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The 12 Worst Ideas of 2017 (So Far...) Part 2

The 12 Worst Ideas of 2017 (So Far...) Part 2

Who’s ready for part 2 of the worst ideas of 2017? Because we have more bad ideas than we know what to do with.

1. Fyre Festival

How does a two-weekend, once-in-a-lifetime musical experience with models on a private island in the Bahamas sound? Pretty great, right? So thought the 5,000 people who bought tickets to Fyre Festival, costing up to $250,000. As the festival kick-off approached, it became clear that the promised luxury villas and meals made by celebrity chefs were actually emergency tents and cheese toast sandwiches.

The lesson: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. And definitely, don’t make promises to 5,000 people you can’t keep

2. The Emoji Movie

Gene goes on a journey because he wants to express more than one emotion…

The movie currently has an 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, 2,1/10 stars on IMDB and 12/100 on Metacritic

The Emoji Movie was so bad that reviewers had to become creative in order to find new ways to say it sucked.

The Lesson: We all like emojis, who doesn’t love small pictures in your texts. But an entire movie about the internal struggle and self-actualization of a meh emoji? Maybe not the best theme…

3. Not Logging Out of Your Work Account

In this technology-saturated age, where many people in the limelight have several Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, mistakes are bound to happen. An amazing case of this is what happened at around midnight September 10th. The official Twitter account belonging to Texas Senator Ted Cruz liked a very explicit tweet from user “@SexuallPosts 😈”.

According to The Washington Post, the 2-minute clip “features a sectional sofa, the pornographic actress Cory Chase, her fictitious nude step-daughter, and a very energetic young man.”

Not surprisingly, the tweet was very quickly removed and Senator Cruz told reporters: “it was a staffing issue and it was inadvertent. It was a mistake. It was not a deliberate action.”

While it is impossible to prove that Senator Cruz himself pressed the like button, the idea that he was, in fact, the one drooling over Cory Chase and friends gave joy to many.

This schadenfreude is especially delicious because Cruz’ standpoints include discouraging “autonomous sex” and a 2004 statement against masturbation. Perhaps he’s changed his mind…

The lesson: If you’re going to look at X-rated materials, remember to log out of your work account. It’s just common courtesy.

Good Idea Interlude

Want a little break from some of the worst ideas of 2017? Then check out “Five Awesome Canadian Inventions” or “3 Ideas That Changed The World

Good Idea Postlude

4. The Pepsi Ad

We’ve all seen it, the Pepsi ad heard around the world. Stradling the line between tone-deaf and offensive, Pepsi started an avalanche of ridicule and amazing memes.

The lesson: If you want to take a stand for political activism and minorities, Kendall Jenner is not your best representative. She’s just not.

5. Performance Anxiety

“Unlocking is as easy as looking at it and swiping up” – Craig Federighi

The iPhone X, to be released November 9th, is ditching Touch ID and buttons, for facial recognition. As cool as this is, the feature didn’t exactly work out as planned during the iPhone X launch.

Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of Software Engineering, had to resort to a backup phone, making the situation rather awkward and robbing him of the applause he was surely expecting. Since the iPhone X is scheduled for release in November, it makes sense that they’re still ironing out the last bugs. But still, taking three tries to show one of your key features is kind of embarrassing.

The lesson: #1 Make sure your stuff works if the reveal is live-streamed across the globe and #2 always have a backup

6. Bad Design

If you’re in the healthcare service, don’t send out letters that can reveal any sensitive information. This solid advice was not heeded by Aetna, who in July sent 12,000 of their customers a letter regarding their HIV positive status. This letter had a clear window cut out, which revealed their name, address and the fact that they are HIV positive, making their status known to anyone who saw the unopened letter.

The lesson: No matter what industry you are in, the privacy of your customers/patients/users/etc. is always to be taken seriously.

Now that you’ve seen some of the worst ideas of 2017, how about some good ones? 5 American Innovations that Changed the World.

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AUTHOR
Jakob Storjohann

Ideas Thriving? Ensure They're Driving!

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