In The New York Times Magazine: Blankets with sleeves

FUNNY BUSINESS:
Everybody’s laughing at this year’s infomercial fad — but the sales are no joke.

This week in Consumed, the Snuggie and the Slanket and their ilk: What’s driving their sales into the tens of millions of dollars?

The idea seems to be that if the product is goofy, it ought to be pitched in the most ridiculous manner imaginable. Don’t turn into camp; create camp. The upshot is something like the Pet Rock of the Depression 2.0 era.

Read the column in the March 10, 2009, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.

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