The gift needs to be able to come off as a genuine gift so there’s some plausible deniability…

Edit: Just so it’s clear, this is purely hypothetical. I just thought of the idea and thought it would be funny to see what a random person on Lemmy might think. This isn’t a serious request and none of the suggestions will ever actually be used.

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
    0·
    19 days ago

    The best way is the one where you know lots of (not so well-known) context and circumstances, and then it can work as an insult, but you can deny some of the knowledge and therefore you can appear innocent.

      • Soku@lemmy.world
        0·
        19 days ago

        Decades ago, my mother worked with a small group of women. Every day they spent a few hours together in the office before going out. There was one lady with lacking personal hygiene, quite whiffy and rather oblivious about that. It was about that time the stick deodorants became available in our post soviet country, I believe the Speedstick was the first brand to take the market. So for Christmas for secret santa they got her the deodorant. It was a passive aggressive move, the things could have gone really wrong. She was happy with the gift but the things didn’t improve much. The following year they got her another stick deodorant, hoping to get the message through. She unwrapped the gift and excitedly thanked them, saying that the previous one was almost finished. Bless her, she only used it as a perfume on special occasions…

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
    0·
    19 days ago

    One trick I heard is to get them a gift card towards a Las Vegas vacation. If they go to Vegas they are way more likely to lose money than win at the tables.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    19 days ago

    The cheap brand of something they know is crap. Say they are into water colour painting, get them the cheapest set you can find on Amazon, but not so cheap that it looks like a kids gift.

  • Num10ck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    19 days ago

    if they think they are funny then get them a rubber chicken. if they are stinky get them perfume.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
    0·
    19 days ago

    Any gift that suggests they need to improve something about themselves, especially if they’ve never shown any interest in that. Like a gift card for skincare treatments, or teeth whitening. Maybe a self-help book, or some exercise equipment. Cologne/perfume is good for deniability, but it might come off as more romantic than intended.

    Also, giving any of these gifts to make someone feel bad about themselves makes you an enormous asshole. Use your words, be honest with people, and don’t go out of your way to humiliate or irritate people you don’t like. Life’s too short to spend it scheming.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      0·
      19 days ago

      Also, giving any of these gifts to make someone feel bad about themselves makes you an enormous asshole. Use your words, be honest with people, and don’t go out of your way to humiliate or irritate people you don’t like. Life’s too short to spend it scheming.

      If you’d met the kind of people who do this - they just don’t know anything in life they could honestly do otherwise. Sometimes they pretend to do something so well, that a fraction of the effort could be spent actually doing that instead of pretense.

      But they sincerely think their ability to scheme is unchangeably better than their ability to actually do interesting things. Or maybe they take pride in that.

      The point is - they treat wonderful things like something out of reach, while it clearly isn’t.

    • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.today
      0·
      19 days ago

      Boss gifted me lotion once. Was kinda amusing in that it sorta was an insult, but like I sometimes bleed from how bad my skin sometimes gets so it’s not like it’s some secret. I think she also apologized in case it was weird.

      • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
        0·
        18 days ago

        Doesn’t sound like an insult at all to me. She paid attention, which is great, but was… yes, weird.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    19 days ago

    Most folks have at least 1 commonplace food item that they can’t stand. This time of year food gift baskets are everywhere and often specialized to certain tastes. So you get them something that looks like a nice goodie basket but then most things in it are tainted by a thing they don’t like.

    For me it would be licorice / anise.