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Sea Monkey's, Weirder Than You Think

Source: Live Science
          Sea Monkeys..... a lot of you probably know what i'm talking about. A massive disappointment to many children, with a very....how should I say...odd creator. If you don't know what Sea Monkeys are then here's a little sea monkey primer. Sea monkeys are a kids toy that promises "instant life." They are really just little brine shrimp in a fancy little tank. For many people they were one of their biggest disappointments in childhood. For the last 63 years kids believed the colorful, promising advertising, only to find out that "sea monkeys" are just little brine shrimp. The man behind the sea monkeys, Harold Von Braunhut, is much more interesting.

Sea Monkeys are really just brine shrimp, which is an organism that hatches from a dry egg. The little eggs that look like sand have a long shelf life and hatch when they come into contact with water....kinda cool...but not "magical."

Marketing Genius 

Harold Von Braunhut was an advertiser not a scientist. Harold was pretty good at his job. It takes a special kind of person to be able to turn simple brine shrimp into a desirable toy. His ads, in the beginning were posted in comic books, with the intention of advertising directly to kids. 


By comparing the two images, Harold's cartoon ad is much more appealing than mini shrimp. His marketing strategies were a hit, and many kids, sent out their precious dollar (plus 25 cents shipping) to see what the amazing sea monkeys looked like. Some of Harold's other, less profitable ventures include names like, "the invisible goldfish." Yup.....he was able to sell an empty fish bowl, and food. You might be thinking this guy is a legend (he's not, more on that later.) He was great at the art of misdirection in his products, making something non-magical, appear magical. The sea monkeys for example, had two packets. The instructions claimed that the first packet was a "water purifier" , for this water purifier you had to wait 24 hours. Then you got to pour in packet two, the eggs. Of course this was all a lie, as the sea monkeys were in packet one, and took 24 hours to "sprout" to their full size. The second packet, was just a blue dye, to make the shrimp easier to see.

The White Supremacist 

Bet you didn't see that one coming. Harold Von Braunhut, was a benefactor of white supremacist group the Aryan Nations. So yeah, basically he was a Neo-Nazi. Braunhut led a mysterious life, he raced motorcycles, was even a talent act manager, and donated to white supremacist groups. He is even suspected of actually being a member of the group under a fake name.

Here's where it gets weirder.....he might have been Jewish. New evidence leads us to believe that he was born Jewish as Harold Braunhut. This makes his past really confusing, since he was at least pledging money to an organization that hated people of the Jewish faith. Harold Von Braunhut, was a mysterious character, with great advertising abilities. And we'll never know the full, true story of his life. 

TidBit:


If this doesn't show how bad our current TP situation is, I don't know what does. I guess that will go on to be an embarrassing family story. "Honey, you were born in the Walmart toilet paper isle." The poor lady's water broke while she was shopping, and firefighters came to assist. The poor store manager even chipped in and held back crowds of people.

Comments

  1. IntrinsicInterestsSeptember 8, 2021 at 5:57 PM

    This went from, “Oh wow, cool fish trick.” To “Jewish Neo Nazi?!?!” In like 4 seconds.

    Great article though!

    ReplyDelete

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