Update: The Guy Behind ‘Ship Your Enemies Glitter’ Just Sold His ‘Stupid Idea’ For $85,000

How powerful is social?

24 hours, a single post to an online community, 270,000 social shares later, and Mathew Carpenter’s life a glittery nightmare.

ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com–sounds too much like a funny idea you toss around during Happy Hour before concluding it’s too ridiculous to ever actually work. Funny how that is because just this Tuesday, a very much working ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com became an e-commerce hit. Define “hit”. It was a top-trending topic on Alexa, but more shockingly, Carpenter revealed:

Sales came in the thousands…under 24 hours.

Let’s backtrack a little. This is the story of how Ship Your Enemies Glitter shot up in a burst of faaaaabulous glory thanks to the power of social.

Mathew Carpenter sounds about as close to one of your college buddies as an Australian guy with a massively successful troll product can sound. Just have a look at his website.

This isn’t his first venture. Carpenter, who describes himself as an internet marketing entrepreneur, has offered a handful of services online–but simply not to this scale. He claims the idea of gifting glitter to enemies came from a family friend who kept giving him cards full of the stuff every year.

“She sent a reasonable amount,” he said. “My idea came from wanting to send her 10x the amount she had sent me over the years.”

But the act of “gifting” glitter isn’t completely foreign to us here in the states. As The Washington Post notes, LGBT activists have thrown glitter at people like Newt Gingrich; the Kardashians have also received glitter bombs.

Perhaps it’s the childish appeal to how Carpenter spins his business that speaks to a part of us. You know, the part that thinks of comebacks a little too late but still desperately wants a piece of revenge. Ideally, something embarrassing, but not life-threatening. The copy on the website may have been the seller. Carpenter drops f-bombs left and right, but professionally outlines his site with a “Process” and even “FAQs”: (“Is this real? Yes, you fucking idiot.”).

A review on the site reads: “Its been 3 weeks and I’m still finding this shit. How the fuck do I get rid of it?!”

It’s sophomoric humor, it’s quirky, you can troll others in real life–whatever it is, it started fires left and right.