for everyone!
10) Psy vinyl figurine
Price: $11.99
Where to buy: Toy Qube
No 2012 list would be complete without at least a mention of Psy. The South Korean rapper became an overnight sensation thanks to “Gangnam Style.”
The Daily Dot has extensively covered just about every Psy-related story. We’ve been there to cover his emergence, his breaking of at least two records, and his recently discovered anti-American past. Seriously, at this point, it’s quite surprising that the Daily Dot doesn’t have someone exclusively working the Psy beat.
With that in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising to you that the last item on the 2012 Daily Dot holiday gift guide is a 4-inch toy figurine of Psy doing his ubiquitous “Gangnam Style” dance move.
Photo via Toy Qube
