Honeyshed, the shopping channel for hipsters that is trying way to hard (I’m actually suffocating from the bludgeoning stabs at coolness), is on hiatus. Someone over there at Droga wised up and took the site down, while they try to iron out the kinks. Oh sorry! I mean, move out of there too-long beta period.
Now, I’ve given Droga some compliments and I’ve also crapped all over Honeyshed. Why? Let me give you the bullet list:
1. It tries so hard to be cool, that there’s no way in hell it will ever be so. By the way, electro is out. Why not go for nu disco? Or some Hercules and Love Affair sounds instead?
2. Loading times, loading times, loading times.
3. I get that this is an online home shopping network, but the sell is way too heavy, way too thick. It’s a turn off. A major one.
4. The scripting for the vignettes is god awful. Yes, this is parody, a tongue and cheek look at shopping online, but you need to do that with a bit of the clever, the wit. There is none. Take it from Vice – you can be sardonic and bold while also conveying information. It’s possible! Also, why are all the girls given the dumbest lines to say? Why are they all half naked? Why? Why? Why? It’s fucking boring. Why don’t you guys find a new way to play with sexual taboos? Get inventive. Take a hint from Purple magazine or something.
6. Set your copywriter free to write whatever the hell he wants. Hasta pronto. The text on the holding page is alienating as fuck. Did I say you were trying to hard? I meant that.
7. I ask you this Droga – why, in god’s name, would anyone go to Honeyshed to purchase products? Why watch the show? Why not just get your kicks and your bikini at some other retailer who isn’t going to make you sit through a bunch of nonsense?
OMG. It’s so poorly executed it makes me want to go hack the damn thing and put up a pic of a LOLcat instead.
P.S. Kill the automatic music on the holding page or at least, give us a goddamn mute button. Even if it is just a loading page, it’s truly, truly annoying.