Why we keep buying the worst stuff (on purpose)

Somewhere between a Sharknado movie night and a viral TikTok about the worst-rated mascara on the market, we’ve all paused to ask: why are people into this? What makes a clearly bad product not just survive—but thrive?

There are some obvious answers. Irony. Humor. Viral culture. Low-stakes experimentation. But if you look closer, there’s something more operational happening. Something systemic. The consistent success of objectively bad products—especially ones launched from small teams—has less to do with how consumers think and more to do with how teams operate.

Most people assume product success is rooted in quality. Founders, in particular, are taught that customer love emerges from solving real pain points, from building something people truly need. But the data is more complicated. Especially in today’s ecosystem of meme-marketing, nostalgia bait, and engineered virality, many breakout hits don’t offer quality or utility. They offer clarity. And that clarity doesn’t come from the product—it comes from the system that built it.

Startups often aim to “punch above their weight” by going viral or launching with a high-concept stunt. From the outside, these wins seem accidental. A silly campaign that catches on. A product that looks like a joke but sells out anyway. But from the inside, what’s happening is often a clear convergence of ownership, expectation, and execution—three things many serious product launches fail to align.

It’s not that consumers prefer bad products. It’s that these products, ironically, have sharper execution parameters than more serious attempts. When a team sets out to launch something deliberately ridiculous, they often align faster and more clearly than they would around a complex, ambiguous, “real” product. The team agrees on what success looks like. There’s no confusion about quality metrics. Everyone knows the goal is attention, not retention. And that tight definition produces better teamwork, not worse.

Take, for example, the infamous Velveeta martini. It was mocked before it launched, ridiculed during its run, and yet became one of the most talked-about CPG activations of the year. Consumers weren’t confused. They didn’t expect it to taste good. But they understood what it was for—photos, posts, and cultural proximity to a shared joke. The campaign wasn’t a product strategy; it was a brand reminder cloaked in beverage form.

From a systems design perspective, what stands out isn’t the absurdity of the product. It’s the clarity of internal alignment. The team that launched the Velveeta martini likely included brand, marketing, legal, and logistics—and every stakeholder knew their role. No one thought they were building a long-term revenue line. No one was optimizing for shelf stability or Costco placement. The system had rules—and those rules protected the joke.

Now contrast that with a startup team quietly preparing to launch a new, functional supplement. The product is good. The ingredients are tested. The science holds up. But the team can’t agree on packaging, voice, or pricing. Is it a serious health brand or a lifestyle play? Is it DTC only, or are they courting retail? Is their buyer a wellness obsessive or a tired millennial dad? Each department pulls in a different direction. They ship late. The messaging is confused. And even though the product is good, it underperforms.

This is what founders miss. Clarity is not the opposite of creativity. Clarity enables it. And some of the most viral bad products have excellent clarity—not about quality or utility, but about what they’re for.

There are three common system conditions that allow “bad” products to succeed. The first is role separation. In ironic or absurd product launches, there’s often a sharp distinction between who creates, who approves, and who executes. This means decisions are faster, politics are lower, and iteration doesn’t spiral. No one is trying to please everyone. The second is duration framing. These products usually operate on tight timeframes. They’re not designed to be evergreen, which frees the team from optimization loops. You don’t need to retool logistics if you’re only shipping for six weeks. The third is cultural anchoring. These products latch onto a moment, meme, or mood—and the team doesn’t overthink the risk. They lean into visibility, not universality.

But just because a bad product succeeds at launch doesn’t mean it builds a sustainable brand. That’s where many teams fail—during the follow-up. The campaign explodes. Orders spike. Then... silence. Fulfillment breaks. Support tickets pile up. The internal excitement fades. And when the team tries to relaunch, the same mechanisms that produced clarity the first time become liabilities.

The problem isn’t that the product was bad. It’s that the system never evolved. The same clarity that allowed a team to move fast becomes a blind spot when it’s time to scale. If no one planned for post-virality, you get breakdowns. Internal ownership gets fuzzy again. Customer expectations shift. And teams that once thrived on punchy campaigns now drown in unscalable logistics.

There’s a deeper pattern here, one that shows up across industries. When teams over-index on spectacle without building system flexibility, they trap themselves in a pattern of diminishing returns. The second joke product doesn’t hit as hard. The audience expects more. And the team burns out trying to recreate the magic without upgrading their processes. Suddenly, the clarity that launched them becomes the constraint that breaks them.

So what can founders actually learn from these ironic success stories? First, that product quality and product clarity are different axes. And clarity often outperforms quality in the early stages of adoption. Second, that viral success is not accidental. It’s a byproduct of intentional alignment. Even absurd campaigns need ownership maps, role clarity, and internal expectations that match external narratives. Third, that sustainability requires evolution. What worked at launch will not carry you through growth unless your system evolves alongside your visibility.

There’s also a cultural component worth unpacking. In a fragmented media environment, consumers crave participation more than utility. A bad product that makes them feel “in on the joke” can outperform a good product that speaks with generic authority. The performance of knowing—of being ironic, self-aware, and just left-of-center—is a powerful currency. When consumers buy the worst-rated mascara on purpose, they’re not buying beauty. They’re buying cultural fluency. The product is a social signal, not a functional asset.

This is why bad products often do well on TikTok, Reddit, and niche Twitter threads. These platforms reward reaction, not outcome. A product that sparks debate, ridicule, or performative disgust can achieve more reach than a perfectly optimized offering with no personality. And in early-stage brand building, reach still matters.

But reach without infrastructure is a slow death. Teams that chase attention without systems readiness end up stretched, demoralized, and structurally unclear. The joke becomes the trap.

So the real question for founders isn’t “Should we make a weird product?” It’s “Do we know what this product is for, and is our team aligned on how to support it before, during, and after it hits?”

If you’re building something deliberately provocative, great. Lean in. But define your ownership early. Map your post-viral plan. Design your support flows. And most of all, make sure your internal structure reflects the external posture you’re projecting. If you pretend it’s a joke but treat it like a flagship internally, you will break trust—internally and externally.

And if your product accidentally goes viral for being bad? Don’t panic. Use the moment to clarify your positioning. Decide what you’re keeping, what you’re killing, and what you’re evolving. Treat attention as an input, not a verdict.

Because the truth is, most teams don’t fail because the product was bad. They fail because the system was unclear. They confuse intention with execution. They conflate visibility with validation. And they try to scale irony like it’s infrastructure.

Some products will always win because they’re good. Others will win because they’re loud. A few will win because they’re clear.

Choose clarity. Even if the product’s a little bit bad on purpose.